owerless to
enter and drive before it the fevered atmosphere. Over all sides of that
boundless equatorial sea, floated a warm and heavy moisture, unfit for
respiration. No air on any side, not even for the poor gasping fellows
on their deathbeds.

One vision disturbed him greatly; it was of his old grandmother, walking
quickly along a road, with a heartrending look of alarm; from low-lying
funereal clouds above her, fell the drizzling rain; she was on her way
to Paimpol, summoned thither to be informed of his death.

He was struggling now, with the death-rattle in his throat. From the
corners of his mouth they sponged away the water and blood, which had
welled up in quantities from his chest in writhing agony. Still the
grand, glorious sun lit up all, like a conflagration of the whole world,
with blood-laden clouds; through the aperture of the port-hole, a wide
streak of crimson fire blazed in, and, spreading over Sylvestre's bed,
formed a halo around him.

At that very moment that same sun was to be seen in Brittany, where
midday was about to strike. It was, indeed, the same sun, beheld at the
precise moment of its never-ending round; but here it kept quite another
hue. Higher up in the bluish sky, it kept shedding a soft white light on
grandmother Yvonne, sitting out at her door, sewing.

In Iceland, too, where it was morning, it was shining at that same
moment of death. Much paler there, it seemed as if it only showed its
face by some miracle. Sadly it shed its rays over the fjord where _La
Marie_ floated; and now its sky was lit up by a pure northern light,
which always gives the idea of a frozen planet's reflection, without an
atmosphere. With a cold accuracy, it outlined all the essentials of that
stony chaos that is Iceland; the whole of the country as seen from _La
Marie_ seemed fixed in one same perspective and held upright. Yann was
there, lit up by a strange light, fishing, as usual, in the midst of
this lunar-like scenery.

As the beam of fiery flame that came through the port-hole faded, and
the sun disappeared completely under the gilded billows, the eyes of the
grandson rolled inward toward his brow as if to fall back into his head.

They closed his eyelids with their own long lashes, and Sylvestre
became calm and beautiful again, like a reclining marble statue of manly
repose.

CHAPTER III--THE GRAVE ABROAD

I cannot refrain from telling you about Sylvestre's funeral, which I
cond