Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/84

 She said to herself that it would be better the child should never have known that her father dwelt on that stony face of Medusa. What good could it do? As the child would grow older the thought would torment and fester in her, and lead her to evil, so she thought; and being a woman with a strong power of silence, the silence of one who has long lived alone with God, she never breathed the secret to any living soul.

Slowly the memory of Saturnino would die away, she knew, when he should be no more a living wonder on the hills, to feed their fancies with fresh legends of violence and romance. Saturnino was caged upon that isle whose strange shape lies on the blue waves, carved like a woman's head, with hair out-floating on the deep, and blank eyes staring up at Heaven. Costa has painted it so, and its name of Gorgon is old as the rocks are old.

There, galley-slaves (keeping their old name also) are mewed in a bitter company, and every now and then one escapes, and most likely is drowned, or shot, as he struggles in the waves; and every now and then strangers, curious and indifferent, come