Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/287

276 soldiers have made that friend of yours their prisoner."

She sprang to her feet, convulsed to passíonate energy, to fresh existence.

"Prisoner? The King's prisoner?—he!" The boy's voice sank to a whisper; he had not thought it would move her thus; he knew she was well used to send men out to die.

"They took him on the shore there, by the ruins. They caught a brave man like a snared wolf, the cowards! He fought—gods! how he fought; but they threw him like a bull in the lasso. Will he keep silence, think you?"

"He will keep silence till they lay him mute in death. Ah! God reward you that you came to tell me!" She put the wondering child aside, and swept across the vault to the far-off shadow where the Greek had crouched; she stood before him ere he had seen her move. "I break my word to you. I go from here."

"Go!"—he echoed dizzily; the violence of his fall had stupified him. "Go! Not where I do not follow."

"Follow, if you will."

"Where, then?"