yes of his understanding
on the strange spectacle which his imagination had presented. This
spectacle was soon continued for him. A mild pale moon rose behind the
declivities of the coast, streaking at first the undulating ripples of
the sea, which appeared to have calmed after the roaring it had sent
forth during the vision of Athos--the moon, we say, shed its diamonds
and opals upon the briers and bushes of the hills. The gray rocks, so
many silent and attentive phantoms, appeared to raise their heads to
examine likewise the field of battle by the light of the moon, and Athos
perceived that the field, empty during the combat, was now strewn with
fallen bodies.

An inexpressible shudder of fear and horror seized his soul as he
recognized the white and blue uniforms of the soldiers of Picardy,
with their long pikes and blue handles, and muskets marked with the
_fleur-de-lis_ on the butts. When he saw all the gaping wounds, looking
up to the bright heavens as if to demand back of them the souls to which
they had opened a passage,--when he saw the slaughtered horses, stiff,
their tongues hanging out at one side of their mouths, sleeping in the
shiny blood congealed around them, staining their furniture and their
manes,--when he saw the white horse of M. de Beaufort, with his head
beaten to pieces, in the first ranks of the dead, Athos passed a cold
hand over his brow, which he was astonished not to find burning. He was
convinced by this touch that he was present, as a spectator, without
delirium's dreadful aid, the day after the battle fought upon the shores
of Gigelli by the army of the expedition, which he had seen leave the
coast of France and disappear upon the dim horizon, and of which he had
saluted with thought and gesture the last cannon-shot fired by the duke
as a signal of farewell to his country.

Who can paint the mortal agony with which his soul followed, like a
vigilant eye, these effigies of clay-cold soldiers, and examined them,
one after the other, to see if Raoul slept among them? Who can express
the intoxication of joy with which Athos bowed before God, and thanked
Him for not having seen him he sought with so much fear among the dead?
In fact, fallen in their ranks, stiff, icy, the dead, still recognizable
with ease, seemed to turn with complacency towards the Comte de la Fere,
to be the better seen by him, during his sad review. But yet, he
was astonished, while viewing all these bodies, not to perce