Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/58

Rh paused, his lips a little parted, his teeth ground, his whole form quivering with the longing to spring; his temperament was intensely vivacíous, and years had done nothing to chill if they had done much to harden him, and little by little be bad so gathered up bis hatred towards the man be had injured, that it was as great as though that injury had been received, instead of given, by him. He stooped over the sleeper, noting the unarmed powerlessness of that slumber, while his glance wandered by sheer instinct towards a loose, weighty, mallet-like mass of granite lying near him. One blow from it in a sure hand, and the life would be still before it could waken for a struggle, a shout, a sigh. "I might crush out bis brains as easily as a fly, and, by God, I could do it, too!" he thought, in a fierce blindness of hatred that remembered only that night ride through the pomegranates, and forgot all the vileness of bis own brutality towards this man who lay sleeping at bis feet.

Witbout waking, Erceldoune stirred slightly; his right band that lay open, clenched; be turned with a restless sigh—he was dreaming of Idalia still. At the movement bis foe cowered, and drew back involuntarily; pusillanimity ran in his blood, and he