Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/316

 At the sudden stoppage of the cart, poor Alice started from her ghastly drowse—possibly she thought the terrible goal was reached. As she lifted her head and looked wildly around with her sad, frightened, bewildered eyes, the words which were passing from lip to lip around her fell upon her ear: "It is his Excellency, Sir William Phips, the new governor."

In one instant, straight and clear as a flash of light from heaven, broke in upon her clouded mind an intuitive ray of hope; in one moment she had quitted the cart to which she had convulsively clung, and with one wild bound, like the death-leap of some maddened creature, she sprung directly in Sir William's path, and flinging up her wild arms to arrest him, she raised her sad, beseeching eyes to his, and faltered out her impassioned appeal: "Mercy! mercy! your Excellency; pardon—pardon—for the sweet love of heaven—she is innocent! Oh! as you hope for mercy in your own sorest need hereafter, have mercy upon us—mercy! mercy!"

As the frantic creature paused for breath,