Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/221

 steward. 'She shall answer before the judges.'

'I have done no harm,' she said, as she wrenched her ankles free by violent effort and stood before them, her hands still tied behind her back. 'I knew not that those tombs had any owner. They belong to the dead. I did the dead no harm. They were not afraid of me, nor I of them. Why do you touch me? Why do you bind me? I have done no evil. It is you who insult the grave. It is you who break their laws and rob'

'Where is the gold that was there?' shrieked the old steward, stung into accusation. 'Where is the gold, you wanton? And where is your lover that you screened there? Who was the father of your child?'

She was silent.

They took her silence for guilt; she seemed to them to be overwhelmed with her own crime thus brought before her. Her great luminous eyes stared at them with a terrible, unutterable sadness that they were frightened at, and took for guilt.

'To justice with her,' said the old man cruelly. 'Heave her in the cart, men; she has the mal'occhio.'