Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/112

 rather, to one who is young and well-looking]. 'We were but a few days together; he told me of the gold out of the tomb, and I blamed him hotly, and we came to fierce words; he went down to the Orbetellano to sell that gold, though I told him to attempt it would be his own undoing; and I went up to his old favourite lair on the Rocca del Giulio, where it is cold as winter even in the canicular heats. You will understand, of course, that all this time we moved with the greatest caution, and only at night, like the bats and the owls. Well, in the Orbetellano he was taken as I heard, but I heard it long afterwards, and I remained awaiting him up at the Giulio. There were some stone cabins there, very wretched ones, where his band had dwelt, and there were still remnants of their booty and of the things they used. There was even a child's toy in ivory of Indian workmanship; taken, I suppose, when they plundered a train or stopped a travelling-carriage. It seemed strange to see it, that frail toy, in such a solitude! Well, there I passed the autumn and the winter; I lived miserably, that is of course. I picked up the pine cones and cut the brushwood; and there were old friends of Mastarna's