body more exactly, it was perceived that there was a small wound on his right breast, just above the pap towards the side of the body, having the external appearance of a scratch merely, or a slight break in the skin, but proving to be a deep stab of some pointed weapon, which struck through the lungs into the vessels of the heart, and had produced almost immediate death, although without being followed with any external effusion of blood. There could be no mistake about it; the practised eye and hand of one of the alguazils not only followed the wound to its termination in the heart, but detected the red and bruised spot, where, as the weapon had been driven home in the breast, the hilt had left its mark on the skin around the stab. And to render assurance doubly sure, the weapon itself was presently discovered, fixed in another wound lower down in the body, and concealed among the folds of the doublet and hose, which second wound would have been fatal, had not the first performed its office effectually. It was a small silver-mounted dagger, of very peculiar workınanship, the hold of the cross being covered with net work of silver wire, and the pommel consisting of a beautifully wrought head of the Saviour, those admirable features, which tradition has so faithfully preserved.

But whose was the dagger? And by what hand were these two skilfully aimed blows inflicted ?-In the difficulty of supposing that an assassin could have 12*

VOL. I.

entered the shop, and murdered El Valenciano thus under the very eyes as it were of all Madrid, it was suggested that it was a case of suicide; and that Gil Cano, who was a lone man, of somewhat eccentric habits, and without ties to attach him to the world, had killed himself in some fit of despondency or mental aberration. But this hypothesis was discarded almost as soon as formed; for beside that the feeble arm of the old man could not have struck so heavy a blow as the upper wound implied, it was manifest, from its direction and position, that it was physically impossible it should have proceeded from the hand of the deceased himself. Who, then, the question recurred, could have dared to commit this murder in a situation so exposed, where the slightest cry would have been audible to hundreds, where so many spectators were at hand to observe the assassin, where the successful performance of the deed, without being detected, presupposed a combination of fortunate circumstances little less than miraculous?

El Valenciano's body had been brought to the door by the officers of justice, one of whom held the dagger in his hand, as the speculations, just detailed, were going on among the bystanders. Suddenly a shout of 'Seize him, seize him in the King's name,'-burst from the alguazil, who felt the dagger to be snatched from him by a hand from amid the crowd, and who vainly endeavored to follow the bold arm, which he saw, but could not

arrest. But the confusion which this extraordinary incident occasioned was changed to consternation, when the cry of the alguazil was interrupted by a deep stern voice, seemingly at his very side, uttering in distinct and measured accents the words Venganza de Garci Perez! The startled officers were stricken dumb with amazement at the sound; and the multitude hurriedly dispersed from the spot, holding their breaths in suppressed fear, and scarcely daring to whisper to their own hearts that the Valencian had drawn upon him the 'vengeance of Garci Perez,' and that this daring criminal, a noted robber of the mountains of Granada, had presumed to pursue his victim at mid-day into the very shops of the Puerta del Sol.

But in those times, when Madrid was become the capital of half the globe, the assassination of an humble individual, however mysterious in its manner, was not a thing to fix attention for any length of time. For a day, the death of El Valenciano was the passing subject of light jest, or honored at most with a shrug of the shoulders at the slight of hand of Garci Perez; and on the following day it would have ceased to be remembered, but for another extraordinary event, evidently connected with the first, and strongly calculated to excite the wonder of the curious Madrileños.

It was the festival of the Conception, a day held peculiarly sacred in Spain; and the civic authorities of Madrid heard mass in the church of San

Salvador, where the remains of the poet Calderon have since been deposited, and which is also decorated with a rich monument in memory of the last Duke of Arcos of the name of Ponce de Leon. The corregidor of Madrid, in military dress, accompanied with his aids also in uniform, and four macebearers in crimson silk cloaks, occupied a kind of enclosure made by means of moveable benches, to separate him from the ordinary worshippers, who, kneeling upon the estera, filled the body of the church. The gorgeously gilded stoles of the officiating clergy, the rich apparel of the corregidor and his followers, the multitude on the floor in the humble attitude of adoration, the lofty architecture of the church, with its pictures and sculptures, and its heavy tapestry swung from pillar to pillar, composed one of those impressive spectacles of religious solemnity, so common in Catholic countries, and so well fitted to recommend the Catholic worship to the imagination. The half audible responses of the worshippers, as they struck the breast in penitential sorrow, and bowed down at the elevation of the Host, seemed to soften the heart to a sense of its sinfulness, while the noble peal of the organ raised it again to the hopes and aspirations of immortality.

Father Joaquin Arteaga, a Carmelite friar preeminent for his learning and piety, officiated at the altar of Our Lady of the Conception. He had passed through various minor dignities of the church, was

now one of the King's confessors, and had lately been nominated to the Pope for the vacant see of Jaen, a preferment which he had well deserved, not merely for his general merits, but still more for many years of assiduous labor in diffusing the knowledge of the Gospel among the natives of the New World, and at the same time protecting them, so far as he might, from the rapacity of the first conquerors. Above the altar where he stood was one of those unsightly representations of the Virgin, which are so frequently consecrated to favorite shrines in Spain;-wooden or composition figures, tawdrily dressed up in silks and muslins, and placed in chapels to the exclusion of the numerous beautiful sculptures of holy persons, which otherwise abound in the churches, but which, as symbols of the beings to whom supplication is addressed, seem to be regarded with less of respect than humbler images, wholly destitute of merit as works of Father Joaquin had deposited the Host on the altar, and was bending his head upon his clasped hands before it, when a single shriek broke from him, and he fell prostrate on the floor of the chapel, with a heavy sound, which seemed to indicate that he was struck down by violence. The assistant priests ran to raise up their beloved brother, but they found him a lifeless corpse; and horror froze every soul, when they perceived a silver-mounted dagger stuck in the heart of Fray Joaquin, and saw that he had been sacrilegiously murdered at

art.