Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/288

 until he came to broad pools, laden with golden and white water-lilies, and cliffs of sandstone broken by strata of palombino, of macigno, and of travertine.

There he whistled like the thrush.

Via! cried the voice of a girl from beneath his feet, and presently the face and throat of Musa raised themselves from out of the acanthus and alaternus and enchanter's nightshade that grew about the entrance of the tomb. She lifted him up a little brown earthenware can; he took it and milked one of his ewes, and handed the can back to her full of milk. She had been up an hour; her brilliant face was like a flower in its freshness, for she bathed herself in the sea every daybreak; her hair was brushed back in its massive undulations and just touched her throat, as Joconda had always kept it; her clothes were still of the linen-cloth Joconda had spun.

She took the milk and gave him a little copper coin, and came up with a piece of black bread in her hand, and ate the bread and drank the milk, sitting on a stone amongst the wild clematis, and sharing her meal with Leone.

She had made friends with Zefferino;