d!

The Nabob, Monpavon, the prefect, and one of the generals got into the
first coach; the others filled the succeeding carriages. The priests and
the mayors, swelling with importance, rushed to the head of the choral
societies of their villages which were to go in front, and all moved off
along the road to Giffas.

The weather was magnificent, but hot and heavy, three months in advance
of the season, as often happens in this impetuous country, where
everything is in a hurry and comes too soon. Although there was not a
cloud to be seen, the stillness of the atmosphere--the wind had
fallen suddenly like a loose sail--dazzling and heated white, a silent
solemnity hanging over all, foretold a storm brewing in some corner
of the horizon. The immense torpor of things gradually influenced the
living beings. One heard too distinctly the tinkling mule-bells, the
heavy steps in the dust of the band of singers whom Cardailhac was
placing at regular distances in the seething human hedge which bordered
the road and was lost in the distance; a sudden call, children's voices,
and the cry of the water-seller, that necessary accompaniment of all
open-air festivals in the Midi.

"Open your window, general, it is stifling," said Monpavon, crimson,
fearing for his paint, and the lowered windows exposed to the populace
these high functionaries mopping their august faces, strained, agonized,
by the same expression of waiting--waiting for the Bey, for the storm,
waiting for something, in short.

Still another trimphal arch. It was at Giffas, its long, stony street
strewn with green palms, and its sordid houses gay with flowers and
bright hangings. The station was outside the village, white and square,
stuck like a thimble on the roadside--true type of a little country
station, lost in the midst of vineyards, never having any one in it
except perhaps sometimes an old woman and her parcels waiting in a
corner, come three hours before the time.

In honour of the Bey this slight building had been rigged out with
flags, adorned with rugs and divans; a splendid buffet had been fitted
up with sherbets, all ready for his Highness. Once there and out of the
carriage the Nabob tried to dispel the feeling of uneasiness which he,
too, had begun to suffer from. Prefects, generals, deputies, people
in dress-coats and uniforms, were standing about on the platform in
imposing groups, their faces solemn, their mouths pursed, their bodies
swaying and j