Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/181

 same words that she had spoken to Maurice Sanctis.

She said nothing, but poured him out some of the rich red wine, which he drank eagerly.

'It is like drinking sunbeams,' he said, with the first smile that had dawned on his wasted features. 'Tell me, how could you get to Orbetello?'

'Febo, a fisherman of Telamone, took me there.'

'But he will suspect?'

'Nothing—he is stupid, and, if he did, he knows that I know he smuggles goods from Sardinia; he will hold his tongue about me."

'There are many smugglers on the coast?'

'There are few people, but all the men that there are do smuggle—from the islands chiefly, to escape the customs dues. Why not? Do you know that when a Tuscan labourer comes back from working in Sardinia they make him pay duty on his Sardinian wooden shoes?'

He was silent; he was pondering whether one of those smugglers would take him across to France. But he had no