"Have you seen Rampal, friend?" said Renaud, stopping his horse short as soon as he saw the fisherman, who was just about changing his place. "Ah! King, are you the man who is looking for him?" said the fisherman, an old man. "If he has kept to the road he took to get away from you,--for I saw he was watching some one behind him,--he ought to be on the shore of the Vaccarès by this time, and from there, if he doesn't go back to Saintes-Maries, he will surely go up toward Notre-Dame-d'Amour. You have a good horse, and you can catch him between the Vaccarès and the Grand' Mar." Renaud darted away as if he had wings. After an hour and a half of furious riding,--he was wise enough, however, to change his gait several times,-he drew rein, a little discouraged; then, after a brief halt and a draught of brandy from the flask that never left his holsters, he resumed his headlong race--but not until he had thoughtfully allowed his horse to drink a swallow of water from the canal. When he was between the Grand' Mar swamp and the Vaccarès, he found his own drove taking their midday rest there, under the guidance of Bernard, his young assistant. Horses and bulls were lying motionless on the shore of the Vaccarès, in the twofold glare from sky and water, for it was well-nigh noon, and the light was dazzling. Bernard was resting likewise, lying on his back with his head on the saddle, not far from his horse, which was fettered near by, learning to amble. In front of Renaud lay the pearl-gray Vaccarès, gleaming like a huge table of polished steel, in the centre of which a veritable white islet of sea-mews were sleeping, motionless as statues. Behind him stretched an ashen-gray plain, which could be seen only in spots--where the salt emerged in efflorescent crystals--glistening through a vast violet net-work of flowering _saladelles_; for the _saladelles_ spread out in broad, graceful tufts, with many ramifications, but without foliage, dotted with a multitude of lilac blossoms, between which the ground can be seen. And farther away the fields of glasswort began, with their plump, juicy leaves; they are a beautiful rich green when they are young, but the salt air soon turns them blood-red, so that the oldest and those nearest the sea are the darkest. Here and there the stunted tamarisk, with its gnarled trunk, dotted the plain, its sparse foliage tinged with pink by the blossoms hanging in tiny clusters, which, tiny though they be, are a heavy burden for its flexible branches.