Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/30

 'You betrayed my shelter!' she said again, and her hands fell on his shoulders and she swayed him to and fro till the glittering vault of the night seemed to rock about him.

'Oh, miserable!' she cried to him; and the deep intense scorn of her voice seemed to roll like the notes of an organ over the solitary land. 'You betrayed me for silver pieces as Judas betrayed his Lord! Do you know that I could kill you, you mean and wretched thing; you so small and so light, and I as strong as the buffalo? Do you know that I can dash out your brains on these stones, and hurl you dead into the sea, and wherefore should I not, you vile and faithless worm, viler than the adder and the newt?'

As she spoke she swung him backwards and forwards, and he was dumb and blind with horror; his eyes gazed up into the sky, but saw nothing.

He believed she would take his life.

'I trusted you, I trusted you!' she said to him; and it seemed to him as if her grasp were closing at his throat, and pressing the breath and the air and the life out of it.