at sight
of the dead baby's face, lying in its tiny white coffin. Ramona had
covered the box with white cloth, and the lace altar-cloth thrown over
it fell in folds to the floor. "Why does not this mother weep? Is she
like the whites, who have no heart?" said the Saboba mothers among
themselves; and they were embarrassed before her, and knew not what
to say. Ramona perceived it, but had no life in her to speak to them.
Benumbing terrors, which were worse than her grief, were crowding
Ramona's heart now. She had offended the Virgin; she had committed a
blasphemy: in one short hour the Virgin had punished her, had smitten
her child dead before her eyes. And now Alessandro was going mad; hour
by hour Ramona fancied she saw changes in him. What form would the
Virgin's vengeance take next? Would she let Alessandro become a raging
madman, and finally kill both himself and her? That seemed to Ramona
the most probable fate in store for them. When the funeral was over, and
they returned to their desolate home, at the sight of the empty cradle
Ramona broke down.

"Oh, take me away, Alessandro! Anywhere! I don't care where! anywhere,
so it is not here!" she cried.

"Would Majella be afraid, now, on the high mountain, the place I told
her of?" he said.

"No!" she replied earnestly. "No! I am afraid of nothing! Only take me
away!"

A gleam of wild delight flitted across Alessandro's face. "It is well,"
he said. "My Majella, we will go to the mountain; we will be safe
there."

The same fierce restlessness which took possession of him at San
Pasquale again showed itself in his every act. His mind was unceasingly
at work, planning the details of their move and of the new life. He
mentioned them one after another to Ramona. They could not take both
horses; feed would be scanty there, and there would be no need of two
horses. The cow also they must give up. Alessandro would kill her, and
the meat, dried, would last them for a long time. The wagon he hoped
he could sell; and he would buy a few sheep; sheep and goats could live
well in these heights to which they were going. Safe at last! Oh, yes,
very safe; not only against whites, who, because the little valley was
so small and bare, would not desire it, but against Indians also. For
the Indians, silly things, had a terror of the upper heights of San
Jacinto; they believed the Devil lived there, and money would not hire
one of the Saboba Indians to go so high as this valley which