Explore "The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'You shall leave her to me.' So had spoken the wicked youth while holding me between life and death at the precipice. He permitted me to live, not from Christian mercy, but because he despised my life, a trivial thing to him, not worth taking. He was sure of his prey; it did not matter if I were living or dead.
'You shall leave her to me.' Oh, arrogant fool! Do you not know that the Lord holds His hand over the flowers of the field and the young birds in the nest? Leave Benedicta to you? -- permit you to destroy her body and her soul? Ah, you shall see how the hand of God shall be spread above her to guard and save. There is yet time -- that soul is still spotless and undefiled. Forward, then, to fulfil the command of the Most High God!