Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/272

 clods and heavy lumps as the earth, when sun-baked by a scorching midsummer, always lies, beat it as spade and hoe may. She stood by it, looking down on it timidly and tenderly with yearning eyes awhile; then she lifted her lantern and went to the little white-washed shed which served as a funeral chapel.

There was a toolhouse close by it, the door of which was never shut; she went in and got a pickaxe and other tools and returned with them to the grave of Joconda.

She began to loosen the earth; that brutal earth which lay so heavily on the breast of her best friend.

Southward on the sea there was now a crowd of lights burning yellow against the deep blue of the summer night; the men of the Orbetellano were spearing the fish frightened and blinded by the blaze of lanterns. But there was no sound in all the place except the ripple of the water against the low mortared wall. Once a dog, far away in the fields, barked.

She laboured on undisturbed.

The earth loosened when so dry does not readily adhere together again, and the clods were all easy to remove. In an hour's time