n ugly gray clothing, their faces shaded with broad, ribbonless
straw hats, were working at loading a boat with large boxes, which they
carried to the quay from a truck on a miniature local railway line. These
men were directed in their labour by other men in white; and Virginia
shivered all over, for this was her first sight of the convicts. What if
Maxime Dalahaide were among these forlorn wretches who toiled and sweated
in the blazing sun, with no encouragement save the rough exhortations of
the white-clad surveillants with revolvers on their hips? If he were
here, did any voice whisper to him of hope?

The _canot_ for the Ile Nou was to start almost immediately. The
credentials of the party were examined at the _douanerie_, and they were
permitted to go on board. Twelve convicts were the rowers. They sat under
an awning which protected them as well as the passengers from the sun,
but Virginia, glancing almost fearfully at their faces, saw that their
skins were tanned to the colour of mahogany by exposure. Their features
were, without one exception, marked with the indefinable yet
not-to-be-mistaken stamp of criminality, and she breathed more freely
when she had assured herself that the man they sought was not one of
them.

All they had to go upon was the vague information derived from Madeleine
Dalahaide, that her brother was supposed to be on the Ile Nou. The time
had not come yet to ask the questions that burnt their tongues; but it
was coming nearer now with each wide sweep of the convicts' oars.

The Director had been thoughtful enough to telegraph to the Ile Nou of
the visitors' arrival, and as the _canot_ approached the quay of the
strange little settlement, an officer of the prison, who had the
appearance of a superior warder, stepped forward, touching his white hat.

Virginia felt, with a thickly beating heart, that the long preface was
finished, the first chapter of the book about to begin. She looked at
this island of exile and punishment with an emotion that was not
curiosity, but which could be classified by no other word. The Ile Nou
was not to the eye the terrible place of which she had so often dreamt.
There were more low, white houses, clustering cosily together or
separated by thick, dark trees, and there were shaded streets and more
blazing _flamboyant_ flowers making patches of red in the deep green. But
beyond the town rose a hill, and there the great prison buildings stood
out grimly against