Anania stood still with beating heart. By happy chance the street was empty. Only a black hen passed quietly by, lifting her claws very high before setting them on the ground, amusing herself pecking at the wall. What can be the pleasure of that? Is she looking for ants, or testing the wall's strength? Well! he must go away, to avoid the observation of curious eyes. He begins to walk away as slowly as the hen, and though there is still no one at the window he does not take his eye from it for an instant. His heart suddenly comes into his mouth! He turns quite faint. Margherita has come! She is pale with passion, and she looks at him with burning eyes! Anania also grows pale, and no thought of salutation comes to him, nor a smile. He cannot think. For some instants he can see nothing but those burning eyes from which rains unspeakable joy. He walked on automatically, turning his head at each step, followed by those intoxicating eyes. Only when Nanna, the portmanteau on her head, the parcel in one hand, the basket in the other, appeared puffing and blowing at the end of the street, did astonishment overpower him and quicken his halting step. [Footnote 13: These _stornelli_ called _mutos_ are improvised by the women of the Nuoro district. The subject of the first three lines is always independent of the subject of the second three, the two verses being connected only by the rhyme.] PART II I "_'Twas now the hour that turneth back desire To those who sail the sea; and melts the heart_,"-- of those about to visit unknown shores. Among these was Anania. The train had carried him to the coast. It was evening, a clear, still autumn evening heavy with melancholy. The dented mountains of Gallura were faintly visible in the violet distance. The air was scented with heather blossom. A far off village with grey _campanile_ against the violet sky came into sight. Anania looked at the strange outline of the mountains, at the quiet sky, at the cistus bushes among the rocks, and nothing kept back his tears but the fear of ridicule from his fellow-travellers: a priest, and a student from lowland Campidano who had once been his school-fellow. At last he was a man! True he had thought himself a man ever since he was fifteen, but then he had thought himself a young man, now he was an "old young man." Youth, however, and health shone in his eyes. He was tall and slim with a seductive little gold-tipped chestnut moustache. Now stars came out above the Gallura range, here and there fires shone red among the dark tufts of heath. Good-bye, then, native land, sad island, aged Mother, loved but not loved enough. A powerful voice from beyond the sea draws your best sons from your warm lap, even as the wind calls the young eagles, inviting them to leave their nest among the lonely crags. The student looked at the horizon and his eyes darkened with the sky. For how many, many years had he not heard the voice which was calling him away!