The Rise of Iskander by Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli
page 64 of 100 (64%)
page 64 of 100 (64%)
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and innocent as herself.
But repose fell not upon the eye-lids of Nicaeus in spite of all labours. The heart of the Athenian Prince was distracted by two most powerful of passions -- Love and Jealousy -- and when the Eremite, pointing out to his guest his allotted resting-place, himself retired to his regular and simple slumbers, Nicaeus quitted the cavern, and standing upon the bank of the river, gazed in abstraction upon the rushing waters foaming in the moonlight. The Prince of Athens, with many admirable qualities, was one of those men who are influenced only by their passions, and who, in the affairs of life, are invariably guided by their imagination instead of their reason. At present all thought and feeling, all considerations, and all circumstances, merged in the overpowering love he entertained for Iduna, his determination to obtain her at all cost and peril, and his resolution that she should never again meet Iskander, except as the wife of Nicaeus. Compared with this paramount object, the future seemed to vanish. The emancipation of his country, the welfare of his friend, even the maintenance of his holy creed, all those great and noble objects for which, under other circumstances, he would have been prepared to sacrifice his fortune and his life, no longer interested or influenced him; and while the legions of the Crescent were on the point of pouring into Greece to crush that patriotic and Christian cause over which Iskander and himself had so often mused, whose interests the disinterested absence of Iskander, occasioned solely by his devotion to Nicaeus, had certainly endangered, and perhaps, could the events of the last few hours be known, even sacrificed, the Prince of Athens resolved, unless Iduna would consent to become his, at once to carry off the daughter of Hunniades to some distant country. Nor indeed, even with his easily excited vanity, was Nicaeus sanguine of obtaining his purpose by less violent means. He was |
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