Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/268

 always eaten sparingly of the simplest food; the idea that she might have only a bit of oaten bread for weeks together did not frighten her. She was very well aware that she would have to depend on what her own hands could gather.

The old mule was lying down on the litter of dry grasses; the dog was asleep, for he was old too and soon drowsy; the twilight of the tomb was like the soft shadows that herald the dawn; the painted shapes upon the walls played on their pipes, and wreathed their garlands, and danced in the border of lotus flower; outside, the burning day was fierce and white, the animal life of the moors was all hidden and still, there was only the rustle of the snake through the tall stalks of the distaff-canes, the hoot of the cicala swinging high on the caroba boughs: the sound of the insects' odd singing came faintly into the stillness of the tombs.

'If only she were here!' thought Musa.

Who had been those vanished people who had known so well how to cherish their dead and put them gently away in their painted chambers with the toys of their infancy, or the weapons of their manhood, or the