Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/17

6 panting and agonised, for the command; he sprang on the monk's breast, and threw him prostrate, his fangs clenched in the man's throat almost ere the words that loosed him from his guard were fairly uttered. The fair, still, lustrous night gleamed soft and starlit through the narrow space of the opened portals; the world and all its liberty lay beyond.

Blows were rained on him, yells hooted in his ear, hands clutched his clothes, his limbs, his sash, to wrench him back; an axe hurled at him struck him, grazing a wound an inch deep in his shoulder; a herd of devils shrieked, cursed, wrestled, and pursued behind him. He heeded nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing; he only guarded her from the weapons that were flung in his rear, so that none should touch her save such as struck first at him, and bore her like the wind through the half-opened door, out into the night air, and down the flight of rock-hewn stairs; the hound, coursing before him down the slope of the black rugged precipitous steps, slippery with moss, and worn uneven by the treading feet of many centuries. One step unsure, and they would be hurled head downward on to the stones below; there was no moonlight on the depth of intense shadow that