Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/326

Rh stone, with the lustre of the Italian night finding its way dimly through the aperture above;—enough to know that he must rescue her to-night, or never.

"And I will tell you more," hiccuped the monk, laughing low and cunningly, too blind with drink to have much knowledge left of whom he spoke to, or of where he was. "Monsignore comes to-night—he often visits us, you know; we are his special children, and it has a fair odour for so great a man to leave the world for such holy, rigorous retirement!"

"To-night!"

Erceldoune sprang to his feet as a lion springs from its lair; the priest's villanous chuckle rang like a rattlesnake in his ear; in his cups the Umbrian was but an animal—a very low one to boot—and the better instincts which had moved him when the lash had dropped from his hand were drowned and dead.

"Ay, to-night!" laughed the monk, while his head hung on one side, and his eyes closed with the fatuous cunning of intoxication; "he comes for the last time—do you mark me?—for the last time!"

The oath that shook the stone walls thrilled even