Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/279

 night of flight when, under the snows of Monte Labbro, lying beneath the tangle of ruscus and arbutus where the Fiora water ran between the rocks, he had said to his companion of the galleys:

'To that tomb there comes a maiden with grand eyes like two stars. She will let you shelter there, and will not speak, I think; but if you fear her speaking—well, a fawn's neck is soon slit.'

Why had not his tongue rotted with cancer in his mouth ere ever it had spoken those words!

'I sent him to you! I sent him to you!' he muttered; and he could not comprehend why she—his daughter and Serapia's!—did not leap up in rage and curse him. There had been but one answer from the Mastarna to what was faithless. Yet she, she bade him welcome because he had sent this man to her!

He did not understand. He looked down on her with his angry and bloodshot eyes; furious imprecations rose to his lips, but something in the look of her held him mute; he was afraid to say the thing he thought.

Should he tell her what he was to her?