Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida'.djvu/213

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CHAPTER IX.

BITTER TANNHAUSER

Of his foe there was no trace.

The Monarch stood undisturbed, with the bridle flung over the cedar bough, and the Barbary mare lay motionless, with her right fore leg twisted under her and broken; of his foe there was no trace, and he rode on silently down the Bosphorus shore back into Pera, with the Albanians running by his horse's side, their torches throwing a ruddy glare over the moonlit sea and silvered sands, and on their own picturesque dresses and handsome classic faces, as they held on to his stirrup-leather.

A few moments before, and he had had no thought save of the blood-thirst with which he had ridden his enemy down the shore, and of the just vengeance of an unpardonable wrong; now he had no memory save one.

With the morning he rose, with but this one