Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/28

Rh heights, sullen depths malarious, impenetrable, death-laden, divine beauty gleaming vine-crowned under southern moonbeams, all passed by them like the fleeting, changeful phantoms of a feverish sleep. They rode on and on, without thought, without refuge, with one impulse only, to leave league on league between them and the abhorrent dens of the Church; the burning breath of the past hours was on them, driving them forward as the curling prairie flames drive the lives they course after; and the riot of liberty was in them both, with every breath of wind that tossed the foliage from their path, with every current of air that drove sweet, and wild, and warm against their faces, as they dashed down by the pole-star's guide straight to the sea, yet southward first, ere they bent round to the shore, since Naples, where she lay amidst her loveliness, was the tiger's lair of príest and king, was death and worse than death.

The horses coursed like greyhounds; their feet scarcely touched the earth; the shallow brooks, the parched soil, the reddening osiers were scattered as they went; neck and neck, their heads stretched like racers, their flanks heaving, their bits foam-covered, they held on at that mad pace, without pause,