Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/181

 immediate west, where the sun hung still high above the waters, one white sail and one brown crossing each other full in the effulgence of its rays.

He had not beheld the sun since, tortured with heat and thirst, he had drifted face upwards, hopeless, and seeing no escape from the galleys save in such death as he would find sinking to those depths below him, where the shark and the octopus waited for drowned men. It allured him with sweet unconquerable attraction. He went softly, almost insensibly, on and on, over the sand and the grass; his head held high, his eyes happy, his breath coming quickly and gladly, like the sighs of love that is content.

The sea was there; the world was beyond; men would welcome him back in their midst.

A vague sense of shame, of duty, of ingratitude, drew him backward like an unwelcome hand; but it had not strength to detain him.

'I will come to her; I will send for her,' he said to himself; and he continued to walk on and on, through the luminous warm air, towards the shining of the blue waters through the red-brown stems of the pines.