“At that hour the waters assumed fantastic hues under the sunset sky, and seemed to be painted pictures; the stars dropped tender streaks of light, the moon spread its pleasing snares; it gave another life to the trees, to the color and form of things, and a new aspect to the sparkling water, the silent hills, the eloquent buildings. The city spoke, it glittered, it called to me to return! “Columns of smoke rose up by the side of the ancient pillars, whose marble sheen gleamed white through the night; the lines of the horizon were still visible through the mists of evening; all was harmony and mystery. Nature would not say farewell; she desired to keep me there. Ah! It was all in all to me; my mother and my child, my wife and my glory! The very bells bewailed my condemnation. Oh, land of marvels! It is as beautiful as heaven. From that hour the wide world has been my dungeon. Beloved land, why hast thou rejected me? “But I shall triumph there yet!” he cried, speaking with an accent of such intense conviction and such a ringing tone, that the boatman started as at a trumpet call. The stranger was standing in a prophetic attitude and gazing southwards into the blue, pointing to his native home across the skyey regions. The ascetic pallor of his face had given place to a glow of triumph, his eyes flashed, he was as grand as a lion shaking his mane. “But you, poor child,” he went on, looking at Godefroid, whose cheeks were beaded with glittering tears, “have you, like me, studied life from blood-stained pages? What can you have to weep for, at your age?” “Alas!” said Godefroid, “I regret a land more beautiful than any land on earth--a land I never saw and yet remember. Oh, if I could but cleave the air on beating wings, I would fly----” “Whither?” asked the exile. “Up there,” replied the boy. On hearing this answer, the stranger seemed surprised; he looked darkly at the youth, who remained silent. They seemed to communicate by an unspeakable effusion of the spirit, hearing each other’s yearnings in the teeming silence, and going forth side by side, like two doves sweeping the air on equal wing, till the boat, touching the strand of the island, roused them from their deep reverie. Then, each lost in thought, they went together to the sergeant’s house. “And so the boy believes that he is an angel exiled from heaven!” thought the tall stranger. “Which of us all has a right to undeceive him? Not I--I, who am so often lifted by some magic spell so far above the earth; I who am dedicate to God; I who am a mystery to myself. Have I not already seen the fairest of the angels dwelling in this mire? Is this child more or less crazed than I am? Has he taken a bolder step in the way of faith? He believes, and his belief no doubt will lead him into some path of light like that in which I walk. But though he is as beautiful as an angel, is he not too feeble to stand fast in such a struggle?”