Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/111

 like a cockleshell; the noise of the wind all the while like rushing cataracts. The sky was livid with lightning, the thunder pealed like the cannon of vast armies. Our little skif overturned; we could not right her, we were thrown headlong into the hissing water. She was flung about 'for a few moments, and then dashed like a plaything far out of our reach. We were in the deep sea, faint for want of food and almost weary to insensibility. How I gained the shore I cannot tell. But I did. Saturnino I never saw. Later I heard that'

'I saved him!' said Musa; who had held her breath and listened with parted lips.

'Yes, I know!'

'Yes,' she proceeded unheeding, 'I plucked him out of the sea, and I hid him here, and he paid me by stealing the gold of the tombs.'

'He told me that. We met up in the mountains, up under the Labbro; he had made me acquainted with all the haunts and hiding-places of the hills. We had endured unutterable misery, both of us. To me women had been kind—they are always so to a man in misfortune' [in his thought he said,