Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/267

256 search; but he would not give way to them, and he would not let them urge him into the madness which could have made him dash down into Naples and demand her at the hands of the Bourbon. He knew that if it were possible to save her, thus only could it be done; and he gave himself to the toil without pause, and with a self-restraint that cost him more than all. Three days and three nights were spent thus ; he began to think in his agony that he should only find her—if ever he found her—dead. His search was chiefly made after the sun was down; the day, when he had not to secrete himself and the hound from those who might have thought their aspect suspicious, and from village authorities who might have challenged his appearance away from a seaport, he spent in questioning the country people, as far as he could, without exciting wonder or counter-inquiry. Happily he could speak the Neapolitan patois to a miracle, and he supported his character of a fisherman well enough with most; some thought, like Nicolò, that he looked more like a prince in disguise, but he was frank and comrade-like with them, drank with them, ate their own coarse food, could give them a hand in mending their roof after a storm, in digging a trench round their