Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/128

 below; and he heard that sweet lullaby beneath his feet thrilling through the earth, and was so terrified that he ran headlong, his flock behind him, and told for many a day in his own Pistoiese mountain home on winter nights that in Maremma the dead people sang below the soil, in the very heart and core of the round globe.

So, slowly, by one care and another of hers, her sick man rallied, and cast off little by little the weight of disease, and stretched out his thin transparent hands for more food than she found it easy to supply to him.

Slowly, as the September days grew shorter and the winter solstice came nearer, his resurrection began in the shadow of the Etruscan grave.

Towards daybreak at the close of the fifth week of his sojourn there, his fever grew lower; a quieter sleep came on his heavy eyelids, his limbs shivered less; he got some rest. She left him to let the fowls out into the air. The sun was once more coming up behind the dark edge of the moors. She scanned them with beating heart lest she should see any new-comer on them. Dread woke up with every dawn for her now; her old simple peace was gone for ever; the