Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/144

 he longed to escape from the possibility of capture, as strength returned into his limbs and blood, and brought with it all the natural longings and revolt of manhood. He had his dagger close within his bosom: thus, if no other way, he would be free. Musa was right.

But death was terrible to him, even while less terrible than the galleys.

To the sensuous and glad temperament of the Italian, death must ever seem horrible and cruel; a blank darkness that closes in and ends all things, The love of death, morbid and gloomy, which comes upon the northern is the choice of a man who knows not how to live; who knows not the delight of love and light; who has dwelt in mist and in cold, and never has seen the red rose of a woman's mouth, or of a southern dawn, or of a pomegranate flower glowing in the sun.

It is only to those who have never lived that death ever can seem beautiful.

To Este, who had been happy when his mistress kissed him, when his boat floated over the fields of reeds, when the moon came up over the meadows and the waters, and the throb of a lute beat on the soft air like the