"Stanley!" burst from the astonished King, as a wild cry ran round the hall, and "Death to the ungrateful foreigner!"—"Death to the base-born Englishman!"—"Tortures and death!" escaped, in every variety of intonation, from the fierce soldiery, who, regardless even of their Sovereign's presence, drew closer and closer round, clashing their weapons, and with difficulty restrained from tearing him to pieces where he stood.
"He was my foe," muttered the prisoner, almost unconscious of the import of his words, or how far they would confirm the suspicions against him. "He robbed me of happiness—he destined me to misery. I hated him; but I did not murder him. I swore to take his life or lose my own; but not thus—not thus. Great God! to see him lying there, and feel it might have been my hand. Men, men! would ye quench hatred, behold its object stricken before you by a dastard blow like this, and ye will feel its enormity and horror. I did not slay him; I would give my life to the murderer's dagger to call him back, and ask his forgiveness for the thoughts of blood I entertained against him; but I touched him not—my sword is stainless."
"Thou liest, false traitor!" exclaimed Don Felix, fiercely, and he held up the hilt and about four inches of a sword, the remainder of which was still in the body. "Behold the evidence to thy black lie! My liege, this fragment was found beside the body deluged in gore. We know the hilt too well to doubt, one moment, the name of its possessor; there is not another like it throughout Spain. It snapt in the blow, as if more honorable than its master, it could not survive so foul a stain. What arm should wield it save his own?"
A universal murmur of execration, acknowledged this convincing evidence; doubly confirmed, as it seemed to be by the fearful start and muttered exclamation, on the part of the prisoner the moment it was produced. The nobles thronged round the King, some entreating him to sentence the midnight assassin to instant execution; others, to retain him in severest imprisonment till the proofs of his guilt could be legally examined, and the whole European World hear of the crime, and its chastisement; lest they should say that as a foreigner, justice was refused to him. To this opinion the King leaned.
"Ye counsel well and wisely, my lords," he said. "It shall not be said, because the murdered was our subject, and the murderer an alien, that he was condemned without examination of proofs against him, or being heard in his own defence. Seven suns hence we will ourselves examine every evidence for or against him, which, your penetration, my lords, can collect. Till then, Don Felix, the prisoner is your charge, to be produced when summoned; and now away with the midnight assassin—he has polluted our presence too long. Away with the base ingrate, who has thus requited our trust and love; we would look on him no more."
With, a rapid movement the unfortunate young man broke from the guard, which, at Don Felix's sign, closed round and sought to drag him from the hall, and flung himself impetuously at Ferdinand's feet.
"I am no murderer!" he exclaimed, in a tone of such passionate agony, that to any less prejudiced than those around, it must at least have raised doubt as to his guilt. "I am not the base ingrate you would deem me. Condemn me to death an thou wilt, I kneel not to sue for life; for, dishonored and suspected, I would not accept it were it offered. Let them bring forward what they will, I am innocent. Here, before ye all, in presence of the murdered victim, by all held sacred in Heaven or on Earth, I swear I slew him not! If I am guilty I call upon the dead himself to rise, and blast me with his gaze!"
Involuntarily every eye turned towards the corpse; for, vague as such an appeal might seem now, the age was then but barely past, when the assistance of the murdered was often required in the discovery of the murderer. Many a brave heart grew chill, and brown cheeks blanched, in anticipation of the unearthly sign, so fully were they convinced of Stanley's guilt, but none came. The stagnated blood did not flow forth again—the eye did not glare with more consciousness than before—the cold hand did not move to point its finger at the prisoner; and Don Felix, fearing the effect of Stanley's appeal upon the King, signed to the guards, who rudely raised and bore him from the hall.
The tumults of these events had naturally spread far and wide over the castle, reaching the apartments of the Queen who, perceiving the awe and terror which the raging tempest had excited in her attendants, though incapable of aught like fear herself, had refrained from dismissing them as usual. The confusion below seeming to increase with every moment, naturally excited her surprise; and she commanded one of her attendants to learn its cause. Already terrified, none seemed inclined to obey, till a young girl, high spirited, and dauntless almost as Isabella herself, departed of her own free will, and in a few minutes returned, pale and trembling, with the dread intelligence, that Don Ferdinand Morales lay murdered in the hall, and that Arthur Stanley was his murderer.
Isabella paused not a moment, though the shock was so terrible that for the minute she became faint and sick, and hastily quitting her apartments, she entered the great hall at the moment the prisoner was being borne from it. Stupefied with contending feelings. Ferdinand did not perceive her entrance. The nobles, drawn together in little knots, were conversing in low eager tones, or endeavoring to reduce the tumultuary soldiery to more order; and the Queen moved on unperceived, till she stood beside the corpse. She neither shrunk from it, nor paled; but bending over him, murmured in a tone, that from its startling indication of her unexpected presence, readied the ear of all—"His poor, poor Marie!"