University of Virginia Library

34. Chapter XXXIV.
The God-mother's Home.

MR. PELEG FERRET, shrewd as he was, and scrutinizing
in the glances which he customarily cast
about him, had been watched that evening by as piercing
a gaze as could be levelled by a pair of bead-like eyes,
which, from a dark nook of the theatre, were bent upon
him and his companion. Monna Maria, the Italian,
undistinguished amid other spectators of the night's performance,
had recognized him as he entered, and her
quick suspicion instantly conjectured the errand on which
he had come. Mordecai Kolephat's person was likewise
familiar to the crafty associate of Old Pris, and, as the
Hebrew, with evident restlessness, regarded the earlier
action of the stage, the woman, in her obscure position,
traced with malicious skill the workings of his anxious
mind, too plainly legible upon his features. And when, at
last, the form of Ninetta darted like a sunbeam across
the tawdry boards, and the loud greeting of her admirers
stirred the dust from crazy walls and rotten flooring,
Monna Maria leaned forward from her dark seat, and
riveted her look upon the old man's countenance, while
her thin lips muttered, almost audibly—“The heretic!—

be would take away the child! Accursed be his race!
he shall never have Ninetta!”

The din of applause rose, at the close of the child's
dance, and then Monna Maria beheld Kolephat sink into
Ferret's arms, and saw him lifted by the agent behind the
regardless crowd, till both disappeared from the saloon.
She cared not to follow them farther, but, hastily stealing
from her place, crossed to a narrow door in the wall near
which she had been seated, and passing through it, entered
a dim passage that penetrated behind the stage. Arrived
thither, she beckoned to Ninetta, who, flushed and
happy, stood, in her gauze robes, listening to the shouts
of “brava!” and violent stamping of the crowd in front.

“Ninetta! come hither!—I must speak with thee!”

But Ninetta, at this moment, obeying a signal from the
dwarf manager, had whirled once more upon the boards,
and was pattering along the line of footlights, with twinkling
steps, then pirouetting coquettishly back, tossing her
radiant head, and smiling, like an infant angel, upon the
boors before her, whom she, poor child, regarded as her
world, the fount of honor and the reward of toil. Thus,
to and fro like a fluttered bird—round and round like
dancing spray of golden waterfalls—and then back to the
naked, miserable slip behind the scenes, to the coarse-faced
manager, the squat prompter, the iron-limbed Maestro
Freidrich, and the hag Monna Maria.

“Come, bambina! I must take thee away! Come with
me, to-night, my Ninetta.”

My Ninetta! Seldom, if ever, had Monna Maria
spoken thus affectionately to the child.

“To-night, Monna Maria!” she said.

“Ay, child—your maestro will leave you with me, this
night. We have to talk of your great triumph, Ninetta—
the bravas, and” —

The little one's eyes danced with delight, and, seizing
her god-mother's withered hand, she kissed it passionately.

“Ah! I'm so glad Monna is pleased!” she said, coaxingly.

“Haste, then, we must go quickly,” cried the crone.
Then, as Ninetta hurried into one of the wooden cells, to
change her stage-finery for the plain garments that she
usually wore, the Italian woman whispered to Maestro
Freidrich, in a patois compounded of Italian and German—
“They of whom I spoke were here to-night.” She pointed,
in speaking, towards the audience. “They came to rob
you of Ninetta, and spoil your fortune, maestro!”

The man scowled, fixing his eyes on Monna Maria.

“They shall not have her,” he answered, moodily,
“unless—unless they pay me well for her services.”

“Hah! thou wilt sell her, then, maestro?” demanded
the hag, quickly.

“Is she not my fortune?” responded the man.

“Truly,” answered Monna Maria, in a changed voice,
“A great loss would it be to thee, maestro—her services.”

“Ay, it must be a round sum that would satisfy me,”
growled the posturer. “Alsace and myself have taught
her everything—eh, Monna Maria!”

“It is very true,” replied the hag. “You must be paid
much gold, to give her up, maestro.”

“Aha! I shall see to that!” said the man, with a short
laugh.

“But—to-night, Ninetta goes with me, maestro. The
robbers watch her without. But I will keep good watch,
too.”

Monna Maria's shrivelled lip was distorted for an instant,
in a horrible grin, disclosing her teeth, as she
turned from the posturer to meet Ninetta, who now appeared,
clad in her coarse cloak and heavy boots, with
her theatrical wardrobe disposed in a small bundle. Taking
the child's hand, the woman hastily-led the way to an opening
at the back of the stage, conducting to a neighboring
alley. Maestro Freidrich followed, but parted from them
on reaching the pavement, glad to be relieved from the
charge of Ninetta, and eager to indulge in copious draughts
of beer, before returning to his Alsace of Foley's Barracks.
Monna Maria quickened her steps, drawing the child
along the muddy streets; and they had left the theatre
far behind, ere Ferret and Kolephat, penetrating to the
stage, discovered, to their disappointment, that the dancing-girl
was no longer there.

Through the chill mist and gusty rain the Italian and
her god-daughter hurried along, tightening their shabby
garments about their forms, and picking their steps over
swollen gutter and shattered curbstone, till they had
entered a dark alley that skirted the rear of Kolephat
College. Here they diverged into a gloomy cul-de-sac, up
which they groped their way to a contracted building,
separated from the domains of Peleg Ferret by a range
of filthy pens used for the stabling of horses. This narrow

building was likewise a tenant-house, but of far less capacity
than the wooden church wherein a hundred families
were crowded. It was four stories in height, but scarcely
twelve feet from front to rear, having been erected upon
a gore of land which bordered on a narrow street, forming
one of the labyrinth that made up the entire neighborhood.
A stranger who should, from curiosity, or by accident,
penetrate in daylight to this squalid quarter, would
be at a loss, indeed, to thread his way out again, through
the maze of alleys, arched passages, and unpaved courts
that divided the various stacks of tottering dwelling-places;
but were he elevated above the roofs, and able
to look down, with bird's-eye contemplation, upon the
rambling fabries of wood and brick, he would notice how,
in the first place, narrow streets, after intersecting great
thoroughfares of business, on opposite sides of the city,
abruptly plunged downwards, crossing each other at
angles in a basin or valley, over which hung constantly a
cloud of smoke and fœtid exhalations; how, secondly,
the narrow streets were lined with drinking-house, dancing-cellars,
policy-offices, pawnbrokers' dens, groceries,
receptacles of second-hand furniture, junk-shops and stalls
of those who received and trafficked in stolen goods; how,
behind and in front, and at either side of these different
establishments, extended alleys and lanes, two or three
feet in width, that were entrances to interior dwelling-places,
or tenant-houses, wherein burrowed men, women,
and children, as much apart from the great civilized world
of the city wherein we live as if they were below its
pavements, crouching, like troglodytes, in darkness, amid
worms and rats. On one side of a narrow street, Kolephat
College formed a block; other tenant-houses stared
at it from the opposite side; behind Kolephat College
were angular alleys; skirting these alleys were the horse-pens,
and at the end of the horse-pens opened the cul-desac
through which Monna Maria and Ninetta stumbled in
the dark, and reached the four-story brick structure, on
a gore of land, and crawled up its staircase, two feet
wide, till they gained a room eight feet by ten, with a
closet four feet by ten, beyond, which Monna Maria called
her home. Here, after lighting a piece of tallow candle,
the old woman bade her god-daughter remove her cloak.
Then, stooping to the fire-place, Monna Maria ignited some
shavings that were packed in an earthen furnace, and
placing sticks of charcoal over them, soon caused a glowing
fire to disperse its heat into the confined apartment.

The Italian's quarters were, like all the dwelling-divisions
in this four-story tenant-house, of most contracted
dimensions; consequently, the sixteen families who occupied
the sixteen “parlors” and closets of the building
had no spare room for useless furniture. A bed, if this
luxury were possessed, filled up all available space in the
sleeping-chamber; a deal table, two or three chairs, and
a wooden dresser, consumed the area of the living-room.
Monna Maria's household articles were, therefore, very
few; but, conspicuous among them was a sort of altar,
opposite the fire-place, formed of an oblong packing-box,
covered with a white cloth, whereon were a crucifix and
a glass bottle, containing water from the church, and
over which hung several colored prints, representing the

agony of Christ, and the Virgin Mother. Here, in solitude,
Monna Maria, a bigot and ascetic, was used to
practise her superstitious devotions—here, in fanatical
endurance, she framed new penances to undergo, new
chastisements wherewith to torture her miserable body.

“Ninetta!” said the crone, extinguishing her bit of
candle, as the red light of the burning charcoal cast its
glare about the room. “Ninetta! sit thee beside me,
and tell me if thou lovest me.”

“Truly, dear Monna Maria,” replied the child, seating
herself upon a stool, and glancing up confidingly into the
Italian's face.

“And wilt thou run away from me, and leave me forever?”

“Oh, Monna! what is that?” asked Ninetta, with a
frightened look. “Do I not bring all that I have?—do I
not think of my god-mother, always?” Tears glittered on
the child's long eyelashes, as she uttered these words in a
tone of soft reproach. Meanwhile, the old woman surveyed
her earnestly.

“I know, bambina,” she resumed, laying her tawny
hand upon the radiant forehead that was turned upwards—“yes,
little one! I know thou wilt prate of love;
nevertheless, when they come for thee, with their gilded
carriage, and prancing horses, to take thee away like a
princess; and when the lackeys kneel down to tie thy
shoe-strings, and bring thee fine dresses, and diamonds,
and serve thy food on platters of gold and silver—ay!
bambina! where, then, will be Monna Maria?”

Ninetta's face was clouded with perplexed wonder.

Her beautiful lips parted, and her breath was repressed,
as she listened to her god-mother's words, spoken in a low
tone, as if to enchant the listener's fancy by their enumeration
of sensuous enjoyments.

“Monna Maria!” she murmured, clasping her small
hands together—“Oh, dear Monna! who will come? who
will take me away?'

“Hah! wouldst go, then, Ninetta?” cried the Italian,
a malevolent expression on her face. “Wouldst go with
the rich ones, who claim thee, to their grand palace, and
be dressed in silks, and waited on by servants, while
Monna Maria starves in the streets?”

“No, no—no!” exclaimed the dancing-girl, bursting
into tears. “I would bring gold to thee, Monna Maria.
The servants should wait on thee, and thou shouldst have
the silken dresses, as well as Ninetta!”

“Curses on the silken dresses, and on the gold of
hereties!” muttered Monna Maria, rising from her seat.
“Listen to me, Ninetta! Thou art my god-daughter, and
I promised, at the font where thou wert made a Christian,
that I would guide thee in the path of our Holy Church.
Thou wert then a heretic baby, a child of an accursed
race that slew their God; and thou wert brought to me
by a Jezebel of the tribe, to be baptized in blessed water,
that the vile woman might revenge herself on one she
hated. But when I answered for thee at the font, Ninetta,
I swore thou shouldst live and die in the Holy Roman
faith; and so I have watched over thee since, bambina,
and kept thee in thy duty. Hast confessed this day,
Ninetta?”

The child had listened, mutely, and with awe-stricken
features, to the vehement revelations which Monna Maria
now made, for the first time; and when they closed with
the abrupt question, she started, and trembled violently.

“Answer! hast confessed?”

“Surely!” replied Ninetta. “I went to Padre Clement
before the play, dear Monna.”

“And did he give thee absolution—tell me the truth,
bambina?”

“He bade me say twelve paters and aves, backward
and forward, dear Monna.”

“And hast thou done so?”

“Nay, not yet; but I will say them with thee, Monna,”
answered the child, in a coaxing manner, as she clasped
the crone's hand. “But, first, wilt thou not tell me more
about the great people?—Oh! be not angry, Monna
Maria! If I were rich, thou shouldst be also rich, godmother;
and we would live in a grand house together!”

“Avaunt! get away, Satan!” cried the woman, with a
gesture of abhorrence, as though she described the Evil One
behind Ninetta's lovely form. “Tempt me not, child of
perdition!” She stamped the floor, as she spoke, and
glared fiercely upon her god-daughter.

“Oh! Monna Maria! thou wilt frighten me to death!”
exclaimed Ninetta, covering her face with her hands.
But the crone, mastering her passion, regained the usual
impassible look, and, resuming her seat, said, calmly—

“I doubt not, bambina, thou wouldst have me prate
long about the heretics; but I will tell thee all in few
words. There is in this great city a rich man whose child

thou art, and he searches for thee to and fro.” — The
woman paused to note the effect of her words upon
Ninetta, whose expressive face grew bright with joyful
wonder, as she exclaimed—

“My father, dear Monna?—my real father!”

“Ay, he is thy father—but if thou shalt go to him,
thou wilt lose heaven, and thy soul. He is a heretic, and
will make thee like himself!”

“Oh, no—no!” cried the child, lifting her clasped
hands. “No, dear Monna! I will save him! he shall
not lose his soul! I will pray for him! I will say thousands
of paters and aves, backwards and forwards! I will
take him to good Padre Clement!”

“Peace, foolish one!” cried the woman's chilling voice,
checking Ninetta's impassioned utterance. “He is an old
man, of the doomed race who will suffer as Christ's murderers.
He can but drag thee with him to perdition! I
should see thy soul in torment, bambina, as I looked down
from Abraham's bosom.”

“Oh, no—no!” pleaded the child. “God is good,
Padre Clement says. I would pray to God always for my
father, till he sent thee to save us, dear Monna.”

“Foolish child! There is no salvation from the eternal
fire. Thinkest thou a heretic or his child would be admitted
to Purgatory, where souls of Christians are purified?
No, thou art mad, bambina. Say no more—where
is thy rosary?”

“Here, dear Monna,” answered the child, taking from
her bosom a string of beads, to which a cross was appened.

“Kneel, and say thy paters and axes, and see that thy
prayers are earnest!” said Monna Maria. “Pray for thy
soul, and that God will keep thee in His holy faith; for
to-morrow thou wilt be in thy father's mansion.”

“Oh, dear Monna!” cried the child, “wilt thou, then,
take me to my father? O! I bless thee, dear godmother!
I am so happy!”

Ninetta lifted her hands to the woman's withered neck,
and mutely solicited a kiss. But Monna Maria did not
even smile; she only said, in her measured voice—

“After thy prayers, I will kiss thee—after thy paters
and aves!”

The child, thus enjoined, knelt upon the floor, beside
the stool on which she had been seated, and, raising
her eyes reverently, began to murmur her prayers rapidly,
as she had been taught to utter them in early
infancy. Beginning at the cross upon the rosary, her
small fingers pattered over the string, the fall of a bead
denoting the completion of each pater and each ave, till
the allotted number was completed, and her penance
finished. Light it was, compared with daily penances of
Monna Maria; and light it well might be, in view of
Ninetta's innocent mind, which, save a little thoughtless
vanity, harbored no evil thought or sinful wish.

“Padre Clement gave thee full absolution?” said Monna
Maria, earnestly, when her god-daughter had concluded
her prayers. “I shall pray, likewise, for thee, bambina;
and I have sharp penance to perform, this night. Eat
now, if thou art hungry, and when thou art sleeping,
afterwards, Monna Maria's penance must begin.”

Ninetta, who had eaten nothing during the evening,
partook with avidity of the dried fruit and sweetened
water that her god-mother placed before her, whilst the
crone refused to break her fast, which she had kept
throughout the day. The dancing-girl was accustomed
to this, and aware, moreover, that Monna Maria was a
most rigid inflicter of various kinds of torture on herself;
so that, at this time, in hearing the woman speak of penance
to be undergone this night, Ninetta knew that she
should hear cries and groans, ere long, and the sound,
perhaps, of blows, mingled with despairing prayers.

“Now, bambina, to rest!” said the god-mother, lighting
her bit of candle once more, and going to the narrow
closet, wherein, upon tressles, was fixed a narrow framework,
supporting a flock mattress. There were more
prints of saints upon the walls, a wooden cross at the
bed's head, and a small bottle of holy water suspended by
a string near the foot. The closet itself was without window
or any aperture for ventilation save the door that
opened to the outer room; because the rear wall of the
tenant-house, abutting against another building, admitted
of no perforation to the outer air. In this respect, the
building was of similar construction to thousands of other
dwellings for the poor, whose infancy, childhood, and
maturity, are thus choked and poisoned by malaria and
disease. Little, however, did poor Ninetta, unused to
other atmosphere, think of the closeness of that narrow
apartment; but when, in answer to her entreaty, Monna
Maria had kissed her, with cold lips, she pressed her
rosary to her breast, smiled under the sprinkling of holy

water, that the crone dispensed, and then, with a soft
“good night, dear Monna,” turned her sweet face from
the red glare that shone into the closet out of the burning
charcoal in the other room.

Monna Maria closed the door of the dark room, and
returning to her place near the hearth, sat for a few
moments in silence, her angular elbows resting on her
knees, whilst her large fingers, clinched together, sustained
her repulsive head, at the same time that they
clutched the cross of a rosary. In the gleam of the charcoal,
her fixed eyes wore a crimson tinge; and had a
stranger come suddenly upon her, in the apparent solitude,
and marked her thin lips mumbling unintelligible
words, her hands shifting uneasily around the chin which
they held, her brow corrugating in a heavy frown, he
might have looked upon her as a witch, awaiting the
working of an unholy spell. Had he, moreover, been
able to penetrate the hag's reveries, and to trace the
chain of thought which lengthened under her long forehead,
he would have shuddered to discover what wicked
intents nestled, like serpents, in Monna Maria's brain—
intents hurried to execution by the promptings, too, of
what the wretched woman, in her bigotry, had learned to
deem her duty. Always, as she peered forward into the
fire-place, where arose continually gas-puffs and sparks from
the charcoal brazier, the crone's fingers dropped her beads,
one by one, upon the rosary string, and it was evident
that the mumblings which her lips emitted were such
prayers as she was used to mutter. Thus, for many
minutes, she continued absorbed in strange devotion;

then, rising, began slowly to remove a thin shawl from
her neck, and to uncover her shoulders and sallow breast,
until she stood unclothed to the waist, standing erect,
like a spectre, in the glare of the brazier. When this
disrobing was accomplished, she knelt down, bowing her
head almost to the floor, and resumed her mumbling
prayers and self-accusations, smiting her bosom constantly,
as she repeated the dismal Confiteor of the Romish
Church. Presently, as her fanatical excitement waxed
stronger, she struck her hands upon her forehead, and
knotted the fingers in her disordered hair, plucking shreds
of it away, and scattering them into the fire-place. More
than before, she now grew like a witch, engaged in incantation,
though words of prayer fell from her writhing
lips.

At length, as if wearied, she ceased the beating of her
breast, which had become bruised and discolored by
severe blows, and remained, during a few moments, with
closed eyes, half prostrate upon the rough flooring. But
there was not yet to be a respite to Monna Maria's penance;
for, rising soon, and shuffling to the rude altar,
she took from behind it a leather thong, of two strands,
almost eighteen inches in length, and studded with bits of
lead, like points of broken nails. In an instant afterwards,
she had brandished this instrument of torture
around her head, and it descended with cruel force across
her left shoulder, and upon her naked back, leaving two
narrow welts, from which small drops of blood began at
once to flow. Another and another stroke succeeded,
dealt with all the strength of her muscular arm—the

thongs clinging around neck and waist, and winding
under her sallow breast, wounding the shrinking flesh,
whilst the miserable penitent, setting her teeth together,
groaned in the agony of her self-inflicted torture. Thus
the dreadful flagellation was continued, until Monna
Maria's back and bosom were wealed and bloody, and her
arm sank, powerless to prolong its work. Then, moaning
fearfully, and muttering supplications in her native tongue,
the Italian woman drew her ragged garments once more
over her shoulders, and resumed her seat near the hearth,
where she remained silent, save in uttering groans, for
several minutes.

But not yet was the bigoted woman to rest; though
the mortification of her body, in her bigoted belief, had
been for the behoof of the sinful soul. Not yet could
she seek the slumber which exhausted vitality might seem
to crave. Monna Maria's penance, though of greater
violence and duration than ordinary, was of no uncommon
occurrence in her solitude; for an evil conscience, wherein
the memory of an ill-spent life was an ever-present horror,
made bodily suffering appear of small account; nevertheless,
on this night, the hag nourished purposes that, to her
warped mind, seemed commanded of heaven, and yet were
dark and deadly; and now, as she crouched to her chair
near the furnace, her coarse garments stained with the
blood that oozed from the stripes she had borne, the dim
thoughts that shaped themselves in her brain took form
in mutterings more distinct than had been her prayers.

“The child's soul will be lost,”—thus Monna Maria
muttered—“lost forever, if she goes back to the Jew;

and the oath that I took at the font would lie upon me
like a curse, and drag me with her! Ninetta, the baptized
child, will become heretic and accursed, like all her
kin, and I—I,”—the crone's fierce features became distorted
with wrath—“I shall be spurned by the Jew and
his lady daughter—I, that would save her soul from perdition.”

Monna Maria rose, paused an instant, and then going
to the door of the closet, opened it a few inches, and
peered in. Ninetta lay upon the flock bed, in quiet sleep,
her small white arm folded under her fair cheek, her
clustering ringlets half concealing neck and face. She
breathed heavily, though unconscious; for the dark room,
with the door shut, had been close, and perhaps oppressive.
Nevertheless, in happy forgetfulness, or, perchance,
charmed by visions of a golden future, the child reposed
as peacefully as if enclosed by palace walls; and Monna
Maria, in contemplating her, could not but feel that she,
her god-daughter, was surpassingly lovely.

“But what will profit her beauteous body, when the
evil one claims her soul?” muttered the hag. “Better be
as ugly as a blackamoor, and vile as a leper, and yet hold
faith in our holy religion. Ay! she elasps the rosary
now,” continued Monna Maria, noting that Ninetta's
fingers still held her beads, “but where will be rosary, or
blessed water, or cross itself, when the Jew's black gates
close on the child of perdition? No! Blessed Virgin
Maria!” gasped the woman, closing the closet door, and
sinking again on her knees—“she shall never go to the
Jews! she shall go to thee—to thee!—this night—pure

from sin, and I will live to do penance for the sin—if sin
it be to save a soul from hell!”

Thus saying, Monna Maria rose, with her customary
impassible look, and proceeded, as calmly as if engaged in
ordinary vocations, to make her dispositions for the commission
of a fearful crime. Taking the bottle of water
from her altar, she went to the dark closet again, and
sprinkled the bed profusely with the sanctified element;
then placed her own crucifix at the head of the mattress,
and hung a rosary at its foot. This done, with the
mumbling of many prayers, while Ninetta still slumbered
sweetly, the god-mother bent over her, and, lifting her
hands in apparent supplication, seemed to invoke a blessing
upon the act she had resolved upon, in impious superstition
engendered by her bigoted faith. Then she
stooped close over Ninetta, but did not kiss the child's
innocent lips, perhaps apprehensive of awakening her,
perhaps fearing to pollute the sinless soul so soon to leave
its earthly habitation. There was a pause, then, in the
hag's movements, though no hesitation. She seemed
only to be concentrating her faculties to accomplish that
which she was to do; and it was even with a sterner
countenance than she had before worn, that now, lifting
the red furnace from the hearth, she bore it to the
dark closet, and placing it near to the tressles, glanced
once more at her god-daughter's face, and then, reclosing
the door tightly, crept back to her chair in the dark
outer room, where she remained rigid and upright, with
her rosary cross pressed to her lips, her withered fingers
telling the beads, her dry lips mumbling their incessant

prayers. Monna Maria knew that the pent charcoal
must soon fill the closet with its fumes, and that Ninetta
would die without pain, suffocated in her quiet sleep.

One by one—drop, drop—the beads rattled in falling,
like the solemn tick of a watch, chronicling the lapse of
time into eternity. One by one, the prayers of the fanatic
—blasphemous mockery of Heaven—trembled on Monna
Maria's lips. About her all was darkness, but her soul
grew darker momently. Thus the minutes glided away.

“She sleeps!” thus wandered the crone, in her strange
prayers; “she will pass away like a saint, and mine will
be the sin to expiate by heavy penance! Holy Virgin!
give me strength—blessed St. Geronimo! sustain me!
all the Saints pray for me, a sinful woman! She sleeps!
the child Ninetta—she will awake in Paradise! This
day hath she confessed, and the Padre gave her absolution?
Never will she be more fitted to die! Thus will
she escape the heretic! and I—miserable—will journey
to the grave alone! Holy Virgin! help me!—blessed
company of saints! intercede for me. Pure Maria!
receive the child's soul! Holy Innocents of Bethlehem!
bear Ninetta to Paradise!”

Thus Monna Maria communed in the darkness, believing,
in her superstition, that she did no wrong. O Human
Heart! this poor Italian woman is not alone in her bigotry!
Alas! how many of the refined, the educated, the
gospel-taught are in our midst, who build up about their
spirits a wall of fanaticism, like unto Monna Maria's—
shutting out all charity for that which they judge to be
the heresy of others, whilst, in their blind selfishness, they

make crosses of their own daily deeds, whereon they crucify
the Son of Man afresh!

Many minutes crept away, and all was yet still, save
the old woman's broken whispers. Monna Maria, strive
against it as she might, began now to feel a nameless terror
creeping around her in the darkness. Her face grew
cold, and her limbs numb, and even the smart of scarified
back and bosom—matted against the coarse vesture
that was covered by congulating blood—seemed to be forgotten
in the shivering dread that drew nigh to her heart,
like unto an icy hand grasping and compressing it.

“Holy Mother of God!” ejaculated the fanatic, hugging
her breast closely with her folded arms—“Blessed
St. Ursula, St. Agatha, St. Monica, St. Veronica! pray
for me!”

“Again she cast herself prostrate upon the floor, bowing
her forehead in the dust; but at this moment, a voice
from the inner room called—

“Monna Maria! god-mother! Monna Maria!” The
voice was choked and gasping, and the hag knew it came
from Ninetta. “Monna Maria! come! they will carry
me away! They come for me!” Ay! it is the voice
of the child, stifling in her sleep, thinks Monna Maria;
and she gathered her arms and hands over her face, and
crouched silently in the darkness.

Again came that voice, feeble in its intonation, yet
modulated like music; and it said—“Monna Maria!
good-night! the angels have come. I am going to my
mother and the angels!” The hag grovelled on the floor,
shutting her ears against the child's voice, and thus she

lay for many minutes longer; but the voice was heard no
more. “She—is—dead!” muttered Monna Maria; “she
is in heaven! and the heretic will be cheated!” Then,
painfully rising to her feet, the woman tottered through
the darkness, till her hand came in contact with the closet
door. All yet remained silent, and Monna Maria slowly
opened the door; but at this instant, her name was pronounced
again, and, uttering a shrick, the hag sunk upon
the threshold, her eyes dilated in terror, whilst the sudden
rush of carbonic gas almost stifled her gasping throat.

And well might the superstitious bigot tremble at the
spectacle which met her half-averted eye. Ninetta was
not lying, as she expected to behold her, still and rigid
upon the bed, but standing erect, seeming, as it were,
ascending upwards, whilst lambent flames played around
her white-robed form, and a luminous clond enveloped her
transfigured face. Her hands were raised, clasped together,
and she seemed about to spring away on wings of
fire, beyond the cloven roof-tree of that squalid tenant-house—above
the dark and wretched world—to realms of
light and never-ending beauty. Monna Maria looked,
with wildered glance, then covered her eyes with her
hand, and, with another cry of fear, fell prone upon the
floor. Ninetta's form remained poised an instant amid
the fiery smoke, and then, with a bound, descended over
the god-mother's prostrate body, and sprang forward to
the outer room, while the closet, no longer dark, became
enveloped in thick flames, that rose from the flock bed,
darted over the crackling wood-work, and licked, with
curving tongue, the walls and ceiling.