Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/190

Rh Death is liberty, built it cannot be mine; give me no other murdered lives to lie heavy on my own. Save yourselves by surrender, by flight, how you can, and think no more of me. The future will yet avenge us all."

The voice of the chief in command rang down again from the dusky shadows of the piazza.

"Soldiers! seize and silence her. She speaks sedition."

The officers, gentler than he who hounded them on to their work, stooped, hesitating, to her.

"You surrender?" She looked at them with a look that for the moment flashed back all the proud contemptuous light upon her face, and lit in her deep eyes the glow of the old heroism. "If the carnage cease." The voice from the outer courts answered her, imperious and unyielding—

"We make no terms with revolutionists and rebels."

"I make no peace with tyrants and assassins.

Her return-defiance challenged her unseen foe with a calm grandeur; she stood above the fallen