Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/54

 'And that is true, said the gossips, crossing themselves; 'did you speak to him, mother? Was there any chance to say a word?'

'Yes; I spoke to him.'

'What did he say to you?'

'He reminded me of my dead lamb, and I told him I had not forgot my debt.'

'Was that all?'

'Yes; get you to your beds; I want to get to mine.'

And she nodded to them, and shut her latticed casement behind its wire grating, and shut out the sight of the moonlit sea, and the shining sands that hid her dead. She heard them under her house wall on the edge of the beach, for the night was still young, talking still of the hero of the hills and of his fate. She heard the deeper tones of a man's voice strike across theirs and say:

'No bolder soul ever lived than Saturnino Mastarna. They have taken him, and they will cage him out on Gorgona yonder, or send him to the King's mines. If man could free him, I would free him. What did he do ever? Did he steal from the poor? No. Did he rob the church? No. Did ever a peasant miss his sheep, or a woodman