Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/182

maskers. Not a man wavered as the pointed file of steel pressed towards them: their masks flung aside, lest in that moment of supreme danger any should deem them guilty of the wish to hide beneath disguise, their right arms lifted, their brave faces set, the Revolutionists waited the approach of the Royalists—waited till there was scarce a foot's breadth between their circle and the naked blades levelled against them. Then, with a marvellous unison, as she raised her hand, they launched themselves forward, Viana in their van, and the weapons with which the haste of extremity had armed them fell with furious strength and lightning speed crash down on the ranks of the soldiers. Strange weapons—the embossed barrels of old Florentine arquebuses, the butt-ends of toy ivory pistols, the bronzed weight of lifted statuettes, the gold-handled knives of the banquet-tables, the massive metal of Cellini vases, the arabesqued steel of mediæval rapiers,—anything, everything that could have been torn down in the moment, from the art-treasures round, were hurled—as stones are hurled from a barricade,—down on the advancing troops of the king with mighty force, with tremendous issue. The Bourbon legionaries reeled and wavered under that pitiless storm, that fell like thunder-bolts upon