The patience of the guards was soon exhausted. They had held back in awe, but not in fear. With all her desperation the weapon was soon wrested from her feeble hand, and she was borne shrieking and struggling among the crowd. The rabble murmured compassion; but such was the dread inspired by the inquisition, that no one attempted to interfere.
The procession again resumed its march. Inez was ineffectually struggling to release herself from the hands of the familiars that detained her, when suddenly she saw Don Ambrosio before her. “Wretched girl!” exclaimed he with fury, “why have you fled from your friends? Deliver her,” said he to the familiars, “to my domestics; she is under my protection.”
His creatures advanced to seize her. “Oh, no! oh, no!” cried she, with new terrors, and clinging to the familiars, “I have fled from no friends. He is not my protector! He is the murderer of my father!”
The familiars were perplexed; the crowd pressed on, with eager curiosity. “Stand off!” cried the fiery Ambrosio, dashing the throng from around him. Then turning to the familiars, with sudden moderation, “My friends,” said he, “deliver this poor girl to me. Her distress has turned her brain; she has escaped from her friends and protectors this morning; but a little quiet and kind treatment will restore her to tranquillity.”
“I am not mad! I am not mad!” cried she, vehemently. “Oh, save me!—save me from these men! I have no protector on earth but my father, and him they are murdering!”
The familiars shook their heads; her wildness corroborated the assertions of Don Ambrosio, and his apparent rank commanded respect and belief. They relinquished their charge to him, and he was consigning the struggling Inez to his creatures.
“Let go your hold, villain!” cried a voice from among the crowd—and Antonio was seen eagerly tearing his way through the press of people.
“Seize him! seize him!” cried Don Ambrosio to the familiars, “‘tis an accomplice of the sorcerer’s.”
“Liar!” retorted Antonio, as he thrust the mob to the right and left, and forced himself to the spot.
The sword of Don Ambrosio flashed in an instant from the scabbard; the student was armed, and equally alert. There was a fierce clash of weapons: the crowd made way for them as they fought, and closed again, so as to hide them from the view of Inez. All was tumult and confusion for a moment; when there was a kind of shout from the spectators, and the mob again opening, she beheld, as she thought, Antonio weltering in his blood.