"Is it you, M. le Chevalier?" murmured Anne sleepily. "Oh, I was dreaming that I was in France. . . . What is it, Papa?" "Shall I take a message from you to the Chevalier?" suggested René, catching at this opening and trying to smile. Anne was still only partially awake. "Yes," he said drowsily. "Tell him that I want to show him my new goldfish . . . and tell him to come back soon to England. . . ." The words began to tail off into sleep again. So much the better. The Marquis knelt down and gave him a long kiss. "Good-bye, my darling, my darling!" he whispered. And instantly Anne was fully aroused. "Papa! you are not going _now_--to-night?" "Yes," said his father. "I start for Southampton to-night. Kiss me, my son, and be a good boy while I am away--and a brave one now!" But really it was he--as he felt--who had need of courage then, for next moment, releasing his hold of the child, as he knelt there, he himself had buried his face in the coverlet. BOOK THREE THE ROAD THAT FEW RETURNED ON "It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight, They waded through red blude to the knee; For a' the blude that's shed on the earth Rins thro' the springs o' that countrie." _THOMAS THE RHYMER._ CHAPTER XXII "TO NOROWAY, TO NOROWAY" (1) From the quarterdeck of His Britannic Majesty's frigate _Pomone_, which had recently come to anchor in the wide and placid bay of Quiberon, Mr. Francis Tollemache gazed with interest on that portion of the southern coast of Brittany which lay before him. The June evening was calm and foggy, but not sufficiently so as to obscure the nearer land. In front of the observer was the low, sandy shore of Carnac; to the right the deeply indented coast, scarcely seen, broke into inlets and islands till, passing the narrow mouth of that surprising inland sea, the Morbihan, which gave its name to the department, it swept round into the peninsula of Rhuis. But on Mr. Tollemache's left hand, much nearer, curved the long, thin, sickle-blade of the peninsula of Quiberon, with its tiny villages, its meagre stone-walled fields, and its abundant windmills. About two-thirds of the way up, at the narrowest part of the blade, the threatening mass of Fort Penthièvre looked out on the one side over the tranquil waters of the bay, on the other over the tormented open sea, the 'mer sauvage,' that broke against the very rocks on which the fortress was built. And to this long natural breakwater was due the shelter of that ample beach at Carnac, indeed the spacious harbourage of the bay itself, where now the present squadron and its transports rode in comfort this twenty-fifth of June.