Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/185

174 gathered around Idalia, facing their foes and holding them back by the menace of their eyes, as men hold back wild beasts, in gallant and dauntless chivalry, willing each one of them to lay down his life that night rather than yield her up in passive cowardice to her foes. They never saw, they never heard—behind them stole the murderous tread, filling up the rear of the lofty hall with rank on rank of soldiers. Then suddenly, as the word to fire rang in its merciless command from the outer court, the line of rifles belched forth its flame; the sullen roar of the shots echoed through the chamber, raking the glittering colours of the masquerade robes as the driving hail rakes the wheat and the flowers of a full corn-field. Shot down from the rear in that craven murder, they fell, the balls in their brains or their shoulders—a fourth of them levelled low; yet not a moan, not a cry escaped one of them, not a prayer broke from the lips wet with their life-blood, not a sigh escaped those whose nerves were rent, whose bones were shattered, whose lungs were pierced by that dastardly masked attack. Not a cry, not a supplication, broke even from Idalia, as the crash of the firing rolled over the devoted band that guarded her. Not for the first time did she look on bloodshed, nor for