Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/227

 A gleam of sullen, suspicious wonder flared like a dull flame in his eyes.

'Why should you do this? You cannot care.'

'You are hunted,' she answered simply.

That was the truth; he was hunted, and so she aided him.

'You can sleep there,' she said to him, and pointed to the couch of stone on which the golden warrior had rested. 'I am sorry that I have no food. I will try and be quick. But I am tired, and it is far.'

His eyes gazed at her sullenly, wonderingly, yet with a gleam of gratitude, like the gleam in the eyes of a fierce dog which, after being lashed and chained through years, is loosened by a tender hand, and wonders, distrusts, and yet is thankful.

'If you do come back you will be brave as men are rarely,' he said, with a gloom deep as night upon his darkening face.

'I will come,' she said simply; then she looked up once in his face, put the lamp down on the stone, and went.

'Perhaps I should have killed her,' thought Saturnino. 'It would have been safer, and it would have been easy—that small throat.'