Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/19

 'It is a cave you want?' he stammered, 'with coffins, and painted walls, and pipkins strewn about?'

'Yes, yes,' they said eagerly; 'you know where to lead us. Come, go on, and we will follow you. Your goats can come to no danger here in this solitude. Why are you doubting about such a simple thing?'

Zefferino grew very white, his hands clenched nervously together, his teeth chattered as with cold; he was afraid of his own perfidy and of her vengeance. But the silver scudo!—it tempted him as the 'Dio del Oro' tempts alike in desolate country places as in crowded cities. What would it not buy! The boy, whose stomach was never full, and whose appetite was always keen, shook with the intensity of his longing.

'And the place is as much mine as it is hers;' he thought, with a sophism that came to him by nature.

Yet she had trusted him, and she had threatened him. Between his desire and his dread the little fellow was like one torn in twain by wild horses.

'I dare not!' he said at last, with a piteous sobbing and shivering.