Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/311

 warrior at the stake, she was fixed in her purpose that no trembling nerve, no faltering step, should gratify the malice of her enemies by a token of her suffering.

So she came out, disdaining support, and would have mounted the fatal cart unaided, had not her manacled limbs forbidden it.

When she was placed in the vehicle, another vain attempt was made by Alice's friends to withdraw her from the awful scene; but the faithful child would not be removed. With wild eyes and piteous hands she waved them back. Twice she essayed to speak, but the unuttered words died on her feverish lips. Again—and they who stood nearest to her caught only the words, "Having loved his own, He loved them to the end;" and awed and silent, they desisted, and made way for her.

Clinging tightly with both her clenched hands to the back of the cart, to support her tottering and uncertain steps, with her uncovered head bent down upon her hands, and her bright, disheveled hair falling as a veil about her, Alice followed as the melancholy procession moved onward—up the