Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/304

 all this country side, and the wayside winehouse further away on the stream of the Due Fossi had once been proud to entertain the lordly brigand from the Apennine hills when it had seemed good to him to sweep down on travellers too curious and too incautious, riding or driving out by the Via Flaminia to see Veii or Scrofano or the classic baths of Apollo's Vicarello.

Ere the light of daybreak had come over the green mountain of Rocca Romana in the east, he rose this night from his rough couch of stones, and broke his fast on dried goat's-flesh and a draught from his flask of wine, and then began to descend the hills, using greater prudence and more wariness now that he neared Rome.

Musa, who had been yet earlier awake, had bathed her face and feet in the Arrone, and was watching to see him stir, herself screened amidst the brushwood.

It was a fair morning, golden and light.

Over the Campagna away southward there were white mists that hovered longest where the Tiber rolled, but eastward on these rocks the woods were all alight with sunbeams, and the glancing streams ran sparkling through grasses, starred with dragon-