Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/177

166 of musketry; the earth seemed in a moment to grow alive with swarming men, and bristling with levelled weapons; gendarmes filled the piazza and the courts; the soldiers of Francis were upon them. There was an instant's silence so intense that the murmur of the bubbling fountains alone reigned in it; then with a shock like thunder, the bold blood of the sons of liberty, growing desperate, threw them in headlong violence unarmed upon their foes. Little avail;—the solid line of Steel was drawn around, with not an inch unfilled; they were hemmed in and caught in the toils.

Carlo of Viana, with his careless eyes alight like a lion's in its wrath, tore down from where it hung a keen Damascus sword, placed amidst a stand of curiously wrought and antique arms, and strode over the mosaic pavement to one of his guests, whose azure domino was broidered and fastened with wreaths of silver ivy.

His voice shook as he stooped to her ear.

"Madame—Idalia—this is more for you than us. Follow me at once; there is a secret passage that no living creature knows besides myself; I can save you—I will save you!"