of the little canoe, and threw a
light upon them as white as sunshine.

"At the first sign of resistance," cried the commander of the
_balancelle_, "fire!" The soldiers brought their muskets to the present.

"Did we not say we surrendered?" said Yves.

"Alive, alive, captain!" cried one excited soldier, "they must be taken
alive."

"Well, yes--living," said the captain. Then turning towards the Bretons,
"Your lives are safe, my friends!" cried he, "all but the Chevalier
d'Herblay."

Aramis stared imperceptibly. For an instant his eye was fixed upon the
depths of the ocean, illumined by the last flashes of the Greek fire,
which ran along the sides of the waves, played on the crests like
plumes, and rendered still darker and more terrible the gulfs they
covered.

"Do you hear, monseigneur?" said the sailors.

"Yes."

"What are your orders?"

"Accept!"

"But you, monseigneur?"

Aramis leaned still more forward, and dipped the ends of his long white
fingers in the green limpid waters of the sea, to which he turned with
smiles as to a friend.

"Accept!" repeated he.

"We accept," repeated the sailors; "but what security have we?"

"The word of a gentleman," said the officer. "By my rank and by my name
I swear that all except M. le Chevalier d'Herblay shall have their lives
spared. I am lieutenant of the king's frigate the 'Pomona,' and my name
is Louis Constant de Pressigny."

With a rapid gesture, Aramis--already bent over the side of the bark
towards the sea--drew himself up, and with a flashing eye, and a smile
upon his lips, "Throw out the ladder, messieurs," said he, as if the
command had belonged to him. He was obeyed. When Aramis, seizing the
rope ladder, walked straight up to the commander, with a firm step,
looked at him earnestly, made a sign to him with his hand, a mysterious
and unknown sign at sight of which the officer turned pale, trembled,
and bowed his head, the sailors were profoundly astonished. Without a
word Aramis then raised his hand to the eyes of the commander and showed
him the collet of a ring he wore on the ring-finger of his left hand.
And while making this sign Aramis, draped in cold and haughty majesty,
had the air of an emperor giving his hand to be kissed. The commandant,
who for a moment had raised his head, bowed a second time with marks of
the most profound respect. Then stretching his hand out, in his turn,
towards the poop, that is to say, towards his own cabin, he d