Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/175

 'I am thankful to you,' she said simply. 'But give me your word first that when I land your sailor shall not follow me.'

'Sailors are not spies,' said the Silician with a haughty anger. 'No; I take no unfair means. But we shall meet again. It is written.'

'Farewell,' she said to him, and she sprang into the boat, and took the tiller-cords.

For herself she would not have done it. For herself she would rather have run all the certain dangers of night upon the moors than have incurred this debt to the man whose frank fair passion seemed to her an intolerable offence. But, left to herself, she knew she could never reach Telamone, much less the sepulchres, that night; already the sun was slanting towards the sea, already the glowing amber of his afternoon beams was falling like molten gold upon the many-coloured sails of the numerous fishing craft that lay close in to shore upon the salt-water lagoon, and further out under the shadow of the twin-peaked rocks.

The boatswain pulled with long and steady stroke against the nor'-wester that was blowing still. It was Ave Maria when she reached Telamone. The mariner carried