"And thou," he began, "thou with this face, with this form, canst bring thyself to be a companion, a helpmate to the accursed?"
"I cannot run away," she sighed despondingly: "how joyfully would I fly from this house! Alas! and this night, tomorrow, I am to be taken from hence, and dragged over the sea; I am to be made the wife of Andrea or Ildefonso. Is it not better to die now?"
"Come," cried Antonio, "the door is open; escape with me; the night, the forest will lend us their shelter."
"Only look around you," said the girl; "only see how both here and in the room below all the windows are secured with strong iron bars; the door of the house is fastened with a large key which my mother never parts with. Did you not perceive, sir, how she threw the door into the lock when you entered?"
"Then let the old hag fall first," cried Antonio: "we'll tear the keys from her…."
"What, kill my mother!" shriekt the pale maiden, and clambered forcibly round him, to hold him fast.
Antonio quieted her. He proposed to her that, as the old woman was drunk and sleeping soundly, they should take the large house-key gently from her side, then open the door, and escape. From this plan Crescentia seemed to catch some hope: they both went silently down into the room below, and found the old woman still fast asleep. Crescentia crept trembling up to her, sought for the key, found it, and succeeded after a time in loosening it from the string at her girdle. She beckoned to the youth; they stept on tiptoe to the door; they cautiously fixt the iron key in the lock; Antonio was now straining his hand to draw back the bolt without noise; when he felt that some one else was working at the lock on the outside in the same noiseless manner. The door opened softly and in came face to face to Antonio a large wild-looking man.
"Ildefonso!" screamed the damsel, and the youth at the first glance recognized the murderer Roberto.
"What is this?" said he with a hollow voice. "Where got you that key? whither are you going?"
"Roberto!" cried Antonio, and furiously seized the gigantic man by the throat. They wrestled violently; but the nimbler strength of the youth got the better and threw the villain upon the floor; he then knelt upon his breast and plunged his dagger into his heart.