The
clayey, sluggish white of death was already on his cheek; his lip,
convulsively compressed, and the left hand tightly clenched, as if the
soul had not been thus violently reft from the body, without a strong:
pang of mortal agony. His right hand had stiffened round the hilt
of his unsheathed sword, for the murderous blow had been dealt from
behind, and with such fatal aim, that death must have been almost
instantaneous, and the tight grasp of his sword the mere instinctive
movement of expiring nature. Awe-struck, chilled to the heart, did the
noble friends of the departed gather round him. On the first removal
of the mantle, an irresistible yell of curses on the murderer burst
forth from the soldiery, wrought into fury at thus beholding their
almost idolized commander; but the stern woe on the Sovereign's face
hushed them into silence; and the groan of grief and horror which
escaped involuntarily from Ferdinand's lips, was heard throughout the
hall.
"The murderer?" at length demanded many of the nobles at the same
moment. "Who has dared do this awful deed? Don Alonzo, is there no
clue to his person--no trace of his path?"
"There is trace and clue enough," was the brief and stern reply. "The
murderer is secured!"
"Ha!" exclaimed the King, roused at once; "secured, sayest thou? In
our bitter grief we had well-nigh forgotten justice.
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