ated? Was a resting-place
among these nameless graves the best he could hope for the wife whose
eyes he had hoped by this time would be answering his own--was this her
shelter from foe, from sword, famine, and fire?

A great sea-bird, swooping along with broad wings and wild wailing cry,
completed the weird dismay that had seized on Philip, and clutching at
his brother's cloak, he exclaimed, 'Berry, Berry, let us be gone, or we
shall both be distraught!'

Berenger yielded passively, but when the ruins of the town had been
again crossed, and the sad little party, after amply rewarding the old
man, were about to return to St. Julien, he stood still, saying, 'Which
is the way to Nissard?' and, as the men pointed to the south, he added,
'Show me the way thither.'

Captain Hobbs now interfered. He knew the position of Nissard, among
dangerous sandbanks, between which a boat could only venture at the
higher tides, and by daylight. To go the six miles thither at present
would make it almost impossible to return to the THROSTLE that night,
and it was absolutely necessary that he at least should do this. He
therefore wished the young gentleman to return with him on board, sleep
there, and be put ashore at Nissard as soon as it should be possible in
the morning. But Berenger shook his head. He could not rest for a moment
till he had ascertained the fate of Eustacie's child. Action alone could
quench the horror of what he had recognized as her own lot, and the
very pursuit of this one thread of hope seemed needful to him to make
it substantial. He would hear of nothing but walking at once to Nissard;
and Captain Hobbs, finding it impossible to debate the point with one so
dazed and crushed with grief, and learning from the fishermen that not
only was the priest one of the kindest and most hospitable men living,
but that there was a tolerable _caberet_ not far from the house,
selected from the loiterers who had accompanied them from St. Julien
a trustworthy-looking, active lad as a guide, and agreed with the high
tide on the morrow, either to concert measures for obtaining possession
of the lost infant, or, if all were in vain, to fetch them off. Then
he, with the mass of stragglers from St. Julien, went off direct for
the coast, while the two young brothers, their two attendants, and the
fishermen, turned southwards along the summit of the dreary sandbanks.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE GOOD PRIEST OF NISSARD

Till at the set