She laughed airily.
'Oh, big oaths cannot frighten me. It shall lie with you. I want those things of your mother's. When you bring them I will thank you—as you choose.'
He grew gray under his brown, bright skin.
'Always that,' he muttered—always that!'
'Naturally, it is what I want.'
'Go, get them, since you think it holy work.'
'I will,' said Santina, 'and then good-night to you, my good Caris; you will never see me more.'
She turned on her heel and began to run down the slope in the moonlight.
Santina would not have ventured inside the graveyard at night to get mountains of gold. She would not have passed after nightfall within a mile of its gate without crossing herself and murmuring Aves all the way. Superstition was born and bred in every inch of her bone and every drop of her blood, and she would no more have carried out her threat than she would have carried the mountain upon her shoulders.
But he did not know that. She was so bold, so careless, so self-confident, if she had told him she would split open the earth to its centre he would have believed her.