But night is the bad time here. I do not know how I should
get on were it not for my dog, which the Captain allowed me to bring
down from my home in the mountains."
"Ask her if she speaks or understands French," said Eve.
Mary obeyed.
"Ah, Signorina, unfortunately I have but little French. It was all I
could do to learn Italian well. With us up there, we have a _patois_,
but the cure of our village makes the children study Italian. Afterward
we are glad. Such French as we have, we pick up later by ourselves."
"Where is your village?" Mary inquired.
"Very far away, Signorina, and very high up, where the snows lie always
in winter. It is a town built on a rock where in oldest days once stood
a temple of Baal. Our houses are very ancient, and they stand back to
back like soldiers fighting. The Signorina cannot conceive how wild we
are there. And the dogs are wild, too. They often run away from the
village when they are young and go to live with the wolves, farther up
the mountain. Then they regret sometimes; and when the smell of cooking
mounts on the wind, the poor animals creep down as far as they dare, to
sit on a ridge of rock where they can see people moving below. But they
can never come back, for the wolves would be angry and run after, to
kill them in revenge. Look at my dog, how like a baby wolf he is. All
our dogs are born with the faces of wolves. I have an aunt at home who
is a witch. The whole village fears her, for she curses those she hates,
and works wicked spells.
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