Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/313

302 "She says justly; it is she who ought to suffer. Loose him, and bring him out of the sun." They unloosened the knotted cords that swathed his limbs to the column. When they were wholly unfastened, he swayed forward, his head fell on his breast, his body bent like a reed, there was foam upon his beard, and his eyes were closed. A great stillness came then upon the soldiery about the place; through them, under their breath, they whispered that their work was done—that he was dead.

She alone thought not as they thought, that his sacrifice for her was crowned by the last sacrifico of all.

"He is not dead," she said, simply.

There was a strange calmness and certainty in the words that thrilled through those who heard them. They looked at her, neither touching nor opposing her; she had terror for them—terror for them as of some great, fallen, half-shameful, and half-glorious thing. Every intense passion carries its reaction of fear upon those who witness it: hers had such on them now. They dimly felt that if they, in their wanton cruelty, had been the actual murderers of this man, she knew herself far more utterly his destroyer than they could be, who had but harmed his mortal form.