But that awful sound from the forest came louder and nearer. Along the cart path, plainly visible now, appeared file after file of armed men, and in their midst that woman, clad in a voluminous robe of black silk, with a lace scarf, wrapped turban-wise, on her head. Her pale hands were folded upon her bosom, and tied there as men bind felons. Those who have seen Guido's picture of Beatrice Cenci can have some idea of the face that snowy lace and black robe but served to render more deathly pale--a face so eloquent of hopeless sorrow, that those who came to gloat upon the woman's agony grew heavy-hearted as they looked upon her. Thus Barbara Stafford was brought through the dense multitude of men, women, and even little children, who surged up from the forest, and out upon the ice, jostling each other, wrangling for every foot of space, eager as hounds for the hunted deer, and only kept from laying hands on the prisoner by the soldiers, who forced them back with charged bayonets. At last they brought the unhappy woman out upon the ice, beyond the line of soldiers; outside of which no one was allowed to pass. Then a picture was formed, full of solemn grandeur, and inexpressibly mournful. Behind, was the forest, stretching drearily into the distance, while its margin swarmed blackly with human life, jostling, heaving, crowding the shore and the ice, till forced back by that line of glittering bayonets. Before them was a lake of crystal, stretching into turbulent waters of the harbor. In the near distance, riding the swell of incoming waves, lay the ship with its anchor up, and its sails unfurling one by one, as it would seem, without human aid. Beyond all this bent the horizon with the wintry sun slanting toward it in gleams of amber-tinted flame, while great ocean waves, heaving in from the chase of a spent storm, rushed shoreward, and hurled themselves against the ice, which trembled and bent under each shock. This was the picture revealed on that winter's day. Snow upon the earth--cold sunshine in the skies--brightness and death; funereal stillness in the crowd, and the cold winds wailing over all. In the midst--midway between the ocean and the forest--that woman stood alone, waiting for death. The soldiers had unbound her hands--for that little chance of life was to be granted her. Still she kept them folded on her bosom, and stood motionless; her eyes strained wide with terror, fixed on the great waves that came heaving toward her, and her white lips apart, as if some cry of agony had torn them asunder never to be closed again.