Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/193

 as when the suns of August sucked up the venom from the emerald soaking swamp.

She found the other spacious chambers connected with the first grave; tombs with stone biers around the walls, and the same strange fantastic paintings on the wall, and many earthenware cups and trays, and some lamps and goblets of gold. These last had not been oxydised as the first that she had seen, and therefore did not vanish at her touch; no doubt because, though she could see no ray of light into these inner chambers, some air had always come, for the dead were not there, not even their bones and ashes; these had long ago gone forth on the breath of the wind, as her warrior king had done.

To any scholar, or even to a traveller unscholarly, these tombs would have seemed capable enough of simple explanation; but to her they were as an enchanted city, as a world apart, as a thing given to herself from some unseen power that set the planets rolling, and made the storm arise and sweep bare the sea.

When the bare cold rocks blocked her passage, she felt very sure that beyond it, though she might not behold further, were