Suddenly Trimalcyon and Pog, who, twenty steps distant, had witnessed this scene from the height of the rock where they were resting, cried out to their young companion some words in a foreign language. Erebus started, the baron, his daughter, and Honorât de Berrol turned their heads quickly. Trimalcyon looked at the baron’s daughter with a sort of vulgar and sneering admiration. The strange physiognomy of these two men surprised the baron, while his daughter and Honorât regarded them with an instinctive terror. A skilful painter would have found wealth of material in this scene. Imagine a profound solitude in the midst of tremendous rocks of reddish granite, whose summit only was lighted by the last rays of the sun. On the first plane, almost on the edge of the torrent bed, the baron with his left arm around Reine, grasping in his right hand the hand of Erebus, and fixing an anxious, surprised look on Pog and Trimalcyon. These two, on the second plane, the other side of the golf, standing up side by side, with their arms crossed, outlining a characteristic silhouette upon the azure sky, distinctly perceptible across the ragged edges of the rocks. Lastly, a few steps from the baron, stood Honorât de Berrol, holding his horse and Reine’s nag, and farther still the two servants, one of whom was occupied in readjusting the harness of Mistraon. At the first words of the strangers, the beautiful features of Erebus expressed a sort of distressed impatience; he seemed to be undergoing an inward struggle; his face, which awhile ago was radiant with noble passions, gradually grew sombre, as if he were submitting to a mysterious and irresistible influence. But when Trimalcyon, in a shrill and bantering voice, again uttered a few words, as he designated Reine by an insolent glance, when the lord Pog had added a biting sarcasm in the same language, unintelligible to the other actors in this scene, the features of Erebus completely changed their expression. With an almost disdainful gesture, he roughly repulsed the hand of the old man, and fixed an impudent stare on Mlle, des Anbiez. This time the girl blushed and dropped her eyes. This sudden metamorphosis in the manners of the stranger was so striking that the baron recoiled a step. Nevertheless, after a silence of a few seconds, he said to Erebus, in a voice deeply moved: “How shall I acknowledge, sir, the service you have just rendered me?” “Oh, sir,” added Reine, overcoming the peculiar emotion which the last look on the part of Erebus had inspired, “how shall we ever be able to prove our gratitude to you?” “By giving me a kiss, and this pin as a remembrance of you,” replied the impudent young man. He had scarcely uttered these words, when his mouth touched Reine’s virginal lips, and his bold hand tore away the little pin enamelled with silver, which was fastened in the young girl’s waist.