" Sabina was perhaps justly
doubtful about the proceeding.
"I do not care a straw for the government, or the laws, or Volterra,
where you are concerned. You shall have what is yours. Shall we get
down to the ground and see if there is anything else in the vault?"
He let himself slide over the left shoulder, and the lion's skin that
was modelled over it, and Sabina followed him cautiously. By bending
their heads they could now stand and walk, and there was a space fully
five feet wide, between the statue and the perpendicular masonry from
which the vault sprang.
Malipieri stopped short, with both lights in his hand, and uttered an
exclamation.
"What is it?" asked Sabina. "Oh!" she cried, as she saw what he had
come upon.
For some moments neither spoke, and they stood side by side, pressed
against each other in the narrow way and gazing down, for before them
lay the most beautiful marble statue Sabina had ever seen. In the
yellow light it was like a living woman asleep rather than a marble
goddess, hewn and chipped, smoothed and polished into shape ages ago,
by men's hands.
She lay a little turned to one side and away; the arm that was
undermost was raised, so that the head seemed to be resting against
it, though it was not; the other lying along and across the body, its
perfect hand just gathering up a delicately futile drapery.
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