Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/110

99 The cool sea lay, a serene world of waters, scarcely ruffled by a breeze, and glancing with all the marvellous brilliance of colouring that northern air never can know. The boat waited in a creek, floating there under so dark a shadow from the drooping boughs of lemon and acacia, that it was atmost in twilight: a few strokes of the oars, and it swept out of the brown ripples, flinging up their surf against the rocks, into the deep blue of the sunlit bay; below, above, around on every side, colour in all its glory, all its variety, all its harmony and contrast, melting into one paradise in the warmth of the summer day.

"I love the sea more dearly than any land. It is incarnate freedom!" she said, rather to herself than him, as she leant slightly over the boat, filling her hand with the water, till its drops sparkled like the sapphires in her rings. There was a certain aching tone in her words that sent a pang to his heart: it was the envy of freedom. Was she not, then, free?

"That is the charm my own moors have—the mere sense of liberty they give. Barren though they be, if yon were to see them"

His voice was unsteady over the last sentence. He thought of the dead glories of his race, of the