a pretext of service, kept themselves
apart. Gaining their hostelry, situated under the trees of the great
Place, they took their repast in haste, and Athos led Raoul to the
rocks which dominate the city, vast gray mountains, whence the view is
infinite and embraces a liquid horizon which appears, so remote is it,
on a level with the rocks themselves. The night was fine, as it always
is in these happy climes. The moon, rising behind the rocks, unrolled
a silver sheet on the cerulean carpet of the sea. In the roadsteads
maneuvered silently the vessels which had just taken their rank to
facilitate the embarkation. The sea, loaded with phosphoric light,
opened beneath the hulls of the barks that transported the baggage and
munitions; every dip of the prow plowed up this gulf of white flames;
from every oar dropped liquid diamonds. The sailors, rejoicing in the
largesses of the admiral, were heard murmuring their slow and artless
songs. Sometimes the grinding of the chains was mixed with the dull
noise of shot falling into the holds. Such harmonies, such a spectacle,
oppress the heart like fear, and dilate it like hope. All this life
speaks of death. Athos had seated himself with his son, upon the moss,
among the brambles of the promontory. Around their heads passed and
repassed large bats, carried along by the fearful whirl of their blind
chase. The feet of Raoul were over the edge of the cliff, bathed in that
void which is peopled by vertigo, and provokes to self-annihilation.
When the moon had risen to its fullest height, caressing with light
the neighboring peaks, when the watery mirror was illumined in its full
extent, and the little red fires had made their openings in the black
masses of every ship, Athos, collecting all his ideas and all his
courage, said:

"God has made all these things that we see, Raoul; He has made us
also,--poor atoms mixed up with this monstrous universe. We shine like
those fires and those stars; we sigh like those waves; we suffer like
those great ships, which are worn out in plowing the waves, in obeying
the wind that urges them towards an end, as the breath of God blows us
towards a port. Everything likes to live, Raoul; and everything seems
beautiful to living things."

"Monsieur," said Raoul, "we have before us a beautiful spectacle!"

"How good D'Artagnan is!" interrupted Athos, suddenly, "and what a rare
good fortune it is to be supported during a whole life by such a friend
as he i