The sun blazed on the boulders and stones and bushes in the perfect stillness of the air. The mule, disregarding with republican austerity the neighbourhood of a stable within less than a hundred and twenty yards, dropped its head, and even its ears, and dozed as if in the middle of a desert. The dog, apparently changed into stone at his master’s heel, seemed to be dozing too with his nose near the ground. Peyrol had fallen into a deep meditation, and the boatman of the lagoon awaited the solution of his doubts without eagerness and with something like a grin within his thick beard. Peyrol’s face cleared. He had solved the problem, but there was a shade of vexation in his tone. “Well, it can’t be helped,” he said. “I learned to shave from the English. I suppose that’s what’s the matter.” At the name of the English the boatman pricked up his ears. “One can’t tell where they are all gone to,” he murmured. “Only three years ago they swarmed about this coast in their big ships. You saw nothing but them, and they were fighting all round Toulon on land. Then in a week or two, crac!--nobody! Cleared out devil knows where. But perhaps you would know.” “Oh, yes,” said Peyrol, “I know all about the English, don’t you worry your head.” “I am not troubling my head. It is for you to think about what’s best to say when you speak with him up there. I mean the master of the farm.” “He can’t be a better patriot than I am, for all my shaven face,” said Peyrol. “That would only seem strange to a savage like you.” With an unexpected sigh the man sat down at the foot of the cross, and, immediately, his dog went off a little way and curled himself up amongst the tufts of grass. “We are all savages here,” said the forlorn fisherman from the lagoon. “But the master up there is a real patriot from the town. If you were ever to go to Toulon and ask people about him they would tell you. He first became busy purveying the guillotine when they were purifying the town from all aristocrats. That was even before the English came in. After the English got driven out there was more of that work than the guillotine could do. They had to kill traitors in the streets, in cellars, in their beds. The corpses of men and women were lying in heaps along the quays. There were a good many of his sort that got the name of drinkers of blood. Well, he was one of the best of them. I am only just telling you.” Peyrol nodded. “That will do me all right,” he said. And before he could pick up the reins and hit it with his heels the mule, as though it had just waited for his words, started off along the path.