ds with the rocks, continuing and
delusively ending them by the broken, dented line of its batteries, its
shattered roofs, its half-crumbled towers. Now the rocks and the castle
are covered with a smoky shroud of twilight. They seem airy, devoid
of any weight, and almost as fantastic as those monstrous heaps of
structures which are piled up and which are falling so noiselessly in
the sky. But while the others are falling this one stands, and a live
light reddens against the deep blue--and it is just as strange a sight
as if a human hand were to kindle a light in the clouds.

Turning their heads in that direction, the women look on with frightened
eyes.

"Do you see," says one of them. "It is even worse than a light on a
cemetery. Who needs a light among the tombstones?"

"It is getting cold toward night and the sailor must have thrown some
branches into the fireplace, that's all. At least, I think so," says
Mariet.

"And I think that the abbot should have gone there with holy water long
ago."

"Or with the gendarmes! If that isn't the devil himself, it is surely
one of his assistants."

"It is impossible to live peacefully with such neighbours close by."

"I am afraid for the children."

"And for your soul?"

Two elderly women rise silently and go away. Then a third, an old woman,
also rises.

"We must ask the abbot whether it isn't a sin to look at such a light."

She goes off. The smoke in the sky is ever increasing and the fire is
subsiding, and the unknown city is already near its dark end. The sea
odour is growing ever sharper and stronger. Night is coming from the
shore.

Their heads turned, the women watch the departing old woman. Then they
turn again toward the light.

Mariet, as though defending some one, says softly:

"There can't be anything bad in light. For there is light in the candles
on God's altar."

"But there is also fire for Satan in hell," says another old woman,
heavily and angrily, and then goes off. Now four remain, all young
girls.

"I am afraid," says one, pressing close to her companion.

The noiseless and cold conflagration in the sky is ended; the city is
destroyed; the unknown land is in ruins. There are no longer any walls
or falling towers; a heap of pale blue gigantic shapes have fallen
silently into the abyss of the ocean and the night. A young little star
glances at the earth with frightened eyes; it feels like coming out of
the clouds near the castle, and becau