"Speak, I command you."
He was silent. The general cast his eyes sternly round the circle, reading the judgment of each man by his face, as he asked:
"Are they guilty of high treason?"
And each man nodded in silence as the question came to him in turn.
"And your sentence?"
"Death!" replied Valdez, standing up and uncovering, and all the others arose in their order, and bowed in assent.
"Never!" exclaimed two voices in one cry, and, as if by one movement, brother and sister drew, and raised on high, a sheathless blade.
"Brother—sister—adieu!" and the blades rose as if to strike—but ere the blow was dealt, a calm, sweet voice cried "Hold! I am here."
And at the words, there in the niche, disclosed by the removal of that holiest emblem, the Christian's dying God—there with her golden tresses floating disheveled like a halo of glory round her, with her blue eyes filled with the ineffable lustre—the lustre of a martyred saint, her innocent, artless features glowing with strange exultation, her lovely lips apart, madonna-like, stood Julia Gordon.