with its last
palpitations the stiffened extremities; it ended by yielding as midnight
struck.

The physician, seeing the incontestable improvement, returned to Blois,
after having ordered some prescriptions, and declared that the comte was
saved. Then commenced for Athos a strange, indefinable state. Free to
think, his mind turned toward Raoul, that beloved son. His imagination
painted the fields of Africa in the environs of Gigelli, where M. de
Beaufort must have landed his army. There were gray rocks, rendered
green in certain parts by the waters of the sea, when it lashed the
shore in storms and tempests. Beyond the shore, strewed over with these
rocks like tombs, ascended, in form of an amphitheater, among
mastick-trees and cactus, a sort of small town, full of smoke, confused
noises and terrified movements. All on a sudden, from the bosom of this
smoke arose a flame, which succeeded, by creeping along the houses, in
covering the whole surface of this town, and which increased by degrees,
uniting in its red vortices tears, cries, arms extended toward heaven.

There was for a moment, a frightful _pele-mele_ of _madriers_ falling to
pieces, of swords broken, of stones calcined, of trees burned and
disappearing. It was a strange thing that in this chaos, in which Athos
distinguished raised arms, in which he heard cries, sobs and groans, he
did not see one human figure. The cannon thundered at a distance,
musketry cracked, the sea moaned, flocks made their escape, bounding
over the verdant slope. But not a soldier to apply the match to the
batteries of cannon, not a sailor to assist in maneuvering the fleet,
not a shepherd for the flocks. After the ruin of the village, and the
destruction of the forts which dominated it, a ruin and a destruction
operated magically without the co-operation of a single human being, the
flame was extinguished, the smoke began to descend, then diminished in
intensity, paled, and disappeared entirely. Night then came over the
scene; a night dark upon the earth, brilliant in the firmament. The
large blazing stars which sparkled in the African sky shone without
lighting anything even around them.

A long silence ensued, which gave, for a moment, repose to the troubled
imagination of Athos; and, as he felt that that which he saw was not
terminated, he applied more attentively the looks of his understanding
upon the strange spectacle which his imagination had presented. This
spectacle was s