Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/318

 to the deep shadows that fell from the house walls of the piazza, crept close upward to him, so close that stretching out her hand she could have touched him.

He, knowing nothing still, went on across the pavement of the narrow square. No one noticed him; shepherds came in oftentimes from the Campagna on the vigil of holy feasts, and he, they saw, was from the downs and moors, with his rude goatskin clothes, his wild dark hair, his pastoral staff, his leather-girt strong loins.

The oaken iron-studded doors of the palace stood wide open; there was a keeper of them, clad in red and gold, like all such servitors of Roman princes, but he had crossed the piazza for a moment, and was quenching his thirst at a canteen, where some of the Swiss guard of the adjacent Vatican were lolling and drinking in his company, their yellow and red uniforms and the steel glitter of their halberds making a glow of colour under an old bronze swinging lamp.

She gave the men-at-arms a swift glance, and felt glad that they were so near: if she failed they would be there to hear.

She crept up closely towards Saturnino, so closely that she walked in his very shadow.