Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/316

305 "Truly you have earned your supper; and—as for that little matter of brandy? I have not tasted a drop since I was in Naples, seven seasons ago!"

"All right, I have the best cognac in a flask here; if you come to my cell after supper, you shall be heartily welcome to a draught of it."

The monk's eyes sparkled with glee; he nodded a hasty assent, and, relieving his guest of the fish and the birds, took him for the second time to the refectory. The same silence, the same rigour, the same fare prevailed; the same double line of lean immutable, saturnine, emaciated faces were in the dim light of the stone hall; the same swift upward glance was cast on him as he entered; the same abstracted severity of repose was observed throughout the meal. He had no wish to break it; only for her sake could he so far restrain the hatred in him towards the men who were her torturers and her captor's tools, as to share their bread, justly as he had earned it, and to sit in such semblance of amity with them as lay in this compulsory companionship. Some among them noted that there was a dark shadow on the strange barcarolo's face that had not been there so deeply on the previous day, and the monk nearest him heard a heavy oath