s it not all due to him,
who had waited so long on duty at the gate of chance? Knowing how to
wait, he had fairly won his reward.

This _nil admirari_ was an expression of face. At heart we may admit
that he was very much astonished. Any one who could have lifted the mask
with which he covered his inmost heart even before God would have
discovered this: that at the very time Barkilphedro had begun to feel
finally convinced that it would be impossible--even to him, the intimate
and most infinitesimal enemy of Josiana--to find a vulnerable point in
her lofty life. Hence an access of savage animosity lurked in his mind.
He had reached the paroxysm which is called discouragement. He was all
the more furious, because despairing. To gnaw one's chain--how tragic
and appropriate the expression! A villain gnawing at his own
powerlessness!

Barkilphedro was perhaps just on the point of renouncing not his desire
to do evil to Josiana, but his hope of doing it; not the rage, but the
effort. But how degrading to be thus baffled! To keep hate thenceforth
in a case, like a dagger in a museum! How bitter the humiliation!

All at once to a certain goal--Chance, immense and universal, loves to
bring such coincidences about--the flask of Hardquanonne came, driven
from wave to wave, into Barkilphedro's hands. There is in the unknown an
indescribable fealty which seems to be at the beck and call of evil.
Barkilphedro, assisted by two chance witnesses, disinterested jurors of
the Admiralty, uncorked the flask, found the parchment, unfolded, read
it. What words could express his devilish delight!

It is strange to think that the sea, the wind, space, the ebb and flow
of the tide, storms, calms, breezes, should have given themselves so
much trouble to bestow happiness on a scoundrel. That co-operation had
continued for fifteen years. Mysterious efforts! During fifteen years
the ocean had never for an instant ceased from its labours. The waves
transmitted from one to another the floating bottle. The shelving rocks
had shunned the brittle glass; no crack had yawned in the flask; no
friction had displaced the cork; the sea-weeds had not rotted the osier;
the shells had not eaten out the word "Hardquanonne;" the water had not
penetrated into the waif; the mould had not rotted the parchment; the
wet had hot effaced the writing. What trouble the abyss must have taken!
Thus that which Gernardus had flung into darkness, darkness had handed
back to