t attracted the attention of
the musketeer. The sun darted its rays of gold upon the sea, raising
a shining mist round this enchanted isle. Little could be seen of it,
owing to this dazzling light, but the salient points; every shadow was
strongly marked, and cut with bands of darkness the luminous fields and
walls. "Eh! eh!" said D'Artagnan, at the aspect of those masses of
black rocks, "these are fortifications which do not stand in need of any
engineer to render a landing difficult. How the devil can a landing be
effected on that isle which God has defended so completely?"

"This way," replied the patron of the bark, changing the sail, and
impressing upon the rudder a twist which turned the boat in the
direction of a pretty little port, quite coquettish, round, and newly
battlemented.

"What the devil do I see yonder?" said D'Artagnan.

"You see Leomaria," replied the fisherman.

"Well, but there?"

"That is Bragos."

"And further on?"

"Sanger, and then the palace."

"Mordioux! It is a world. Ah! there are some soldiers."

"There are seventeen hundred men in Belle-Isle, monsieur," replied the
fisherman, proudly. "Do you know that the least garrison is of twenty
companies of infantry?"

"Mordioux!" cried D'Artagnan, stamping with his foot. "His Majesty was
right enough."

They landed.

CHAPTER 69. In which the Reader, no doubt, will be as astonished as
D'Artagnan was to meet an Old Acquaintance

There is always something in a landing, if it be only from the smallest
sea-boat--a trouble and a confusion which do not leave the mind the
liberty of which it stands in need in order to study at the first glance
the new locality presented to it. The movable bridges, the agitated
sailors, the noise of the water on the pebbles, the cries and
importunities of those who wait upon the shores, are multiplied details
of that sensation which is summed up in one single result--hesitation.
It was not, then, till after standing several minutes on the shore that
D'Artagnan saw upon the port, but more particularly in the interior of
the isle, an immense number of workmen in motion. At his feet D'Artagnan
recognized the five chalands laden with rough stone he had seen leave
the port of Pirial. The smaller stones were transported to the shore
by means of a chain formed by twenty-five or thirty peasants. The large
stones were loaded on trollies which conveyed them in the same direction
as the others, that is to s