scorn unutterable, yet even now no touch of fear; the rich-hued draperies of her masque-dress were torn, as though she had just wrenched herself free from some polluting grasp; her hair was loosened, and against her bosom she held clenched the blade of the Venetian stiletto, its point turned inward against her heart. Above her stood her great tyrant's lofty form.
As the bolts broke, and the splintered beechwood flew in fragments, Giulio Villaflor swept round, his forehead red, his eyes alight with a Borgia's fury of baffled and licentious love—an amazed rage on him at the stranger who dared stand between him and his captive, between him and his will. With one glance, in which his gaze met hers, and with a lion's spring, Erceldoune was on the mighty Prelate, his hand at the other's throat, as a forest hound's fangs fasten in a wolf's; the shock of the sudden collision dragged the Italian back staggering and breathless ere he heard or saw his antagonist. Then that sheer blood-instinct woke in Villaflor which wakes with the first sense of conflict in all men not cowards from their birth; he closed with this unknown foe, whose gripe was at his throat, holding him powerless.
Not a word was breathed, yet both knew—
