Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/265

 and he began to be alarmed lest any accident of asp-bite, or marsh-miasma, or too rash trust to the chill waters of the pools and streams should have befallen this child of Glaucus that she came not to the sea, to which he knew her face turned ever so faithfully, as the face of the sunflower to the west at evening.

At last, on the morning of the eighth day, he climbed the cliffs and began to walk across the evergreen water-threaded land above, where the little slender pipes of the robins were sounding under the berry-laden boughs of the bay.

Wild as the country was, and dangerous with bog that moss and couch grass hid from sight, he remembered by certain landmarks of tree and tufa-mound and the look of the distant mountains how to find his way back to the tomb of the Lucumo.

'She cannot blame me if I go there now,' he thought; 'she has failed me.'

His heart burned within him with as much anger and alarm as ever she had felt at his presence. His natural calmness forsook him. He had come in good faith for good offices and he had been met with indignity.

There was not a disloyal thought in him, VOL. II.