confusion, in the darkness; what was seen of them seemed an encouragement to shout louder. And I give you my word that it was in no wise needed. All those Southerners, whose enthusiasm had been kept at fever heat since morning, excited still more by the tedium of the long wait and by the storm, gave all that they had of voice, of breath, of noisy energy, blending with the national hymn of Provence that oft-repeated cry, which broke in upon it like a refrain: "Vive le Bey!" The majority had no sort of idea what a bey might be, did not even picture him to themselves, and gave a most extraordinary pronunciation to the unfamiliar title, as if it had three _b's_ and ten _y's_. But no matter, they worked themselves into a frenzy over it, threw up their hands, waved their hats, and waxed excited over their own antics. Women, deeply affected, wiped their eyes; and suddenly the piercing cry of a child came from the topmost branches of an elm: "Mamma, mamma, I see him!" He saw him! They all saw him for that matter; to this day they would all take their oath that they saw him. Confronted with such delirious excitement, finding it impossible to impose silence and tranquillity upon that mob, there was but one course for the people in the carriages to pursue: to let them alone, raise the windows and drive at full speed in order to abridge that unpleasant martyrdom as much as possible. Then it was terrible. Seeing the cortege quicken its pace, the whole road began to run with it. The _farandoleurs_ of Barbantane, hand-in-hand, bounded from side to side, to the muffled wheezing of their tambourines, forming a human garland around the carriage doors. The singing societies, unable to sing at that breathless pace, but howling none the less, dragged their banner-bearers along, the banners thrown over their shoulders; and the stout, red-faced cures, panting, pushing their huge overburdened paunches before them, still found strength to shout in the mules' ears, in sympathetic, effusive tones: "Vive notre bon Bey!" And with it all, the rain, the rain falling in bucketfuls, in sheets, soiling the pink carriages, increasing the confusion, giving to that triumphal return the aspect of a rout, but a laughable rout, compounded of songs, laughter, blasphemy, frantic embraces and infernal oaths, something like the return from a Corpus Christi procession in the storm, with cassocks tucked up, surplices thrown over the head, and the good Lord hastily housed under a porch. A dull rumbling announced to the poor Nabob, sitting silent and motionless in a corner of his carriage, that they were crossing the bridge of boats. They had arrived.