Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/186

 ships go slowly out, far out to sea, and give the waves their lost ones.'

'Great ships whose freights should be death? Yes; the thought is fine. Would you mantle them with black like the homeward-coming vessels of Theseus? They should be the sailing ships of old, with "canvas stately in the wind," and their masts twined with myrtle, Greek-like'

'Tell me more of them?' she said softly, motioning with her hand to the painted shapes upon the walls dimly glimmering into colour here and there as the lamp-light touched them.

'There is so little! My own Mantua was once theirs, named from their Mantus, that grim god of the land of shades—you see him yonder—we Latins called him Pluto. With other names, their deities and ours were all the same.'

'But was Christ amongst them?'

'No, dear; Christ was not born of a woman until this nation had been beaten, captured, absorbed, trodden under the iron heel of Rome. Christianity is a thing of yesterday; it looks beside Etruscan creeds as this year's bulrush beside the holm oak of the hills.'