Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/21

10 eddying rings as they broke its slumbering quiet; through the vaporous haze that hung oyer the black expanse of the morass and the plain till they seemed to hunt down the white wraiths of its smoke that curled and uncurled before them; through the tall reedy grasses that broke as they crashed them, and sent dreamy odour out on the aír as they bowed their broad ribands and their feathery clusters; through the intense silence, till the water-hen flew with a scream from her rest, and the downy owl brushed by with a startled rush, and the landrail woke with his shrill cry from his sleep in the midst of the millet-stalks; through the balmy southern night they rode as those can only ride behind whom yawn a prison and a grave, before whom smile the world and all its liberty.

All through the night they rode on, till the slender arc of the young moon was sinking towards the west, and countless stars were shining larger and clearer towards the dawn, burning through the blue-black darkness of the sky, veiled ever and again by sweeping trails of mist. Under the grey dim colossal arches of the Ferratino gates fresh horses waited. The tired beasts were changed in haste and without question, and