And amid this formidable everlasting clamor, made by the voices of myriads of amorous little frogs, accentuated by the cry of a curlew, or a heron on the watch, and accompanied by the humming of the two Rhônes and the plashing of the sea--the lovers, both deeply moved, heard nothing save the calm beating of their hearts. As time went on, their love waxed greater, increased by the memory of all these hours lived together. Renaud was no longer simple Renaud in Livette's eyes, but the being by whom she knew what life was, through whom came to her that overwhelming consciousness of everything, of the horizons of land and sea, that sentiment of _being_, that longing for the future, for growth, that inflow of vague hopes that comes of love and gives a zest to life. And now, if any one had sought to wrest Jacques from Livette, she would have died of it, and he who should try to wrest Livette from Jacques would have died of it--he would, my friends, even more certainly. It is a good and excellent thing that love should be always busied in making the world younger--and the nightingale, like the frogs, is never weary of repeating it. VI RAMPAL Rampal, who had borrowed Jacques Renaud's horse, had not returned. Renaud now rode no other horse than Blanchet. Rampal was a low rascal, gambler, hanger-on of wine-shops, well-known at Arles in all the vile haunts scattered along the Rhône. Dismissed by several masters, a drover without a drove, he passed his life in these days, riding from town to town, from Aigues-Mortes to Nîmes, from Nîmes to Arles, from Arles to Martigues, and in each of these towns plied some doubtful trade, cheated a little at cards, winning the means of living a week without doing anything, and returning, for that week, to the Camargue he loved, where there were, in two or three farm-houses, women who smiled upon his mysterious, piratical existence. For that existence, a horse was essential. Rampal, serving as a drover on foot, had, in the first place, stolen a horse from a _manade_, but he broke his tether the second night, left his master, swam the Rhône, and rejoined his fellows. Then it was that the rascal, having, in truth, important business on hand, had said to Renaud: "I have to go to Saintes, I'll take your horse, Cabri." "Take my horse," Renaud replied. It did not occur to him that Rampal would not return. Jacques relied so surely upon his own reputation for strength and courage that he did not think that any one would venture to arouse his wrath. And then he had a sort of pity for Rampal, mingled with a little admiration. He was a bold horseman, was Rampal, and, except for women and cards, he would have been, with Renaud, or just after him, a king of the drovers! So that, if Rampal aroused Renaud's compassion, Renaud aroused Rampal's envy.