Reine des Anbiez continued to sing. Like a child, she amused herself by waking the echoes in the gorges of Ollioules, making by turn loud and soft modulations, which would have put a nightingale to despair. She had just made a most brilliant and musical arpeggio, when suddenly, anticipating the echo, a male voice, sweet and melodious, repeated the young girl’s song with incredible exactness. For some moments these two charming voices, meeting by chance in a marvellous union, were repeated by the many echoes of this profound solitude. Reine stopped singing, and blushed as she looked up at her father. The baron, astonished, turned to Honorât de Berrol, and said, with his habitual exclamation: “Manjour! chevalier, who in the devil is imitating the voice of an angel?” In the first moment of surprise the baron had unfortunately let the reins fall on Mistraon’s neck. For some time the deceitful animal kept his step with a gravity and dignity worthy of a bishop’s mule, then in two vigorous bounds, and before the baron had time to recover himself, he climbed up an escarpment which shut in the road. Unhappily, the horse had made such an effort in ascending this steep acclivity, that he fell upon his head, the reins went over his ears, and floated at random. All this happened in less time than is required to write it. The baron, an excellent master of horse, although not a little surprised by the adventure of Mistraon, reseated himself in the saddle; his first effort was to try to seize the reins,--he could not reach them. Then, notwithstanding his courage, he shuddered with horror, as he saw himself at the mercy of an unbridled horse that in his frenzy was trying to leap the precipitous edge of a torrent bed. This deep and wide gulf lay parallel with the road, and was separated from it only by a space of fifty feet. [Illustration: Seized the bloody bridle] Seated in his saddle, and by reason of his wound unable to get out of it before the horse could plunge into the abyss, the old man gave his last thought to his God and his daughter,--made a vow of a weekly mass and an annual pilgrimage to the Chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde, and prepared to die. From the height where he was standing, Erebus saw the danger of the baron; he saw that he was separated from him by the deep bed of the torrent, ten or twelve feet wide, toward which the horse was plunging. With a movement more rapid than thought, and an almost desperate leap, Erebus cleared the abyss, and rolled under the animal’s feet The baron screamed with terror,--he believed his saviour would be carried over into the golf, for, notwithstanding the pain and fright which this violent jerk had given him, Mistraon was not able to arrest the impetuosity of his spring, and dragged Erebus several steps.