Even when they were through conditions were not agreeable. When François had set the course fairly for the coast of Brittany they felt the full violence of the wind again, this time, it was true, no longer in their teeth. The sorely-buffeted _Marie-François_, obliged unceasingly to tack to avoid being driven on to the St. Malo coast, shipped every few minutes a little water, flung half-contemptuously into her by a snarling wave. About two in the morning it became bitingly cold. La Vireville had long ago taken off his cloak to wrap round Anne, and finally he made a kind of bundle of him and put him right in the bows, where, in spite of the lobster-pots and the smell of fish and tarred rope, he thought the child would get more shelter than in the stern. Frightened and sea-sick, the little boy did, however, fall now and again into slumber of a sort, when La Vireville could turn an undivided attention to the management of the sails or to baling. Thus the night wore on, and at last, as the dawn brightened on the grey, heaving waters, the coast of Brittany was visible on their left. The wind, now considerably abated, had gone round several points towards the north, and had St. Malo been their objective instead of the spot they particularly wished to avoid, they could have run before it for that harbour. As it was, they must make farther along the coast for the little bay which La Vireville had in view. It was true that, owing to the change in the wind, they would have difficulty in reaching this point before sunrise, and a man with a price on his head, like La Vireville, does not of preference select full daylight to land on a guarded coast, in precisely that region of it where he may with most probability be expected to land; but there was no help for it. There was always the bare possibility of falling in with one of the Jersey luggers before they got there, and thus making their landing unnecessary. Moreover, a sort of informal armistice was supposed to be in existence at the moment, on account of negotiations for a settlement then going forward between Republicans and Royalists in the west, though La Vireville pinned very little trust to the truce in question. The unwished-for sun was already rising when Anne-Hilarion, rather wan, was fetched from his place of retirement and persuaded to try to eat something. He displayed small interest and no disappointment on learning that he was being taken to Brittany instead of to Jersey. When this information was being imparted to him the fishing-boat was already edging in towards the coast--a coast of cliffs and bays equally asleep in the early sunshine, whence, so her crew hoped, her small size and her inconspicuous brown sail would save her from observation. After the night of cold and peril the change of atmosphere was not unwelcome. In another half-hour, with luck, they would reach the little bay La Vireville had in mind.