Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/66

 flight; a rich shawl was thrown aside upon the beaten earth of the ground, a length of gold brocade was tossed against a rough-hewn table, overturned; close to the child's bed there was a carved ivory toy such as are made in India. In the child's hand was a dry half-eaten crust.

Joconda looked neither to the gold nor stuffs. Her soul was sick at the sight of the pools of blood still wet, and at the sight of the dreaming creature who was left a heritage of crime and woe.

'The blood of Saturnino!' she thought; it seemed to her that it must be as a stream of lava and of poison in the veins of a female child.

'This must be the child,' said Joconda to herself, and stood looking; she was afraid of the white Molossus dog.

The child was two years of age, or two and a half, she thought; not more. It had been forsaken, no doubt, when the mistresses and wives of the band had run for their lives after the men's struggle with the carabiniers.

Joconda stood wavering, on account of the dog; at length she spoke to him, and he looked at her. Then he ceased to growl,