Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/317

 not let you go lightly. Gold there is none here. Had any found it, would they be such fools as not to bear it away? Learned men care for these tombs, but there is nothing in them for those who are ignorant. I treat you more peaceably than you merit. Come, take the oath I bid you while my patience lasts.'

'It was Constantino!' they muttered with one voice; and they cursed him.

'If there is no gold, there is the girl,' he shrieked in self-defence. 'Where is she?'

'She is not here,' said Sanctis. 'And if she were she should be sacred to you as your cross, or I would kill every one of you like flies. She has those who can defend her from afar, and whom you had better fear in the future. Come, I have seen enough of you; take the oath that. I tell you, or I may lose my patience. I have your lives in my hand.'

They were men, ferocious enough if crossed, with all an animal's instincts without an animal's innocence; they were brutal in their lonely lives, where it was so hard for the law to reach them. They had come primed for any and every crime that the hidden sepulchres would cover, and they had