iew is infinite, and embraces a liquid horizon,
which appears, so remote is it, on a level with the rocks themselves.

The night was fine, as it always is in these happy climates. The moon,
rising behind the rocks, unrolled, like a silver sheet, upon the blue
carpet of the sea. In the road, maneuvered silently the vessels which
had just taken their rank to facilitate the embarkation. The sea, loaded
with phosphoric light, opened beneath the hulls of the barks which
transported the baggage and munitions; every dip of the prow plowed up
this gulf of white flames; and from every oar dropped liquid diamonds.
The sailors, rejoicing in the largesses of the admiral, were heard
murmuring their slow and artless songs. Sometimes, the grinding of the
chains was mixed with the dull noise of shot falling into the holds.
These harmonies, and this spectacle, oppress the heart like fear, and
dilate it like hope. All this life speaks of death. Athos had seated
himself with his son, upon the moss, among the brambles of the
promontory. Around their heads passed and repassed large bats, carried
along in the fearful whirl of their blind chase. The feet of Raoul were
across the edge of the cliff, and bathed in that void which is peopled
by vertigo and provokes to annihilation. When the moon had risen to its
full height, caressing with its light the neighboring peaks, when the
watery mirror was illumined in its full extent, and the little red fires
had made their openings in the black masses of every ship, Athos
collected all his ideas, and all his courage, and said:

"God has made all that we see, Raoul; He has made us, also--poor atoms
mixed up with this great universe. We shine like those fires and those
stars; we sigh like those waves; we suffer like those great ships which
are worn out in plowing the waves, in obeying the wind which urges them
toward an end, as the breath of God blows us toward a port. Everything
likes to live, Raoul; and everything is beautiful in living things."

"Monsieur," said Raoul, "we have before us a beautiful spectacle!"

"How good D'Artagnan is!" interrupted. Athos, suddenly, "and what a rare
good fortune it is to be supported during a whole life by such a friend
as he is! That is what you have wanted, Raoul."

"A friend!" cried Raoul, "I have wanted a friend!"

"M. de Guiche is an agreeable companion," resumed the comte, coldly,
"but I believe, in the times in which you live, men are more engaged in
thei