After this double larceny, Erebus, with wonderful agility, again cleared the gulf behind him, and rejoined his companions, with whom he soon disappeared behind a mass of rocks. Reine’s fright and emotion were so violent that she turned deathly pale, her knees gave way, and she fell fainting in the arms of her father. The next day after this scene, the three Muscovites took leave of the marshal, Duke of Vitry, departed from Marseilles with their attendants, and proceeded on their way to Languedoc. CHAPTER III. THE WATCHMAN. The gulf of La Ciotat, equally distant from Toulon and Marseilles, lies in between the two capes of Alon and l’Aigle. The latter rises on the west of the bay. By order of the council of the town of La Ciotat, a sentry-box for the use of a watchman had been erected on the summit of this promontory. It was the duty of this man to watch for the coming of pirates from Barbary, and to signal their approach by kindling a fire which could be seen all along the coast. The scene we are about to describe occurred at the foot of this sentry-box about the middle of the month of December, 1633. An impetuous northwest wind, the terrible _mistraon_ of Provence, was blowing with fury. The sun, half-obscured by great masses of gray clouds, was slowly sinking in the waves, whose immense dark green curve was broken by a wide zone of reddish light, which diminished in proportion as the black clouds extended over the horizon. The summit of Cape l’Aigle, where the watchman’s box was situated, commanded the entire circumference of the gulf; the last limestone spurs of the whitish mountains of Sixfours, and Notre Dame de la Garde, descending like an amphitheatre to the edge of the gulf, here joined themselves to little cliffs formed of fine white sand, which, lifted up by the south wind, invaded a part of the coast. A little farther, on the declivity of a series of hills, shone the lights of several quicklime ovens, whose black smoke increased the gloomy aspect of the sky. Almost at the foot of the cape of l’Aigle, at the entrance of the bay, backed up against the mountains, could be seen, as the crow flies, the island Verte and the little town La Ciotat, belonging to the diocese of Marseilles and the jurisdiction of Aix. The town formed almost a trapezium, the base of which rested on the port This port held a dozen small vessels, called polacres and caravels, laden with wines and oil, waiting for favourable weather to return to the coast of Italy. About thirty boats designed for sardine fishing, called _essanguis_ by the inhabitants of Provence, were moored in a little bay of the gulf, named the cove of La Fontaine. The belfries of the churches and of the convent of the Ursulines were the only things which broke the monotony of the dwellings, almost entirely covered with tiles.