hoist the mainsail, and the wind was so
variable that much time was lost in humouring its caprices.

By evening the boat had drawn a considerable amount of water, it
penetrated between the boards, the handkerchiefs of the crew served to
plug up the leaks, and night, which was descending in mournful gloom,
wrapped them a second time in darkness. Prostrated with fatigue, Murat
fell asleep, Blancard and Langlade took their places beside Donadieu,
and the three men, who seemed insensible to the calls of sleep and
fatigue, watched over his slumbers.

The night was calm enough apparently, but low grumblings were heard now
and then.

The three sailors looked at each other strangely and then at the king,
who was sleeping at the bottom of the boat, his cloak soaked with
sea-water, sleeping as soundly as he had slept on the sands of Egypt or
the snows of Russia.

Then one of them got up and went to the other end of the boat, whistling
between his teeth a Provencal air; then, after examining the sky,
the waves; and the boat, he went back to his comrades and sat down,
muttering, "Impossible! Except by a miracle, we shall never make the
land."

The night passed through all its phases. At dawn there was a vessel in
sight.

"A sail!" cried Donadieu,--"a sail!"

At this cry the king--awoke; and soon a little trading brig hove in
sight, going from Corsica to Toulon.

Donadieu steered for the brig, Blancard hoisted enough sail to work the
boat, and Langlade ran to the prow and held up the king's cloak on the
end of a sort of harpoon. Soon the voyagers perceived that they had been
sighted, the brig went about to approach them, and in ten minutes they
found themselves within fifty yards of it. The captain appeared in the
bows. Then the king hailed him and offered him a substantial reward if
he would receive them on board and take them to Corsica. The captain
listened to the proposal; then immediately turning to the crew, he gave
an order in an undertone which Donadieu could not hear, but which he
understood probably by the gesture, for he instantly gave Langlade and
Blancard the order to make away from the schooner. They obeyed with the
unquestioning promptitude of sailors; but the king stamped his foot.

"What are you doing, Donadieu? What are you about? Don't you see that
she is coming up to us?"

"Yes--upon my soul--so she is.... Do as I say, Langlade; ready,
Blancard. Yes, she is coming upon us, and perhaps I was too late