Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/198

 loyal and honest mariners. He and his did not look with the common Sicilian sympathy on the malandrini. They did not abhor their crimes, indeed, as northern nations or people of the cities might do. They believed a man might be a mountain-robber, yet have Heaven's grace touch him all the same. Still, no one of them had ever had dealings with or friendship for the brigands that undermine public security all over Sicily, as the scolytus will do the trunk of a beech-tree; and to him Saturnino of Santa Fiora was a sinner who merited his chains.

That this great brute, with the dark hair on his naked breast like a wild beast, and his cavernous, cruel eyes that glowed like a wild beast's in the dark, should claim her, his Musoncella—his scarcely-known, tenderly-adored, proud, self-willed, silent, haughty daughter of the moors and sea—seemed to him so incredible that he leaned there against the broken wall staring straight before him, and wondering if he were awake; and, if awake, were in his senses,

The deeds of Saturnino were not of his generation, but he had heard tell of