Directly he was on his feet, La Vireville became aware of a black blotch on the waters of the bay, a little to his left, and a few yards from shore. He stood there staring at it, utterly unbelieving. Was this the answer of Providence? Two fantastic thoughts immediately visited him: the first, that she, with whom he had almost seemed, a moment ago, to hold converse, had known that the boat was there; the second, that Anne-Hilarion must really need him. It was quite a small boat, yet, as far as he could see by straining his eyes in the moonlight, it had a mast ready stepped--a vital point, since he must have a sail. Then he tried to calculate the distance of the boat from the edge of the water, because he thought it very unlikely that in his present condition he could swim out to her. If the tide were ebbing, however, he might possibly reach her by wading. "I shall be taking the deuce of a deal of trouble for you, Anne," he said out loud, "and I expect it will come to the same thing in the end--a volley at ten paces." But he sat down again to wait for the moon's setting, his back against the bank of sand that was the edge of the barley-field, trying to keep his hot thoughts off the great pain that he was suffering, wishing that he had not made away with his sling, and facing the more than probability that the fresh injury would in the end be his undoing. * * * * * Twelve hours later, shivering with fever under a hot noon sun, he was lying becalmed somewhere to the east of Houat. He had almost lost his sense of direction, and in any case there was no wind. The oars he naturally could not use. He had eaten nothing since the day before, he was very thirsty, he had been soaked to the skin in getting to the boat, and his wounded arm was causing him such a martyrdom that if he could have cut it off and thrown it overboard he would willingly have done so. Half the time Anne-Hilarion seemed to be sitting beside him, asking why they did not sail faster, and once, at least, he answered him very seriously, "Because, mon petit, your uncle has such extraordinary bad luck,"--to which Anne had contended that it was good luck, not bad, or that it might at least be regarded as mixed. And then the fugitive found himself saying something about the devil's own luck, and a voice replied, "André had that kind of luck too, but it failed him in the end." Who was André? Was he in the boat too? If he were, then perhaps his sister was with him, and perhaps she could do something for this terrible pain which was driving him crazy--as once she had with her cool fingers eased his foot. . . .