His fingers closed instinctively as though they were closing upon the slender neck.
But Musa was away, running fleet through the pallid moonlight.
When she reached the edge of the sea there was no sound; her boat was rocking on the surf; the moon had climbed into the zenith; far away upon the white expanse of the sands she saw four dark specks no bigger than four stalks of grass; they were the carabineers riding on southward towards Santa Tarsilla.
'They are fools!' said the child with scorn. Had she been in pursuit of any creature, she would have noticed the signs on the sands disturbed where she had dragged the swimmer ashore; she would not have ridden by unheeding as they did, and passed on, as they were doing, to Santa Tarsilla unsuspecting.
'They are fools!' she said to herself with that pleasure in the defeat of authority and that contempt for its narrow means and narrow sight which had been born in her with her blood. Then she loosened her boat and rowed backward to the little town.
The carabineers were always in sight—
