Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/295

 taken to the hills as other men took to the ploughshare or the forge. He knew that the popular sympathy would everywhere be with him, timid, yet strong enough to make the law sometimes willingly blind. Relying on it, and on the solitariness of the Maremma wilds, he walked boldly on towards his goal, and she, unseen by him, followed step for step.

Happily for her he only moved by day, and this by reason that the nights were moonless, and the half-covered mule tracks which he alone durst follow could not be found, even by his knowledge of the country, after dark. So at night sleep did refresh her, even though it were fitful, startled, and roofless. The owls flew by her and the pole-cat glided past, and the bats and the rodents stirred the air and the grass, and the wild ducks rushed by on the chill northern winds. But these were all old friends and comrades; she was afraid of no creatures of the earth and sky. She slept on a pile of fallen leaves, in the hollow of a tree, on the leeward side of a rock, anywhere that gave her momentary rest, and let her see from some safe shelter Saturnino arise and go forth as the dawn came.