Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/186

Rh the first time meet the likeness of her death; but as they fell downward at her feet, stricken like felled trees, a mortal anguish came into her fearless eyes; she stretched her arms out less with entreaty than command.

"Spare them! To save them, I will surrender."

"By Christ, not for ten thousand lives!" cried Carlo of Viana, where he stood out of the deadly press, his reeking sword held aloft before her. "Surrender you! They shall only take you when we all lie dead around you!" She grasped his arm and looked up in his face: there was no more of fear, no more of shrinking, than there were on his own; only in her eyes a superb heroism, on her lips a passionate entreaty.

"Serve me better still, my noble friend! Turn your sword here."

The tumult was at its height; emboldened by the fate of those shot down from the rear, the Royalists of the front pressed in. Wedged between two barriers, the patriots fought with mad despair. Where Viana stood, pausing one instant as she turned and made her prayer to him, he knew that death were sweeter far to her than the fate that