Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/18

Rh shelved straight into fathomless darkness; behind, the rash of the priests followed, and the clamour of their shouts shook the night silence;—yet on he went, fearless, reckless, impervious to pain, and feeling drunk with the sweet freedom of the fresh night wind, with the beating of her heart upon his own. To have held her thus one instant he would have given bis life up the next. Of that downward passage he had no knowledge, no memory in aftertime; he followed it as men in a nightmare follow some hideous path that ends in chaos; he touched the earth at last, clearing the three last granite rungs of the rock-ladder with a leap that landed him on the breadth of turf that stretched beneath. He rushed across it at the speed of a wild deer, making straight for the cypress knot where he had bidden the horses be waiting. A monk held him close in chase—so close, that the priest reached the ground well-nigh with him. He did not see or dream his danger; Sulla did, and, with one mighty bound, was on the Italian's naked chest, as he had dealt with wolf and with bear in bis own Servian woods. The monk fell well-nigh senseless, and the dog tore onward through the moonlight with a loud bay of joy.