Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/327

316 Time crept darkly on. The odour of the myrtles was like the mournful fragrance from flowers strewn upon a coffin. From below, the monotonous sound of the slow regular steps sounded faintly; in the gloom bats flew to and fro, and an owl, who had her nest among the rafters, flitted in and out through the bars of the unglazed casement, seeking and bringing food for her callow brood. The silence was unbroken; the darkness filled with a stealing, sickening sense of unseen life, as rat and lizard darted over the stones, and the downy wings of the night-birds brushed the air; she felt as though she should lose reason itself in that horrible stillness, that fettered misery, that impotent inaction.

Amidst all, there came on her a strange dreamy wonder how the life of the world was passing. For twelve days she had been as dead as though she had lain in her tomb. When they had seized her at Antina, the time had been pregnant of great things; whether they had been brought forth or strangled in their birth she could not tell. All that had been done amongst men was a blank to her.

Then all such memories drifted far from her again. One remembrance alone remained—that of the man who suffered his martyrdom for her rather than render up to justice one by whom he believed