“Here, overseer,” exclaimed Luquin, pale with rage, “permit me to cut this villain’s face with a few blows of my sabre scabbard.” “If his words wound you, do not listen to them,” answered the overseer. “The commander entrusted this pagan to me, and I cannot permit any one to do him harm.” Luquin uttered a groan of concentrated wrath. “After all,” continued the Bohemian, with a disdain-ful self-conceit, “that girl is rather good-looking, but you have made her so silly, my boy, that the conversation I had with her yesterday was enough to take away any desire to continue the interview. You can marry her when you please, my boy, only when you see her look sad, you need only mention my name to make her smile tenderly, since the memory of me will live in her heart eternally. Poor girl, she told me so yesterday as she kissed my hand as if I had been a lord.” The indignant Luquin could hear no more. Shaking his fists at the Bohemian, he turned away abruptly, followed by the derisive laugh of the vagabond. As we have said, the sun was just sinking and the sea was calm. In the distance, between two points of the rocks at the depth of the bay, could be seen the _Red Galleon_ and the galley of Trimalcyon anchored near each other, while not far from them lay the chebec of Hadji. The boat which had brought Hadji balanced on the waves, fastened to the stem of the black galley. The sky was clear, with the exception of a belt of reddish gray clouds around the setting sun. Captain Hugues, the artilleryman, approached the overseer who guarded the Bohemian, and said to him, as he shook his head and pointed to the west: “Brother, I do not like those clouds which are gathering down there, they are threatening, we are in a dead calm. If the sun, as it sets, scatters these clouds, the night will be beautiful; if, on the contrary, the cloud covers the sun before it sets--” “I understand you, Brother Hugues, we will have a shift of the wind, a hurricane, and the night will be bad,” replied the overseer. “Fortunately, we have time yet.” And, turning to Hadji, he said, “Little it matters to you or to yours to be hanged in a storm or a calm.” “I prefer to be hanged in a storm, overseer; the wind rocks you like a cradle, and you fall asleep sooner in eternity,” replied Hadji, with a disdainful indifference.