Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/80

 hard labour of the bindolo or water-crank, or to those brutal taskmasters, the charcoal burners, who compel their beasts to sleep standing, and kick them up if they dare to lie down, and drive them night and day with the black loads from the forests in long pitiless journeys over stone and sand to the gates of cities.

Poor old Cecco! Never more would he have his fragrant couch of heather, and browse off the sweet shoots of the honeysuckle, and stand at will, knee-deep in the pools, amongst the green water-plantain. Never more would she rest her cheek against his shaggy neck, and say in his long, soft, furry ear: 'You and I,—we do not forget Joconda?'

Those who live in the great world, or the world of haste and toil, may think it a very little thing to lose an old mule to an unknown and almost certainly cruel fate. But to this child, in her loneliness, it was a loss more sad than words can easily tell. He was the only thing left to her of her old life, and he was gone away into misery.

She searched far and wide over the land for many days, and dropped her usual caution to ask questions of the few men she