Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/262

 on the sea-wall, he had leaped at one bound into the waves, as he had done off the island of Gorgona. The night had been dark from heavy clouds; in the fitful light from the lamps and lanterns he had been lost to sight; though bullets had ploughed the waters and boats been sent out in all directions he had never been seen again. Sharks were about, and it was guessed that he had met his fate in their jaws.

It was said that one of the gaolers, who was a native of the Monte Labbro country, had favoured the prisoner by intentional lack of vigilance; but no one suspected of any complicity with him the skipper of the Sicilian brig that had been beating about up and down the coast for some weeks, waiting for a south-easterly wind to bear her back merrily to Messina—a wind which rose that night.

The few folks of Telamone, loitering out there amongst the aloes and the sand and the loose stones, once more recalled the long-passed time when Saturnino Mastarna had been the hero of every tale that was told on tartana-decks in a calm, or on land in the hot windless weather.

Sanctis listened to their rambling dis-