Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/154

Rh glorious reign. The elder man was not sleeping; his eyes were on his son. He had lost three such as that sleeping boy for Italy—three trampled down under the tread of Austrian armies or of Pontifical mercenaries; the one left was the last of his name. But he would have sent out a hundred more, had he had them, to bring back the dead grandeur to Rome, to see the ancient liberties revive, and the banner of the free republic float in spring-tide air above the fresh lagoons and over the green-wreathed arches of his beloved Venezia.

They had suffered much, both of them, for liberty; but they were both willing to suffer more—the boy in the dawn of his manhood, and the elder in the weariness of his age. There was no sound in the chamber; food and wine stood near; the shutters were closed; through a small oval aperture the glowing sun in the hour of its sunrise alone penetrated, flooding the floor with seven-coloured light. From the dawn without there came a faint delicious odour of carnations, of late violets, of innumerable leaves. The door opened noiselessly; through it came Idalia. The old man started and rose, took her hand and pressed it to his lips, then stood in silence. She glanced at the sleeping youth, lying