And on the other side of
the valley, above Grisolia, a great round-topped mountain and on the top
of the mountain an enormous globe of cloud, full of lightning that
flashed unceasingly, so that the cloud was at one instant like a ball of
silver in the moonlight, and at the next like a ball of fire in
darkness. Not a breath stirred the air, and the strange thunderstorm
flashed out its life through the long hours, stationary and alone at its
vast height.
In the great silence two sounds broke the stillness from time to time;
the deep satisfied grunt of a pig turning his fattest side to the cobble
stones as he slept--and the long, low wail of a woman dying in great
pain.
The little room was very dark. A single wick burned in the boat-shaped
cup of the tall earthenware lamp, and there was little oil left in the
small receptacle. On the high trestle bed, upon the thinnest of straw
mattresses, decently covered with a coarse brown blanket, lay a pale
woman, emaciated to a degree hardly credible. A clean white handkerchief
was bound round her brow and covered her head, only a scanty lock or two
of fair hair escaping at the side of her face.
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