Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/284

Rh bayonets fixed in his rear, drove him on in their centre, as the Aragon bull is driven on at the point of the lance from pasture to circus. So they took their way through the white breath of the sunlight over the brown lonely plains, with their prisoner set in their midst. He had never spoken once.

The child Berto rose slowly from his hiding-place in the low myrtle-bushes; many a time his hand had been on his rifle to send a message of death through these wolves of the mountains who wore the King's livery, and dishonoured the title of soldier; as many times he had paused, knowing that one shot could avail nothing, and that, were it fired, he would only share the captivity of the man whom he sought to release. As his slight, girlish frame rose up out of the leafy screen and against the sunny blue of the sky, his teeth were set tight, his pale features had grown like marble.

"They go to take him to their captain;—they will make him tell where her refuge is. If he will not tell, they have rods, they have the water-torture—drop, drop, drop, ah! till one is mad!" he muttered aloud, in his breathless rage. He knew nothing of this stranger, save that he guessed him by his dress to be the sailor whom he had heard had rescued