Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 3.djvu/85

74 He smiled on her; and the light of the smile had a strange, sad beauty, that touched her with a pang, keen in pain and yet not without its sweetness.

"Those were nothing. Such as they were, you cured them. I think I nave the strength of lions now."

He left her, and, going up where the earth rose precipitously, looked down the great dim aisles of forest that stretched away on every side, with the far unerring sight of a man who had known what it was to go through the heart of Persia with his life hanging on the sureness of his eye and aim, and who had ridden over the grass seas of Mexico and steered down the lonely windings of the Amazons, when with every moment a spear thrown from behind him, or an arrow launched from the dense screen of foliage, might have ended his years there and then for ever. He stood motionless some instants, not a sign of bird, or beast, or vegetable life in the woodlands round escaping him; he had learned all such forest lore of Indians and Guachos, and he had a traveller's swift sweep of vision, with a soldier's rapid tactic and decision; the horses were grazing quietíiy near, too tired to stray, and watched; moreover, by Sulla, who had, unbidden, taken their guardianship. In a few moments longer he returned to her.