Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/336

Rh reddened the white sand of Augustan amphitheatres. A moment, and the hardier strength, the leonine force, of Erceldoune, so often tested in victory under the red foliage of Canadian forests and the scorching suns of African skies, conquered; he crushed the priest in his sinewy arms till the chest-bones bent, and the breath was stifled, as in the gripe of the Arctic bear; then, with one last effort he swung the Italian off, and raising him by the waist, flung him with all his might downward on to the stone floor, the limbs falling with a dull, crushing, breaking sound as they were dashed against the granite.

Thrown so that his head smote the flags with a shock like iron meeting iron, Villaflor fell insensible, the force with which he was tossed outward stunning his senses, and throwing him a bruised, motionless, huddled mass in the gloom of the dusky cell. The proud and princely ecclesiastic lay powerless, silenced, broken, helpless, like a dead cur, in the heart of the monastery where his word was law, and his will absolute as any sovereign's.

His foe stood above him, his foot on the prostrate throat, that swelled and grew purple with the suffocated breath, the stifled blood. He had lost all