Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/187

176 would await her from her foes; he knew that she had in her the courage of Lucretia, the force of the wife of Pætus; but to slay with his own hand that perfect loveliness, to destroy with his own steel the pulse of that splendid and gracious life!—he drooped his head with a shudder, "I cannot!" Scarcely had the words left his lips when the blade of a bayonet pierced his lungs; he fell like a mighty cedar lightning-stricken, not dead, but dying fast. The roar of the combat, the ring of the shots, the tumult of the conflict, as the betrayed were pressed between the wedge of the Royalist van and rear, were filling his palace-chambers with their riot; he knew no more of sight, or sound, or life. He only looked up with blind eyes, that, through their mists, vainly and solely sought for one; his lips parted with a murmur, "Idalia!—Italy!" Then, with those names his latest utterance, a shiver shook him as the red blood streamed through all the laces and the silks, the violet and the silver and the jewels of his dress, and, with one other deep-drawn, lingering sigh—he died.

She sank beside him on her knees, and her own danger and the conflict of the night that raged in