--"Quickly, then, very quickly!... for I feel that God is calling me." Ropars rushed out, as though he feared there would scarcely be time; but he came in again almost in a moment, exclaiming that Francine was already on the terrace of the magazine with Dorot. Stretching out her hands to him, the dying woman uttered a feeble cry of joy. He wrapped her up in his winter-cape, and carried her gently in his arms as far as the parapet of their platform. --"Where is she?" inquired Geneviève, her eyes blinded by the light of day, and trying in vain to look steadily; "I can't make out anything, Mathieu! where is the child: show me the child!" --"Look down there at our feet," replied the seaman; "can you see the high rock?" --"Yes." --"Can you follow the bubbling of the sea along the reef?" --"Yes, yes." --"And away, yonder, over the reefs, can you distinguish the stone-work of the terrace?" --"Down there? ... no ... there's only a cloud! I can see nothing.... Oh! if it be too late!... if she be there under my very eyes, and I can no longer see her!... My God, my God, once more, only once, let me see my child!" These words, or rather these mother's cries, had been so full of sadness, that Ropars could not restrain his tears. He seated his sinking wife upon the parapet, and himself kneeled down to support her. --"Courage, Geneviève!" he stammered out; "look well to this side ... between the line of the sea and the sky." --"I am looking," said Geneviève, appearing in the effort to rally all the life left in her ".... Raise my head, Mathieu ... screen me from the sun...." She checked herself with a stifled exclamation. --"Ah! there she is! there she is!... She sees me ... she is lifting up her arms.... Francine ... my daughter ... my child!" So impulsively did she lean forward, that but for Ropars, she would have thrown herself upon the rocks that sloped down to the sea. A flitting ray of life had lighted up her features; she sent kisses on her fingers to the child, and talked to it as though it could hear her; she raised her hands to Heaven, with rapid and broken ejaculations; she smiled and wept at once. Finally, her strength failed to endure so great emotion, and her head fell upon the quarter-master's shoulder. In alarm, he took her again in his arms, to carry her back into the house; but she made signs to him that she wished to remain out of-doors. He laid her down upon the bench, whereon the family had been used to sit together in the evening, in front of the sea, which was now lighted up by the rising sun. After a swoon that lasted some time, she opened her eyes, and asked for her daughter. Mathieu looked towards the powder magazine and said that Dorot had taken her away. She bowed her head with sorrowing resignation.