Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/306

Rh her; she had no consciousness except of the man who, for her sake, was bound in the cruel scorching noonday well-nigh to the pangs of a crucifixion. "Is he to suffer for those who have wronged him? He does so when he suffers for me! If I be your enemy, I am tenfold his; will not that quell your rage against him? I have ruined him; that should give him grace in your sight? From first to last he has been wronged by me. Plundered, wounded, left for dead by those who were of my people; used by me, forsaken by me, driven to peril and bondage by me—has he not more to hate me for than you? In the nobility of his heart he shields me still, because he once has pledged me shelter, because his honour still is greater even than his immeasurable wrongs; but he does so only because he is above even his own just vengeance, only because he will not purchase freedom even at cost of lives that are his curse." She sank down at his feet once more; she strove to rend his bonds asunder;—he seemed to her great as never man was great in that silent martyrdom, endured for those who had betrayed him. He looked down on her, doubting his own senses, doubting that the burning of the sun made him, in delirium, dream the words he heard, the face he saw.

"Free him!" she cried aloud, with that ferocity