Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/245

 It is to leave them alone. I am like them; I have my house in the rocks. I do not want to go away to other air as the nightingales go and the lorys.'

'But in those sepulchres, under the earth'

'The kingfisher's house is under the earth, and he would not thank you to pull him out of it. I will come here tomorrow—for Joconda's sake. Farewell to-day.'

With the little glittering fish in her hand, and the sea-wet wool of her clothes clinging to her limbs, she turned away and began to climb the face of the cliff as rapidly and as easily as a woodpecker climbs a tree.

She went so quickly and with such sure feet that the bluish-grey of her kirtle was soon lost amongst the blue and green of the rosemary. The sun-rays and the shadows played about her head, and the rock-doves who knew her so well flew in circles round her path; soon she had climbed to where the little rain clouds floated across the upper portion of the cliff, and there the vapour of them took her to itself as if she were indeed the goddess of the golden bow and hidden in a cloud.