Now, it is night. Everybody is asleep at Saint-Romans after the tremendous hurly-burly of the day. The rain is still falling in torrents, the banners feebly wave their drenched carcasses, one can hear the water rushing down the stone steps, transformed into cascades. Everything is streaming and dripping. A sound of water, a deafening sound of water. Alone in his magnificently furnished chamber with its seignorial bed and its curtains of Chinese silk with purple stripes, the Nabob is still stirring, striding back and forth, revolving bitter thoughts. His mind is no longer intent upon the affront to himself, the public affront in the presence of thirty thousand persons, nor upon the murderous insult that the Bey addressed to him in presence of his mortal enemies. No, that Southerner with his wholly physical sensations, swift as the action of new weapons, has already cast away all the venom of his spleen. Moreover court favorites are always prepared, by many celebrated precedents, for such overwhelming falls from grace. What terrifies him is what he can see behind that insult. He reflects that all his property is over yonder, houses, counting-rooms, vessels, at the mercy of the bey, in that lawless Orient, the land of arbitrary power. And, pressing his burning brow against the streaming glass, with the perspiration standing on his back, and hands cold as ice, he stares vacantly out into the night, no darker, no more impenetrable than his own destiny. Suddenly he hears footsteps, hurried footsteps, at his door. "Who's there?" "Monsieur," says Noel, entering the room half-dressed, "a very urgent despatch sent from the telegraph office by special messenger." "A despatch!--What is the next thing?" He takes the blue paper and opens it with trembling hand. The god, having already been wounded twice, is beginning to feel that he is vulnerable, to lose his assurance; he experiences the apprehensions, the nervous tremors of other men. The signature first. _Mora!_ Is it possible? The duke, the duke telegraph to him! Yes, there is no doubt about it. _M-o-r-a._ And above: _Popolasca is dead. Election in Corsica soon. You are official candidate._ A deputy! That means salvation. With that he has nothing to fear. A representative of the great French nation is not to be treated like a simple _mercanti_. Down with the Hemerlingues! "O my duke, my noble duke!" He was so excited that he could not sign the receipt. "Where's the man who brought this despatch?" he asked abruptly. "Here, Monsieur Jansoulet," replied a hearty voice from the hall, in the familiar Southern dialect. He was a lucky dog, that messenger. "Come in," said the Nabob.