Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/90

82 uncovered hair; a woman fair as the morning, with the free imperial step of the forest deer, and the beauty of the classic and glorious south; the beauty of Aspasia of Athens, of Lucrezia of Rome.

A few short seconds, and the hound plunged down into the pass, baying loud in fear and fury, as though he tracked the trail of the crime. The birds flew up with whirling tumult from the meal, and wheeled aloft, scared and scattered; the vulture that had her talons tangled in the hair of the fallen man, and was stretching her plumed throat to deal her first aim at his sightless eyes, taking wing slowly, leaving her prey reluctantly. The woman fell on her knees beside him where he lay across the body of his slaughtered mare, as lifeless to all semblance as the animal.

She knew that she was in the presence of crime, and she believed herself in that of death; this man had been slain foully in the heart of the forest, and she was alone, in the mountain ravine that had seen the guilt done and the blow dealt, alone with one whom his enemies had left to perish and lie unburied for the hawks and crows to tear. The night had witnessed the sin and shrouded it; she and the sunny light of day had tracked and found it.