Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/217

 His shrewd sense saw at once that this was a thing of yesterday, that no Etruscan dead were slumbering in that long, rough, shapeless box of unplaned pine-wood, with the black cross rudely painted on it. His cunning little soul, steeped all its days in chicaneries, and usuries, and efforts to outwit his lord and to grind down his people, fell all at once on the darkest and the foulest meaning that this strange sight could bear.

Some murder had been done here, hidden away with the dust and ashes of two thousand years: done by this girl no doubt.

So he believed, and his small soul leapt up in gladness.

It would be hard to punish her for the missing gold-work, for there was no proof there ever had been such in these graves, though morally he was sure of it; but for these dead bodies hidden away, justice could be easily summoned. He shook a little, for he was a timid man, and to be thus in company with the dead was ghastly to him, and he called aloud to his men to leave off hewing at the stone lion and come look here.

Between them they got the coffin open, and, shuddering and muttering paternosters,