Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/261

 the hole. She raised it above her head one instant, high above her head and their reach, as she had held a pitcher of water a thousand times if one.

'You are false and accursed,' she said to them, and her voice was deep and clear, and smote them as if it were a sword. 'You are false and accursed; and she owed no man or woman a thread in her garments, a crust in her mouth. She was honest and faithful and true, and cheated not a dog nor a mule of his rights. But all she has left—take! Take and scramble for it like the thieves you are; and may the bread and the wine that you buy with it blister your mouths and consume your bodies.'

Then with a single gesture of magnificent rage she dashed the pitcher down through the sunlight on to the floor amidst them; it fell shattered in a score of pieces on the stones, and the coins rolled hither and thither, and their metal gleamed in the sunlight. The women threw themselves on them. The old man screamed.

Musa called Leone to her side, took the linen, and the summer and winter clothing that belonged to her, took the lute and the distaff, and the trifles that were her own,