Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/13

2 cheeked, eager and lustful for slaughter; in a long dead time he had been a chief among ferocious soldiery, who had imbrued his hands deep in blood, and the old savage instincts flared alight, and the old brute greeds breathed free again, as for once after long captivity they broke the bondage of the priesthood. He took the leadership among the herd of half-awakened and bewildered monks, as the long-stifled impulses of war and murder rose in him, and glared wolf-like from his eyes, reddened with a light that was well-nigh insanity. He lived once more in a thousand dead days of battle, of rapine, and of cruelty, as he strode downward into the hall, heaving aloft a great iron bar with which he had armed himself, in default of other weapon. Erceldoune, as he turned his head, and saw the lamplight glow on the lean ravenous face, knew that here lay his worst foe; the rest might be driven like a flock of sheep if once terror fairly mastered them, but in this man he read the bloodthirst of the tiger, the fiercer and the more ruthless for its long repression. With the keen glance of a soldier the warrior-monk sprang forward to secure the doorway; once netted, he knew that the prisoners could be dealt with at pleasure. The weight of the iron bar was lifted, to