第58章

'Well, then, listen to me: you have been my guardian, my friend, my monitor;for this new character I was not prepared--think not,' she added quickly, as she saw his dark eyes glitter with the fierceness of his passion--'think not that I scorn--that I am untouched--that I am not honored by this homage;but, say--canst thou hear me calmly?'

'Ay, though thy words were lightning, and could blast me!'

'I love another!' said Ione, blushingly, but in a firm voice.

'By the gods--by hell!' shouted Arbaces, rising to his fullest height; 'dare not tell me that--dare not mock me--it is impossible!--Whom hast thou seen--whom known? Oh, Ione, it is thy woman's invention, thy woman's art that speaks--thou wouldst gain time; I have surprised--I have terrified thee. Do with me as thou wilt--say that thou lovest not me; but say not that thou lovest another!'

'Alas!' began Ione; and then, appalled before his sudden and unlooked-for violence, she burst into tears.

Arbaces came nearer to her--his breath glowed fiercely on her cheek; he wound his arms round her--she sprang from his embrace. In the struggle a tablet fell from her bosom on the ground: Arbaces perceived, and seized it--it was the letter that morning received from Glaucus. Ione sank upon the couch, half dead with terror.

Rapidly the eyes of Arbaces ran over the writing; the Neapolitan did not dare to gaze upon him: she did not see the deadly paleness that came over his countenance--she marked not his withering frown, nor the quivering of his lip, nor the convulsions that heaved his breast. He read it to the end, and then, as the letter fell from his hand, he said, in a voice of deceitful calmness:

'Is the writer of this the man thou lovest?'

Ione sobbed, but answered not.

'Speak!' he rather shrieked than said.

'It is--it is!

'And his name--it is written here--his name is Glaucus!'

Ione, clasping her hands, looked round as for succour or escape.

'Then hear me,' said Arbaces, sinking his voice into a whisper; 'thou shalt go to thy tomb rather than to his arms! What! thinkest thou Arbaces will brook a rival such as this puny Greek? What! thinkest thou that he has watched the fruit ripen, to yield it to another! Pretty fool--no! Thou art mine--all--only mine: and thus--thus I seize and claim thee!' As he spoke, he caught Ione in his arms; and, in that ferocious grasp, was all the energy--less of love than of revenge.

But to Ione despair gave supernatural strength: she again tore herself from him--she rushed to that part of the room by which she had entered--she half withdrew the curtain--he had seized her--again she broke away from him--and fell, exhausted, and with a loud shriek, at the base of the column which supported the head of the Egyptian goddess. Arbaces paused for a moment, as if to regain his breath; and thence once more darted upon his prey.

At that instant the curtain was rudely torn aside, the Egyptian felt a fierce and strong grasp upon his shoulder. He turned--he beheld before him the flashing eyes of Glaucus, and the pale, worn, but menacing, countenance of Apaecides. 'Ah,' he muttered, as he glared from one to the other, 'what Fury hath sent ye hither?'

'Ate,' answered Glaucus; and he closed at once with the Egyptian.

Meanwhile, Apaecides raised his sister, now lifeless, from the ground; his strength, exhausted by a mind long overwrought, did not suffice to bear her away, light and delicate though her shape: he placed her, therefore, on the couch, and stood over her with a brandishing knife, watching the contest between Glaucus and the Egyptian, and ready to plunge his weapon in the bosom of Arbaces should he be victorious in the struggle. There is, perhaps, nothing on earth so terrible as the naked and unarmed contest of animal strength, no weapon but those which Nature supplies to rage. Both the antagonists were now locked in each other's grasp--the hand of each seeking the throat of the other--the face drawn back--the fierce eyes flashing--the muscles strained--the veins swelled--the lips apart--the teeth set--both were strong beyond the ordinary power of men, both animated by relentless wrath; they coiled, they wound, around each other; they rocked to and fro--they swayed from end to end of their confined arena--they uttered cries of ire and revenge--they were now before the altar--now at the base of the column where the struggle had commenced: they drew back for breath--Arbaces leaning against the column--Glaucus a few paces apart.