Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/281

270 fiíll noon-day; on the other, mountain-bounded, the low-lying lands, with their broad sun-lit desolate tracks dotted with the herds of swine and grazing buffaloes, with thickets of wild myrtle and green pools of water. There he saw what made him drop suddenly, and hide like a young hare.

What he saw were the barrels of carbines among some acanthus-covered stones that screened a score or so of soldiers, and further onward the solitary figure of a man in the clothing of the Capri fishers. The soldiers lay close, their heads alone above the fallen blocks of shattered marble; the tall form of the Capriote, dark and toweríng against the intense light, came onward, fast, blindly, taking heed of nothing, seeing nothing, in his path, passing straight through the horned cattle as though they were an insect cloud, with his head bare to the heat, and his eyes without sense in them; headlong, as if he were deep in drink, yet with a nameless misery on him that had as terrible a majesty.

Fascinated by it, the Roman boy watched him as he reeled through the sunlight, while the browsing herds were scattered by the tornado of his course. The soldiers watched him also, as he came nearer and nearer straight across the plain, pausing for no