Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/199

 them; they had reached even to his own Sicilian shores, where the Sicilian mountain chiefs had been jealous of the Achilles-like valour, and the countless and ghastly acts, which had marked the blood-stained rule of the Maremmano hero.

He knew that Saturnino had made no more count of the life of a man than a fisher of those shores made of the life of a fish. His blood ran cold as he stood there in the glow from the carmine-colour of the west. He tried by every method he could to approach and speak again to the galley-slave, but in vain. Saturnino was kept at work amidst others, close under the eye of the overseer. Vigilance was redoubled as the shadows of evening drew near and the lamps were lit on the mole.

The men worked there till ten at night, and then were called off to their prisons, while the sea grew alive with the boats for the spearing, and a myriad of little golden lights sparkled on the water as the fire-flies do on the land, and the whole seafaring population of the coast, from ten miles up and down, strained, and leaped, and cursed, and laughed, and wrangled, and shouted as the shoal of fish was murdered.