Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/12

 'On the moors; miles inland.'

'May I visit you there?'

'No.'

He was silent a moment. Then he spoke again with fire and force:

'I am a stranger, and you answer me rightly. But listen to me one little minute. Nay, I am an honest man. I am Daniello the son of Febo, of the house of Villamagna. I have been a seaman all my days, and now I command the brig yonder, and own part of her too, my fair Ausiliatrice; as good a brig as there sails on the high seas, trading with fruit as far as the misty cold northern coasts. That is all. But it is enough. I would not change with princes. I am my own master; and yonder, in my island, I have withal to keep a wife in comfort. Now, look you, if you will be that wife I will be a happy man. What say you?'

He was only the rough skipper of a coaster that made the chief profits of her voyages for her merchant owners, not for him. But he was a Sicilian; he had fire in his veins, fancy in his brain, passions in his heart; he had been born under the flame and snow of the mighty Etna, and he had been lulled to his sleep from infancy with