Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/301

290 rarely pause till they lose their sport to the king-player, Death.

They unbound him from the column, and fastened him afresh to a low block of stone, strípped to the waist, so that his chest and back should be left undefended for the curling thongs of the lash; his face was set still seawards, so that the fair breadth of the free waters mocked him with its liberty. His head hung heavily downward; throes of pain, like the scorching of fire, throbbed through his wounded flesh; the rushing of pent-up blood filled his lungs, his brain, his ears, his throat to suffocation. There was a pause of some moments; they were weaving together some cords and some leather belts into the thing they needed. The chief sauntered near him once more, and looked at him doubtingly: he knew the Capri mariners could be dogged in brainless obstinacy as any Capri mule, but he saw that this man's endurance was far more than the mere mute, contumacious persistence of a sullen ignorance. He struck away, half compassionately, a gnat that was alighting on his prisoner's bare breast.

"You are too fine a brute to be cut in pieces with the lash. Look you, they have tough arms, have my men; they will make their belts lay your lungs open