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.
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