Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/180

Rh the shouts of "Viva l'Italia!" "Viva la libertà!" shook the walls with the roll of thunder; a hundred who would have died at her feet to save a dog of hers from injury threw themselves round her as in a guard of honour; driven to bay, the lovers of freedom, the haters of tyranny, were ready to perish, shot down like hunted beasts, rather than ever yield. Carlo of Viana flung himself in the van, his sabre flashing above his head; the gay and splendid dresses of the maskers, glittering in the light, seemed to heave and toss like a sea of colour; they circled her like gardes du corps; their improvised weapons, torn from the tables, from the cabinets, from the walls, whirled in the radiance that burned from innumerable lamps. Idalia's eyes gleamed with such fire as might have been in the eyes of Artemisia when she bore her prow down on the Calyndian; of Antonina when she pierced the armies of the Goths, holding watch and ward to sack Imperial Rome; of Boadicea when she led the Iceni on to the fasces and the standards of the conquering legions. She would have given herself to save them; but since they, with or without her, must be doomed, her whole soul rose responsive to the challenge of danger, to the defiance of submission. .