A blistering heat rushed down from the expiring building to the edge of the land. Crowds watched the destruction. Many of the people were in holiday attire. This was the Day of Ascension, and Saint Pierre would shortly pray and praise at the cathedral; and at _Notre Dame des Lourdes_, where Father Fontanel would be missed quite the same as if they had taken the figure of Saint Anne from the altar.... Even now the cathedral bells were calling, and there was low laughter from a group of Creole maidens. Was it not good to live, since the sun was trying to shine again and the mountain did not answer the ringing of the bells? It was true that Pelée poured forth a black streamer with lightning in its folds; true that the people trod upon the hot, gray dust of the volcano's waste; that the heat was such as no man had ever felt before, and many sat in misery upon the ground; true, indeed, that voices of hysteria came from the hovels, and the weaker were dying too swiftly for the priests to attend them all--but the gala-spirit was not dead. The bells were calling, the mountain was still, bright dresses were abroad--for the torrid children of France must laugh. A carriage was not procurable, so Charter fell in with the procession on the way to the cathedral. Many of the natives nodded to him; and may have wondered at the color in his skin, the fire in his eyes, and the glad ring of his voice. Standing for a moment before the church, he hurled over the little gathering the germ of flight; told them of the food and shelter in Fort de France, begged them laughingly to take their women and children out of this killing air.... It was nearly eight--eight on the morning of Ascension Day.... She would be ready. He hoped to find a carriage at the hotel.... At nine they would be in the launch again, speeding out toward the _Saragossa_. Twenty times a minute she recurred to him as he walked. There was no waning nor wearing--save a wearing brighter, perhaps--of the images she had put in his mind. Palaces, gardens, treasure-houses--with the turn of every thought, new riches of possibility identified with her, were revealed. Thoughts of her, winged in and out his mind like bright birds that had a cote within--until he was lifted to heights of gladness which seemed to shatter the dome of human limitations--and leave him crown and shoulders emerged into illimitable ether. The road up the _Morne_ stretched blinding white before him. The sun was braver. Panting and spent not a little, he strode upward through the vicious pressure of heat, holding his helmet free from his head, that air might circulate under the rim. Upon the crest of the _Morne_, he perceived the gables of the old plantation-house, above the palms and mangoes, strangely yellowed in the ashen haze.