Page:Achmed Abdullah--Wings.djvu/187

Rh afraid—when his wife confirmed his subconscious suspicion in a matter-of-fact way.

"Why, yes, my friend," she said, "you are quite right. This land—this village—these rocks are living, living. I've tried to tell you so before. Corsica has a heart—and that heart does not love you—it does not like you—and I—"

"You—you—what about you?" he cried, suddenly furious.

She pulled his long Gallic mustache.

"Raoul," she said in a burst of lean, wiry vivacity, and looking straight at him, "I am a woman—and a Corsican. And this this land of mine—it will lie for me—it will kill for me, and"—she hesitated, then continued—"it will be silent for me!"

And when, quiet once more, but puzzled, he asked her to explain what she meant by her last words, she gave him a rapid little kiss and told him that it was time for his afternoon walk.

For, straight through the hottest months of the year, he had the habit of long, daily afternoon walks, at a time when all the villagers were taking their siesta behind closed shutters, and when nobody was abroad except himself and the little, pale-blue butterflies.