Pierre des Anbiez, wrapped in his mantle, turned his head and threw a last lingering look upon his galley, as if to assure himself of the reality of the events which were taking place. He felt himself dragged, so to speak, by an irresistible force to which he submitted in blind obedience. After some moments of silence, he said to Hadji: “Where does that man expect me?” “On the beach, near the ruins of the Abbey of St. Victor, monseigneur.” “Make your crew row faster, they do not advance,” said Pierre des Anbiez, with feverish impatience. “The waves are high, the cloud is gathering, and the wind is going to blow; the night will be bad,” said Hadji, in a low voice. The commander, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not reply to him. The sun’s last rays were soon obscured by a large belt of black clouds, which, at first heavy and motionless upon the horizon, began to move with frightful rapidity. Deep and distant bursts of thunder, a phenomenon quite common during the winter season of Provence, announced one of those sudden hurricanes so frequent in the Mediterranean. CHAPTER XLI. THE COMBAT The clouds piled high in the west, spread rapidly over the sky which had been so serene. The increasing murmur of the waves, the plaintive moan of the wind, which was gradually rising, the distant rolling of the thunder, all announced a terrible storm. The little boat reached the shore, a lonely beach girded by blocks of reddish granite. The commander and Honorât landed, when Hadji, who had preceded them a few steps, stopped and said to Pierre des Anbiez, “Monseigneur, follow this path hollowed out of the rock, and you will soon arrive at the ruins of the Abbey of St. Victor. Pog-Reis awaits you there.” Without replying to Hadji, Pierre des Anbiez resolutely entered a sort of crevasse formed by a rent in the rock, and scarcely large enough for a man to pass through. Honorât, not less courageous, followed him, reflecting at the same time that a traitor, placed on the crest of the two rocks between which they rather glided than walked, could easily crush them by rolling upon them some one of the enormous stones which crowned the escarpment. The tempest was gradually approaching. The loud voices of the wind and the sea, which threatened more and more, at last burst forth into fury, and were answered from the height of the clouds by the thunderbolts. The elements had entered upon a tremendous struggle. The commander walked with long strides. In the violence of the storm he saw an omen; it seemed to him that the vengeance of Heaven clothed itself in a terrible majesty before striking him. The more he reflected, the more the strange dream related by the Bohemian appeared to him a manifestation of the divine will.