Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/373

362 fair face, with the yellow hair flung back, transfigured like the face of some angel of vengeance. He came eagerly through the gloom of the porchway, followed by the Italians, who obeyed him as though he were a god; he had received the baptism of blood when his mother had been shot down by the Papal troops; he was the son of a great patriot who had fallen at the gates of Rome; and whilst yet in the first years of his infancy he had stood at the knee of the Liberator, and laughed to see the balls pour down upon the Savarelli roof around them, while the hands of Ugo Bassi had been laid in benediction upon the golden curls of the young child of liberty. His word was the law, his sword was the sceptre, of the men who came with him now.

Breathless, covered with dust, bruised, wounded, but with a marvellous luminance beaming through the calm unchanged repose of his colourless face, he came to her in the flush of his triumph. "Eccellenza, we bring you the best gifts of life!—we bring you liberty. We bring you vengeance."

Then as he saw the dead man lying there his proud and glad voice dropped, he made a soft backward movement of his hand, signing his followers to pause upon the threshold, he bent his delicate head in reverence.