Melmoth the Wanderer, Vol. 1
exclaimed, “Who is among us?--Who?--I cannot utter a blessing while he is here. I cannot feel one. Where he treads, the earth is parched!--Where he breathes, the air is fire!--Where he feeds, the food is poison!--Where he turns, his glance is lightning!--_Who is among us?_--_Who?_” repeated the priest in the agony of adjuration, while his cowl fallen back, his few thin hairs around the scalp instinct and alive with terrible emotion, his outspread arms protruded from the sleeves of his habit, and extended towards the awful stranger, suggested the idea of an inspired being in the dreadful rapture of prophetic denunciation. 

He stood--still stood, and the Englishman stood calmly opposite to him. There was an agitated irregularity in the attitudes of those around them, which contrasted strongly the fixed and stern postures of those two, who remained gazing silently at each other. “Who knows him?” exclaimed Olavida, starting apparently from a trance; “who knows him? who brought him here?”The guests severally disclaimed all knowledge of the Englishman, and each asked the other in whispers, “who _had_ brought him there?” Father Olavida then pointed his arm to each of the company, and asked each individually, “Do you know him?” “No! no! no!” was uttered with vehement emphasis by every individual. “But I know him,” said Olavida, “by these cold drops!” and he wiped them off;--“by these convulsed joints!” and he attempted to sign the cross, but could not. He raised his voice, and evidently speaking with increased difficulty,--“By this bread and wine, which the faithful receive as the body and blood of Christ, but which _his_ presence converts into matter as viperous as the suicide foam of the dying Judas,--by all these--I know him, and command him to be gone!--He is--he is----” and he bent forwards as he spoke, and gazed on the Englishman with an expression which the mixture of rage, hatred, and fear, rendered terrible. All the guests rose at these words,--the whole company now presented two singular groups, that of the amazed guests all collected together, and repeating, “Who, what is he?” and that of the Englishman, who stood unmoved, and Olavida, who dropped dead in the attitude of pointing to him.

The body was removed into another room, and the departure of the Englishman was not noticed till the company returned to the hall. They sat late together, conversing on this extraordinary circumstance, and finally agreed to remain in the house, lest the evil spirit (for they believed the Englishman no better) should take certain liberties with the corse by no means agreeable to a Catholic, particularly as he had manifestly died without the benefit of the last sacraments. 
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