“Better the sharpest torture than thy hated presence,” calmly rejoined Marie.  “My soul thou canst not touch.”

“Soul!  Has a Jewess a soul?  Nay, by my faith, thou talkest bravely!  An thou hast, thou hadst best be mine, and so share my salvation; there’s none for such as thee.”

“Man!” burst indignantly from the prisoner.  “Share thy salvation!  Great God of Israel! that men like these have power to persecute thy children for their faith, and do it in thy name!  And speak of mercy!  Thou hast but given me another incentive for endurance,” she continued, more calmly addressing her tormentor.  “If salvation be denied to us, and granted thee, I would refuse it with my dying breath; such faith is not of God!”

“I came not hither to enter on such idle quibbles,” was the rejoinder.  “It matters not to me what thou art after death, but before it mine thou shalt be.  What hinders me, at this very moment, from working my will upon thee?  Who will hear thy cry? or, hearing, will approach thee?  These walls have heard too many sounds of human agony to bear thy voice to those who could have mercy.  Tempt me not by thy scorn too far.  What holds me from thee now?”

“What holds thee from me?  GOD!” replied the prisoner, in a tone of such, thrilling, such supernatural energy, that Garcia actually started as if some other voice than hers had spoken, and she saw him glance fearfully round.  “Thou darest not touch me!  Ay, villain—­blackest and basest as thou art—­thou darest not do it.  The God thine acts, yet more than thy words blaspheme, withholds thee—­and thou knowest it!”

“I defy him!” were the awful words that answered her; and Don Luis sprang forwards.

“Back!” exclaimed the heroic girl.  “Advance one step nearer, and thy vengeance, even as thy passion, will alike be foiled—­and may God forgive the deed I do.”

She shook down the beautiful tresses of her long luxuriant hair, and, parting them with both hands around her delicate throat, stood calmly waiting in Don Luis’s movements the signal for her own destruction.

“Fool!” he muttered, as involuntarily he fell back, awed—­in spite of his every effort to the contrary—­at a firmness as unexpected as it was unwavering.  “Fool!  Thou knowest not the power it is thy idle pleasure to defy; thou wilt learn it all too soon, and then in vain regret thy scorn of my proffer now.  Thou hast added tenfold to my wild yearning for revenge on thy former scorn—­tenfold! ay, twice tenfold, to thy own tortures.  Yet, once more, I bid thee pause and choose.  Fools there are, who dare all personal physical torment, and yet shrink and quail before the thought of death for a beloved one.  Idiots, who for others, sacrifice themselves; perchance thou wilt be one of them.  Listen, and tremble; or, sacrifice, and save!  When in thy haughty pride, and zenith of thy power, thou didst scorn me, and bidding me, with galling contempt, go from thy