My dear mistress begged me, as a favour, that I would attend her to the place of execution, and I consented. Poor creature! she, as well as I, had but an imperfect idea of what she was to endure. The punishment was to be inflicted in the great square, and the troops were out, and a large concourse of people were assembled. She appeared on the raised platform upon which she was to suffer, in a genteel undress, which contributed still more to heighten her extreme beauty. The sweetness of her countenance obtained for her the commiseration of those who were ordered and accustomed to execute the will of the despotic and cruel emperor. Young, lively, and admired, sought for, and caressed by every body, high in rank, and rich in, worldly wealth, she stood, no longer surrounded by the attentions and homage due to her talents, her beauty, and her wit, but surrounded only by stern executioners. She looked at them with astonishment, seeming to doubt if such preparations could be intended for her. One of the executioners then pulled off a kind of furred tippet which covered her bosom; her modesty taking the alarm, made her start back a few steps; she turned pale, and burst into tears. Her clothes were soon afterwards all stripped off, and in a few moments she was all naked to the waist, exposed to the looks of a vast multitude, who were all profoundly silent. One of the executioners then seized her by both hands, and turning half round, threw her on his back, bending forwards, so as to raise her feet a few inches from the ground, and the other executioner, with his rough hands, and without symptoms of remorse, adjusted her on the back of his companion in a posture most convenient for her to receive her punishment. Sometimes he pressed his large hands brutally upon her head, in order to make her keep it down; at others, like a butcher handling a lamb, he appeared to soothe her until he had fixed her in a favourable attitude. He then took the knout, a whip made of a long strip of leather, prepared for the purpose; he retreated a few steps, measuring the requisite distance with a steady eye, and looking backwards, gave a stroke with the end of the whip, so as to carry away a slip of skin from the neck to the bottom of the back; then striking his feet against the ground, he took his aim for a second blow, parallel to the former, so that in a few moments all the skin of her back was cut away in small slips, most of which remained hanging to her shift and dress below. I fainted with horror long before the punishment was over. "Good heavens!" thought I, "I have suffered the bastinado and the bowstring, but both were merciful compared to this. Is there no God in heaven to punish such despotic cruelty?" My mistress was not dead, and the surgeons were ordered to pay her every attention, that she might recover; and I thought this attention on the part of the emperor in some measure made amends for his barbarity. But, God in