Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/214

 with baffled cupidity, he roamed from chamber to chamber, making no count of the paintings of the walls, and of the slender grace of the bronze lamps, being too ignorant to know their value in their arts, and being greedy for the yellow glitter of the metal that he loved.

All the traces of her occupation of the place infuriated him more and more, for he saw in each assurance that she had dwelt there long enough to rifle and to rob. He called out to his men to clear the rubbish away, and was the first to fling with his own hand on the ground the black and red earthen vessels that he despised as valueless.

Lying where they had placed her under the sharp foliage of the marucca she saw the violation of the sepulchres that were sacred to her alike for the living and the dead.

All the black earthenware of the tombs they furiously broke upon the ground until, of it all, there only remained a pile of shattered potsherds; the metal lamps they threw upon the cart, these would serve to help light their kitchens; all her own simple things they threw down in a heap, and the old man snapped across his knee the keys of the old tortoiseshell lute.