. In a few seconds up it came again,
like a huge mechanical toy; then it dived again, and again disappeared;
then came two more, then three, then six, which gamboled round the boat,
and seemed to be escorting their large wooden brother with the iron
fins. Sometimes they were on the left of the boat, sometimes on the
right, and, one following the other in a kind of game, they would leap
into the air, describe a curve, and replunge into the sea one after the
other. Jeanne clapped her hands, delighted at each reappearance of the
big, pliant fish, and felt a childish enjoyment in watching them.
Suddenly they disappeared, rose to the surface a long way out to sea,
then disappeared for good, and Jeanne felt quite sorry when they went
away.

The calm, mild, radiant evening drew on; there was not a breath of air
to cause the smallest ripple on the sea; the sun was slowly sinking
towards that part of the horizon beyond which lay the land of burning
heat, Africa, whose glow could almost be felt across the ocean; then,
when the sun had quite disappeared, a cool breath of wind, so faint that
it could not be called a breeze, came over the sea. There were all the
horrible smells of a packet-boat in their cabin, so Jeanne and Julien
wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lay down side by side on deck.
Julien went to sleep directly, but Jeanne lay looking up at the host of
stars which sparkled with so bright and clear a light in this soft
Southern sky; then the monotonous noise of the engines made her drowsy,
and at last she fell asleep. In the morning she was awakened by the
voices of the sailors cleaning the boat, and she aroused her husband and
got up. The sea was still all around them, but straight ahead something
gray could be faintly seen in the dawn; it looked like a bank of
strange-shaped clouds, pointed and jagged, lying on the waves. This
vague outline gradually became more distinct, until, standing out
against the brightening sky, a long line of mountain-peaks could be
seen. It was Corsica, hidden behind a light veil of mist.

The sun rose, throwing black shadows around and below every prominence,
and each peak had a crown of light, while all the rest of the island
remained enveloped in mist.

The captain, a little elderly man, bronzed, withered, and toughened by
the rough salt winds, came up on deck.

"Can you smell my lady over there?" he asked Jeanne, in a voice that
thirty years of command, and shouting above the noi