Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/179

168 all suspected persons—notably, first, of the notorious revolutionist known by the title of the Countess Vassalis."

For all answer, with a mighty oath that rang through all his banqueting-chambers, Viana lifted his arm, and whirled in a flashing arc above his head the bright blade of the Persian steel;—Idalia bent forward with a swift gesture, which caught his wrist, and arrested the sabre in its downward course; then, turning to the King's officer, she removed her Venetian mask, and looked at him calmly.

"If it will spare the shedding of innocent blood, you know me now."

For one moment there was a dead silence—the hush of speechless surprise, of speechless admiration; the emotion of a passionate love, of a passionate pride, in and for her filled the hearts of her own people with an agony of homage and of grief; the soldiers of the Bourbons were arrested for the instant, paralysed and confounded as they looked on her, fronting them with a proud serenity, a dauntless, tranquil contempt, with the light on her diamond-bound hair. Then, as the officer of the Palace troops advanced to arrest her, his soldiers drawn closer and firmer round the banqueting-hall,