Innumerable little snails were perched, like blossoms, upon the stalks of the reeds, and swung to and fro. A very gentle breeze was blowing and raising a slight, uncertain ripple along the edges of the marsh, with the sound of a furtive kiss among the flowering rushes. At times, a lark or a flamingo, asleep among the reeds or in the shallow water, would awaken ever so little and chirp to let his mate know that he was there, not far away. June is no hotter. Sometimes the smell of roses filled their nostrils, coming in long puffs from far-off gardens. Yonder, in the park of the Château d'Avignon, the Syrian tree was sending forth its pollen. Renaud, after skirting the sea for some distance, rode due northeast, beyond the pond of La Dame. He was bound for Grand-Pâtis. The people at Sambuc had some boats that he knew of. For a moment, they rode beside a drove. Bulls, standing in water up to their thighs, hardly noticed, were feeding on the flowering reeds. White mares fled at their approach, followed faithfully by stallions anxious not to lose sight of them. The sap of May was flowing in the reeds and rushes, in the sambucus and tamarisk. The very water exhaled a saline odor, stronger than usual, and more heavily laden with desires. The wild vine called to its mate, that came borne upon the heavy breath of the blooming desert. Again Renaud stopped, seized with a mild, pleasurable vertigo. The fresh, love-compelling breeze in which they were bathed laid an imperious command upon him. "Get down," said he, "get down at once! This is a good place to rest." But she remembered the order she had given. "We must go where we were going," said she. "I will not get down until we are there. We must cross the Rhône, you say? Press on, press on!--Gallop! The gipsy loves the horse." She would have none of his caresses except at the place appointed. She would not submit to him until they should be where he was, by her agency, in danger of death or suffering. A kiss under other circumstances would be a triumph for him, and she gave herself to him for her own pleasure alone. She desired to feel, in the interchange of caresses, that the moisture of her lips was poison, that her bite would cause death or madness. Firmly seated _en croupe_, still clinging fast to the drover--her victim--with her arm wound about him, her bare legs hanging in the folds of her skirt which the wind raised as they sped along, with her head thrown proudly back, she swayed gracefully with the rocking motion of the gallop; and her face, which had a sallow look in the moonlight against the neck of the man whom she was leading astray, albeit she seemed to be carried away by him--her face was wreathed in smiles.