Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/271

 Musa walked through the still sultry night.

There was a haze of heat over the heavens that obscured the stars, and there was no moon. When she reached the entrance of Santa Tarsilla it was midnight and quite dark. There were no lights in any of the houses; far down the coast there was the gleam of the pharos of Orbetello: all else on sea and earth was in impenetrable gloom.

She, who had known the ways of the place from infancy, made no error in her going. She took her path straight to that field of death where they had laid Joconda.

The walls of the cemetery were low and white; one of them was washed by the sea. Her eyes, grown accustomed to the blackness of the moonless air, discerned the outline of the walls, and over the inland one, nearest to her, she leaped with the agility of her strong youth, and slowly took her road over the rough clods and the rough grass of the enclosure.

Then she lit a lantern she had brought with her, and by its light found her way to the freshest grave that was there, hard by the sea wall.

The earth lay all broken up into hard