Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/304

Rh Against the glitter of the sea and the brown desolation of the plains, they saw Idalia.

From the captive they had bound a long bitter cry rang—a cry that the lash would not have forced from him, though it should have cut his heart in twain.

Breathless and toil-worn, she pressed her way to him and fell at his feet, and strove with both hands to wrench apart the knots that held him. The Calabrian seized her; he knew her but by ñame, and her face was strange to him.

"Woman!—how dare you? Who are you?"

"I am Idalia Vassalis. Take me—bind me—scourge me. But let the guiltless go."

The rough mountaineer looked at her amazed, awed, dazzled, doubting his own senses.

"You are the Countess Vassalis?" There in her masque-robes, with the gold all soiled and blackened, the scarlet aflame against the sun, exhausted by that mid-day travel through the blaze of noon, yet with so much command in her eyes, with so much majesty in her glance, she moved him to fear as the sight of Cleopatra, captive, would have moved a Latin boor of the cohorts.

"Yes, yes, yes! Are there no men here who can swear to me? I am the rebel you seek. Take me;