Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/224

 sun beat on her, the insects tormented her, mosquitoes fastened on her feet as they hung over the rail.

The men took no notice of her; they jolted on as they would have gone with a bound calf or a shot doe behind them.

As long as she could, she looked for the pine-trees that grew by the sea, for the great branches of the cork tree that spread themselves above the place of the tombs, When she could behold these no longer, tears of blood came into her eyes; the sky and the moor and the air grew crimson to her.

The oxen crept on, pulling against their rings of iron, groaning against their heavy yokes; tired and sore, they licked their lips with parched tongues, they sobbed now and then like beaten children when the goad struck them.

The waggon rolled on, over the burned moorland, to the marshes where the earth was still wet, and the stagnant waters were green as the broad leaves of their lilies. Here all was treeless, level, vapourous; the black buffalo wading content in the ooze, the butor sitting motionless in the swamp; here and there came gladiolus flowers, rising