teville
and Gonneville and Criquetot.

At night, he knocked at the peasants' doors and asked for a lodging.
After dinner, they smoked together and chatted. He made them tell him
the stories which they told one another on the long winter nights. And
he never omitted to insinuate, slily:

"What about the Needle? The legend of the Hollow Needle? Don't you know
that?"

"Upon my word, I don't--never heard of it--"

"Just think--an old wives' tale--something that has to do with a
needle. An enchanted needle, perhaps.--I don't know--"

Nothing. No legend, no recollection. And the next morning he walked
blithely away again.

One day, he passed through the pretty village of Saint-Jouin, which
overlooks the sea, and descending among the chaos of rocks that have
slipped from cliffs, he climbed up to the tableland and went in the
direction of the dry valley of Bruneval, Cap d'Antifer and the little
creek of Belle-Plage. He was walking gaily and lightly, feeling a
little tired, perhaps, but glad to be alive, so glad, even, that he
forgot Lupin and the mystery of the Hollow Needle and Victoire and
Shears, and interested himself in the sight of nature: the blue sky,
the great emerald sea, all glittering in the sunshine.

Some straight slopes and remains of brick walls, in which he seemed to
recognize the vestiges of a Roman camp, interested him. Then his eyes
fell upon a sort of little castle, built in imitation of an ancient
fort, with cracked turrets and Gothic windows. It stood on a jagged,
rugged, rising promontory, almost detached from the cliff. A barred
gate, flanked by iron hand-rails and bristling spikes, guarded the
narrow passage.

Beautrelet succeeded in climbing over, not without some difficulty.
Over the pointed door, which was closed with an old rusty lock, he read
the words:

FORT DE FREFOSSE

He did not attempt to enter, but, turning to the right, after going
down a little slope, he embarked upon a path that ran along a ridge of
land furnished with a wooden handrail. Right at the end was a cave of
very small dimensions, forming a sort of watch-tower at the point of
the rock in which it was hollowed out, a rock falling abruptly into the
sea.

There was just room to stand up in the middle of the cave. Multitudes
of inscriptions crossed one another on the walls. An almost square
hole, cut in the stone, opened like a dormer window on the land side,
exactly opposite Fort Frefosse, the crenellated top of whi