"Darest thou! abominable heretic as thou art, violate the house of God?" cried a tall, fierce-looking and fanatical monk, rushing forward, with flushed cheeks and kindling eyes, and holding aloft a ponderous ebony crucifix. "Pause! lest the thunders of offended Heaven be hurled upon ye: pause! lest the vials of wrath——" "Pshaw!" I exclaimed, impatiently; "we may parley here till sunset. Soldiers, forward to the chapel: there you will doubtless discover the rogue." My followers rushed past; a volley of execrations burst from the padri, and I was assailed with cries of— "Paganico infame! malandrino! infidel! damnable heretic!" and a thousand other injurious and ridiculous epithets. I heeded them not; but, at the head of my party, burst into the chapel of the monastery. I had augured rightly: there the fugitive was discovered. Pale as death, ghastly and bloody from a sword wound on the head, a savage-looking fellow was dragged by force from the foot of the great gilt crucifix on the altar; to the rail of which he clung for a moment with convulsive energy. The soldiers brought him before me, and, by their fixed bayonets, kept back the exasperated priests; who continued to pour forth upon us a ceaseless torrent of invectives and maledictions, which we regarded no more than the wind. "Are you the unhappy man who is guilty of murder?" said I. He replied only by a wild and unmeaning stare. "Unhappy wretch! your name?" "Giosué of Montecino," said he, suddenly and fiercely. I trembled for poor Oliver, on remembering the name of his rival. "Villain! what fiend tempted you to slay your unhappy cousin?" He started, as if stung by a serpent. "She is dead, then!" he said in a hoarse and almost inarticulate voice, while his head drooped upon his heaving breast. Suddenly uttering a howl like a wild beast, he broke away from the soldiers, escaping their levelled bayonets; and, finding the gate secured, scrambled up the rugged outer wall like a polecat; there balancing himself, he turned, and regarding me with a scornful scowl, he burst into a bitter and hysterical laugh. The soldiers rushed towards him, and one fired; but I threw up his firelock, and the ball passed close to the head of the assassin, who never winced. Escape was now impossible. On one side of him bristled twenty bayonets; en the other was a tremendous precipice, with a deep river flowing at its base several hundred feet below. The slightest dizziness might have been fatal to him. But folding his arms he uttered a laugh of defiance, and called upon us to fire. I was strongly tempted to put his talisman to the proof; but restrained my exasperated soldiers. "Wretch," said I; "know you aught of a British officer, who has been missing since last night?" "Yes," he replied, with a sardonic grin, shaking his clenched right hand aloft with savage exultation. "These are the fingers that fastened on his throat with a tiger’s clutch."