Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/296

Rh the throat to that column if I judge it right in the need of my service. We will soon make you find voice, you dog of a rebel! Here; take him, and lash him to tkat pillar; there, in the full sun." He was already bound, in cords that crossed and recrossed, and left him scarce liberty to draw the air through his lungs; it was an easy matter to fasten him to the shaft of the shattered column that stood in the glare of the noon, unshaded even by a branch or a coil of ivy.

"Strip his shoulders, and let the gnats find him out," laughed the Calabrian, moving away to finish his meal and take a mid-day slumber. "We will see if we do not make him give tongue." He was obeyed.

They stripped the linen from his chest and shoulders, and left him in the fullest force of the vertical rays; his wound uncovered, and his head bare. At his feet ran the half-dry brook. They went themselves into the shadow, and lay laughing, swearing, mocking, taunting, chanting obscene songs, and holding up to him in the distance the wine-cans they had drained.

The insults passed by him unnoted, the jeers unheard; in the desolation of his life they were known no more than the sting of an insect is