with all her strength to his arm, imploring him, with frantic violence, not to let them kill her. He led, or rather dragged her to the front of the scaffold.
At this moment, the wind, which had been rising for some time, broke away the thick clouds behind into a line of cold clear light, which threw out the forms of the prisoners into gigantic proportions; while, blowing in the face of the people, it carried every sound forwards with singular distinctness.
Supporting the shuddering, but now speechless creature, the gipsy held her forth to the crowd.
"May the curse," said he, in a wild, shrill voice—so shrill, it was more like a scream—"May the curse of the innocent blood ye will this day shed, rest among you for ever!"
Whispering something, in a tone so low as to be only audible to her, he gave his wife, without one caress or look, to the officer. She stretched her arms towards her husband, but sank back fainting.
The hangman approached.
"Her first," exclaimed the gipsy,—the only touch of human feeling he had shewn.
While the rope was putting round her long slender neck she was quite passive; but her dying struggles were terrible. A suppressed cry of sympathy, a strange low moan—only loud from being so general—rose from the spectators: it sank into silence as the executioner turned to the gipsy. He raised his hand with a fierce gesture of menace to
