Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/180

 to stand and move erect in the sunshine of the declining day without danger, without terror, without being forced to scan the furthest distance lest any living soul should be in sight. Almost insensibly he moved onward and onward, and it seemed to him as if the dry turf were velvet and the hot air a caress from heaven.

Across the moor he saw the azure glisten of the sea; the boat was there.

Insensibly he walked onwards, his feet elastic as the deer's that goes to drink at the forest spring at daybreak.

The sun was now near its setting.

Maremma saw that western pomp and splendour in its uttermost perfection, its low shores shelving to the sea that rolls away to Spain and Africa. All colours of all jewels known to men glowed there, where the great beams shot upward, like archangels' spears. A storm afar off, beyond the headlands of Sardinia, gave majesty and magnificence to the hour. Low down, southward, dark purples and crimsons strove together, and a beam of lightning ever and again flashed zig-zag athwart them. But these were distant, and did not disturb the golden serenity, the rose-like radiance, of the