She was awakened after awhile by a slight noise near her, and beheldJudith 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."

"Ha!" exclaimed Judith, starting.

"While securing his keys," pursued Solomon Eagle, "the owner awakened, and uttered a low, but angry remonstrance. Better he had been silent. Dipping a napkin in an ewer of water that stood beside him, you held the wet cloth over his face, and did not remove it till life was extinct. All this I saw."

"But you will not reveal it," said Judith, tremblingly.

"I will not," replied Solomon Eagle, "for the reasons I have just stated; namely, that I look upon you as one of the scourges appointed by Heaven."

"And so I am," rejoined Judith, with impious exultation; "it is my mission to destroy and pillage, and I will fulfil it."

"Take heed you do not exceed it," replied Solomon Eagle. "Lift a finger against either of these young persons, and I will reveal all. Yes," he continued, menacingly, "I will disclose such dreadful things against you, that you will assuredly be adjudged to a gibbet higher than the highest tower of this proud fane."

"I defy you, wretch!" retorted Judith. "You can prove nothing against me."

"Defy me? -- ha!" cried Solomon Eagle, with a terrible laugh. "First," he added, dashing her backwards against the wall -- "first, to prove my power. Next," he continued, drawing from her pockets a bunch of keys, "to show that I speak the truth. These were taken from the vest of the murdered man. No one, as yet, but ourselves, knows that he is dead."

"And who shall say which of the two is the murderer?" cried Judith. "Villain! I charge you with the deed."

"You are, indeed, well fitted for your appointed task," returned Solomon Eagle, gazing at her with astonishment, "for sometimes Heaven, for its own wise purpose, will allow the children of hell to execute its vengeance upon earth. But think not you will always thus escape. No, you may pursue your evil course for a while -- you, and your companion in crime; but a day of retribution will arrive for both -- a day when ye shall be devoured, living, by flames of fire -- when all your sins shall arise before your eyes, and ye shall have no time for repentance -- and when ye shall pass from one fierce fire to another yet fiercer, and wholly unquenchable!"

As he concluded, he again dashed her against the wall with such violence that she fell senseless upon the ground.

"And now," he said, turning to Nizza Macascree, who looked on in alarm and surprise, "what can I do for you?"

"Bear this youth to a place of safety," was her answer.

Solomon Eagle answered by lifting up the pallet upon which Leonard was laid, with as much ease as if it had been an infant's cradle, and calling on Nizza to bring the torch, passed with his burden through the secret door. Directing her to close it after them, he took his way alone a narrow stone passage, until he came to a chink in the wall commanding a small chamber, and desired her to look through it. She obeyed, and beheld, stretched upon a couch, the corpse of a man.

"It is Mr. Quatremain, the minor canon," she said, retiring.

"It is," returned Solomon Eagle, "and it will be supposed that he died of the plague. But his end was accelerated by Judith Malmayns."