Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/22

Rh the young unworn ones raced on through the gloom as fleetly as wild horses sweep over prairie plaíns.

Behind them hunted Death; with the morning light the whole land would be as one host risen against them, as one snare spread to trap them; the bloodhounds of a Church were on their track, and the hate of a king and a priest ran them down; yet scarce a touch of fear, scarce a breath of the chillness of terror were on them; they had drunk deep of the rich wine of danger, and one at least was blind with the blindness of passion.

The world was still about them; all things slept. The earth was hushed and without sound, as though the deep tranquillity of death had fallen everywhere. Only through the calmness came the low sigh of the air through grasses, and the liquid murmur of unseen waters foaming down from height to height, or stealing under the broad leafage of arum-shadowed channels. Nothing awakened around them, save the downy-winged aziola, or the changeful bands of the fireflies gleaming like gold among the grey plumes of olives, or above the tender green seas of ripening millet. The summer was still young, and the night was divine, as the nights of the south alone are; the barren plains and the vaporous pools were