She was awakened after awhile by a slight noise near her, and beheld Judith bending over the apprentice, with a pot of ointment in her hand, which she was about to apply to the part affected. The poultice had already been removed. Uttering a loud cry, Nizza started to her feet, and snatching the ointment from the nurse, threw it away. As soon as the latter recovered from her surprise, she seized her assailant, and forced her into the seat she had just quitted.
"Stir not till I give you permission," she cried, fiercely; "I wish to cure this young man, if you will let me."
"You intend to murder him," replied Nizza; "but while I live you shall never accomplish your atrocious purpose. Help! help!" And she uttered a prolonged piercing scream.
"Peace! or I will strangle you," cried Judith, compressing Nizza's slender throat with a powerful gripe.
And she would, in all probability, have executed her terrible threat, if a secret door in the wall had not suddenly opened and admitted Solomon Eagle. A torch supplied the place of his brazier, and he held it aloft, and threw its ruddy light upon the scene. On seeing him, Judith relinquished her grasp, and glared at him with a mixture of defiance and apprehension; while Nizza, half dead with terror, instantly rushed towards him, and throwing herself at his feet, besought him to save her.
"No harm shall befall you," replied Solomon Eagle, extending his arm over her. "Tell me what has happened."
Nizza hastily explained the motive of Judith's attack upon her life. The plague-nurse endeavoured to defend herself, and, in her turn, charged her accuser with a like attempt. But Solomon Eagle interrupted her.
"Be silent, false woman!" he cried, "and think not to delude me with these idle fabrications. I fully believe that you would have taken the life of this poor youth, and, did I not regard you as one of the necessary agents of Heaven's vengeance, I would instantly deliver you up to justice. But the measure of your iniquities is not yet filled up. Your former crimes are not unknown to me. Neither is the last dark deed, which you imagined concealed from every human eye, hidden from me."
"I know not what you mean," returned Judith, trembling, in spite of herself.
"I will tell you, then," rejoined Solomon Eagle, catching her hand, and dragging her into the furthest corner of the vault. "Give ear to me," he continued, in a low voice, "and doubt, if you can, that I have witnessed what I relate. I saw you enter a small chamber behind the vestry, in which Thomas Quatremain, who once filled the place of minor canon in this cathedral, was laid. No one was there beside yourself and the dying man. Your first business was to search his vestments, and take away his keys."