There were a dozen couples dancing a wild step such as is never seen now.

The tune that the musicians were playing in the gallery above was taken from the 'Areopagita' suite of Graziani.

Gaskell has often told me that when he played it the music brought with it to his mind a sense of some impending catastrophe, which culminated at the end of the first movement of the _Gagliarda_.

It was just at that moment, Sophy, that an Englishman who was dancing here was stabbed in the back and foully murdered." I had scarcely heard all that John had said, and had certainly not been able to take in its import; but without waiting to hear if I should say anything, he moved across to the uncovered stone with the ring in it.
Exerting a strength which I should have believed entirely impossible in his weak condition, he applied to the stone a lever which lay ready at hand.

Raffaelle at the same time seized the ring, and so they were able between them to move the covering to one side sufficiently to allow access to a small staircase which thus appeared to view.