Whither he was going he had no idea. He rode at random under the spur of the energy that was rampant within him, demanding to be expended.

Love guided him as he himself guided his horse. He was the rider of his own steed, and at the same time the accursed steed of the passion that impelled him, spurred him on, shouted to him: “Forward!” guided this way and that, without purpose, his mad race across the moor. He, too, was mounted, harassed, bridled, whipped, bit in mouth, raging and powerless. And the horse shared the mad humor of his master, who was under the spell of love, so that Blanchet, wearied though he was by his day’s labor, having had but a very brief rest, was wild with excitement none the less. Fortunately, he knew all the ditches and canals and bogs, and, in his rapid flight with the reins lying on his neck, he chose his own road. Sometimes he would slacken his pace on approaching a ditch, in order to walk down into it, head first, compelling his rider to stand in his great stirrups, with his back touching the croup: sometimes he leaped them at full speed.

Drunken, bareheaded,—his hat having blown away somewhere in the darkness,—the wind whistling through his hair, Renaud rode, for the sake of riding, because the violence of his pace corresponded to the violence of the passions that were raging within him. He tore along as a beast does in the rutting season, from its mad desire to be alone.

And he said to himself that it was abominable to think of the other, when he had for his own that flower of beauty, chastity and sweetness; but he was thirsting for something very different; and he was conscious of an intensely bitter taste in his mouth, a clinging, dry saliva, a moisture that made his thirst the more unbearable.

Powerless to devise a means of escape from all the evil impulses in his heart, he rode on confessing to two longings: either to meet Rampal and take vengeance upon him for everything, or else to fall over backward into a ditch and rise no more, thus giving a different turn to his evil destiny;—and a third longing which he did not admit even to himself: to meet the gipsy at daybreak, begging at the door of some farm.—And then?—He did not know!

Suddenly he thought that he heard a beating of hoofs behind him, the echo of his own gallop; he turned and saw—he saw in very truth!—pursuing him at full speed, the naked gipsy, sitting firmly astride her saddle, man-fashion, upon a shadowy horse whose feet did not touch the ground.

She flew through the air, laughing in mockery as she cried to him:

“Stop, coward!”

He said to himself that it was not real, but he did not say to himself that it was a vision; he thought: “It is witchcraft!” and fear seized upon him, fear as powerful as his desire, and he fled from the image of her he sought.

He turned to look no more; he fled. He heard the double gallop still: his own and the other’s. He rode through the transparent mist that hovered over the damp, salt sand; and as he cut through those crawling clouds it seemed to him as if he were riding through the sky, above the higher clouds. In very truth, his brain was wandering, for love will be obeyed, and his youthful passion was like insanity.

Suddenly Blanchet’s four legs, as he flew over the ground, became motionless and rigid as stakes, and his shoeless feet began to slide over an absolutely smooth surface of clay, hard as iron and as slippery as if it had been soaped. Swiftly the horse slid along, digging furrows with his hoofs upon the polished surface, and when he lost his acquired momentum, he stopped, tried to resume his former pace, raised one foot and fell heavily to the ground, exhausted, his mouth and nostrils breathing despair. In an instant, Renaud, leaning on his spear, which he had not let go, stood at his horse’s head, struggling to lift him up, and encouraging him with his voice. Blanchet, supported by the rein in his master’s hand, regained his feet after two fruitless slides.

Renaud looked about: there was nothing to be seen save darkness, the desert, the stars,—tatters of pallid mist that strayed hither and thither, as if clinging to a bush, a tamarisk, a clump of rushes,—and assumed, from time to time, the shape of fantastic animals.

Renaud mounted Blanchet once more, but he was moved to pity for him. And the horse, sometimes letting himself slide upon his shoeless feet, his four legs perfectly stiff, sometimes putting one foot before the other, testing the ground, which was firm and hard beneath his weight, but soft beneath his sharp, scaly hoof, carried him at last away from the clayey tract.

Pity and remorse at once were awakened in Renaud’s heart by Livette’s horse.

What right had he, the drover, to ruin the favorite steed of his darling fiancÉe in the service of his passion for a witch?

So Renaud dismounted, removed Blanchet’s saddle and bridle, and said to him: “Go! do what you will.” Then he cut a bundle of reeds with which he made himself a bed, and lay upon his back, with his saddle under his head and a handkerchief over his face, waiting for dawn. He fell into a heavy sleep, during which his trouble swelled and burst within him, forced its way out, and took on form and feature.—The same vision constantly returned.

When he awoke, two hours later, he found his cheeks wet with tears and his hands over his face. Then he took pity upon himself, and, having begun to weep in his dream, he let the tears flow freely that he would have forced back had they sought an outlet on the previous day.

He deemed himself a miserable wretch, and wept over his fate, at first madly, convulsively, and then with joy, as if, in weeping, he had poured out all his sorrow forever. He wept to think that he was caught, powerless, between two contrary, irreconcilable things: that he wished for the one, and thirsted, against his will, for the other. He beat his hands upon the ground; he tore his cravat, which strangled him; he ground the reeds with his teeth, and cried aloud like a child,—he, an orphan:

“O God! my mother!”

And he would have wept on for a long while, perhaps, and emptied the springs of bitterness in his heart, had he not suddenly felt a warm caress—two soft, warm, moist caresses upon his cheek, his forehead, his closed eyes.

He half opened his eyelids and saw Blanchet standing beside him, touching his face with his pendant lip as he used to touch Livette’s hand when in search of a bit of sugar. Another animal had imitated Blanchet; it was the dondaÏre, Le Doux, the drover’s favorite, the leader of his drove of wild bulls and cows, whose bell he had not heard, but who had recognized his master.

The compassion of these two dumb animals aggravated Renaud’s bitter grief at first. Like children, who begin to howl as soon as you sympathize with them, he, when he found he was so wretched as to arouse the pity of beasts, cried aloud in his heart, but stifled the cry at his throat; then, touched at the sight of their kindly faces, and distracted thereby from his own thoughts, he became suddenly calm, sat up, put out his hand toward the muzzles of the powerful yet docile creatures, and spoke to them:

“Good fellows, good fellows! oh! yes, good fellows!”

Day began to break. And the great black bull and the white horse, both, as if in answer to the man and in answer likewise to the first gleam of returning day, which sent a thrill of delight over all the plain, stretched out their necks toward the east; and the neighing of the horse arose, loud and shrill as a flourish of trumpets, sustained by the bass of the bull’s bellowing.

Instantly a chorus of neighs and bellows arose on all sides of Renaud. His free drove had passed the night in the neighborhood. He was surrounded by the familiar forms of his own beasts.

They came at the call of Blanchet and Le Doux and the drover’s voice. The mares were white as salt. Some of them came trotting up, some galloping, some followed by their foals; and passed their heads between the reeds, peered curiously in, and stood there,—or else, with a cunning air, set off again, as who should say: “There’s the tamer, let us be off!” And there was a great kicking and flinging of heels away from the man’s side.

Some bulls, thin, nervous black fellows, whipping their sides with their long tails, also came up, took alarm, remembering that they had been punished for some shortcoming, and, turning tail, decamped in the same way, and when they were out of sight, suddenly stopped.

But as the dondaÏre remained there, few of the horses and cattle left the spot.

Some, the oldest or the wisest, slowly assumed a kneeling posture, as if to resume their interrupted repose, then, scenting the approaching sun, wound their tongues about the tufts of salt grass, drew them into their mouths and chewed placidly, while the silvery foam fell from their muzzles.

Others, in the same posture, lazily licked their sides. A mother, nursing her calf, watched him with a calm, gentle eye.

Here a stallion drew near a mare, reached her side in two bounds, with tail in air and bristling mane, and bold, sonorous, trumpet-like call—then reared, and when the mare leaped aside, bit at her and with a sudden sidewise movement dodged the kick she aimed at him. More than one bull, too, paid court to the other sex, rose clumsily on his hind legs, only to fall again on his four feet, with nothing beneath him.

The awakening of the drove was not complete. The animals were still dull and heavy. They were awaiting the coming of the sun.

Renaud approached a half-broken stallion he had sometimes ridden, and threw over his neck the sÉden he had just coiled for that purpose—Livette’s sÉden and Blanchet’s, all stained with mud from having brought so many beasts to earth.

He gave sugar to the wild creature, who allowed himself to be saddled without overmuch resistance, desirous, perhaps, to enjoy for a day the abundant supply of hay in the stables of the chÂteau, which he had not forgotten.

“Go and rest, old fellow!” said Renaud to Blanchet.

And he set off on his fresh steed, spear in hand, with the idea of seeking Rampal.

The stallion he rode was his favorite, the one he had named Prince. And he felt a thrill of honest satisfaction as he said to himself that at all events Livette’s horse would not have to put up with his whims and follies as a lover any more. He felt highly pleased at that thought, being lightened of a threefold responsibility, as rider, drover, and lover.

Prince seemed disappointed when Renaud compelled him to turn his back on the ChÂteau d’Avignon. He rode in the direction of the cabin mentioned by Audiffret. It was very possible, after all, that Rampal had taken up his quarters there, and he proposed to find out. Now, as this cabin was, as we have seen, not in Camargue, but in Crau, not far from the Icard farm, between nine and ten leagues to the eastward, it was necessary to cross the main stream of the RhÔne. But, in that vast plain, men rode long distances for a yes or a no, and thirty or forty kilomÈtres had no terrors for Renaud.

From his present position, it seemed to him that his shortest road would be to skirt the southern shore of the VaccarÈs.

The cool, fresh morning air drove away all his black thoughts, his visions and nightmares; he felt something like tranquillity. Moreover, he was so overdone with weariness that he seemed half-asleep, and the feeling was delicious. He no longer had the strength to follow his thoughts, still less to guide them, so that he was submissive as a blade of grass, as any inanimate thing, to the passing breeze, to the sun’s rays.

The hour and the coloring of the earth and sky were in very truth enough to rejoice the heart, and physical gaiety took possession of him, as he had ceased to reflect.

A fresh breeze, smelling of the sea, sent a shiver over the water and the grass. The sun was rising. A moment more and he would appear to cast his net of gold horizontally over the plain. He appeared. The vague murmurs became distinct sounds; reflection changed to brilliant light, drowsiness to activity.

Renaud, who was galloping along with his spear resting in his stirrup, his head leaning heavily on the arm that held it and his eyes closed, under the influence of the rocking motion of the horse, suddenly reopened them, and looked about with the joyous glance of a king.

He paused a moment to gaze at a huge plough drawn by several horses, which was transforming a wretched stony field into cleared land ready for the vine.

The phylloxera, which has done so much harm in rich and healthy districts, affords Camargue a new opportunity to fight the fever and to gain ground on the swamp. The sand is, in fact, very favorable to the vine and very unfavorable to the parasitic insect, and this watery country will gradually become, please God, a genuine land of the vine!

Renaud watched the ploughman with a feeling of delight at the thought of his native country being enriched by honest toil; and with a confused feeling of regret, too, for he preferred that the moor should remain uncultivated and wild and free. The idea of a flat plain, tilled from end to end, where no room was left for the straying feet of horses as God made them—that idea saddened him.

He would always say to himself as he rode through more civilized regions: “Now there, you know, a man can neither live nor die.” The fields of wheat or oats, even in the summer season when they have such a lovely reddish tinge, so like the overheated earth, so like the turbid, gleaming waters of the RhÔne, had no attraction for him. They gave him the impression of an obstacle that he must ride his horse around, and Renaud did not recognize the respectability of any obstacle—except the sea!

He was more inclined to look favorably upon the vine, because it seemed to him that it was a glorious thing for his country to produce wine, just at the time when other districts in France had exhausted their producing power. And then, the RhÔne, the mistral, horses, bulls, and wine, all seemed to him to go together, as things that told of holiday-making, of manly strength and courage and joy. They knew how to drink, never fear, did the men of Saint-Gilles and Arles and Avignon. Renaud had attended wedding-parties more than once on the island of Barthelasse in the middle of the RhÔne, opposite Avignon, and there he had tasted a red wine whose color he could still see. It was an old RhÔne wine, so they had told him, and he remembered that, being desirous to do honor to the wine as well as to the bride, and being a little exhilarated, he had solemnly thrown his cup into the RhÔne after the last bumper. There are, at the bottom of the RhÔne, many such cups, dead but not broken, from which joy was quaffed but yesterday. They go gently down, turning over and over, through the water to its sandy bed. There they sleep, covered with sand, and two or three thousand years hence—who knows?—the venerable scholars of that day will discover them, as they are discovering amphorÆ of baked earth at Trinquetaille to-day, and now and then beside them a glass urn, wherein all the colors of the rainbow chase one another about as soon as its robe of dust is removed.

Who can say that Renaud’s brittle glass, from which he drank the best wine of his youth, will not remain for ages full of the sand and water of the RhÔne, and that—in days to come—other youths will not find therein the same delight? For everything begins anew.

Thus did the wanderer’s thoughts wander from point to point, from vine to glass. Ah! that glass of his, thrown into the RhÔne! His mind recurred once more to that memory of a debauch. It seemed to him now, that, by throwing it into the river on the wedding-day, he had foretold his own destiny, and that he, Livette’s fiancÉ, would never be married! He would drink no more from the discarded glass.

The first impulse of delight that came to him with the newness of the morning had already passed; his sadness had returned as the day lost the charm that attaches to a thing just beginning.

Dreaming thus, Renaud rode across the marshes, Prince splashing through the water up to his thighs.

Yes, my friends, he forgave the vine, did Renaud, for invading Camargue. Moreover, after the harvest was gathered, did not the red and white vineyards afford excellent pasturage for the bulls? There are some that are all red in the autumn, and others all white, or of a light golden yellow—as if the vines had amused themselves by reproducing the two colors of the wine under the gorgeous sunsets. He has seen nothing who has not seen the beams of the setting sun, in November, now yellow as gold, now red as blood, spreading over a field of red vines, over a field of yellow vines, which themselves spread out as far as the eye can reach. Indeed, is not Camargue the home of the lambrusque? The lambrusque is the wild, Camarguese vine, different from our cultivated vines in that the male and female are on separate plants. The grapes that grow on the female lambrusque make a somewhat tart but pleasant wine, and the shoots of the vine make light, stout staves for the hand.

Arrived at Grand PÂtis, Renaud swam the RhÔne three times, from Camargue to Ile Mouton, from Ile Mouton to Ile Saint-Pierre, and from Ile Saint-Pierre to the mainland.

He was now in the swamps of Crau, a stony desert adjoining Camargue, which is a desert of mud.

To the eye these two deserts seem to join hands across the RhÔne. From Aigues-Mortes to the pond of Berre is a pretty stretch of flat country, my friends, and the sea-eagle, try as he may, cannot make it less than twenty good leagues in a straight line! And that is the kingdom of King Renaud.

Camargue has its saltwort, its grain and plantains and burdocks, growing in small clumps, with sandy intervals between; it has its gapillons, which are green rushes split into bouquets, with thousands of sharp points finer than needles; and here and there tamarisk-trees; and, on the banks of the two RhÔnes, great elms, so often cut and hacked to procure wood to burn, that they resemble huge caterpillars sitting erect upon their tails, their short hair bristling as if in anger.

Crau is a land of naked plains and heather. It is, to tell the truth, a veritable field of stones. They have come, people say, from Mont Blanc, all the stones that now lie sleeping there. The RhÔne and the Durance have borne them down, then changed their beds, after having jousted together on the vast space at the foot of the little Alps. From beneath the stones of Crau, in May, there springs a rare, delicate plant, the paturin, or dog’s tooth. The sheep push the stone away with their noses and browse upon the slender stalks while the shepherd stands and dreams in the wind and sun.

But this stony Crau is farther away, beyond the pond of Ligagnou, which skirts the river. Here, in the Crau that lies along the banks of the RhÔne, we are in the midst of the marshes, which are dry during the greater part of the year; some of them, however, are very treacherous, and one should know them well. Renaud rode in a northeasterly direction, and soon reached the neighborhood of the Icard farm.

He drew rein.

“Where is the hiding-place?” he muttered.

And he tried with all his eyes to pierce the thick underbrush of reeds, rushes, cat-tails, sedges, and bull-rushes, springing from the midst of a deep bog. This bog did not seem, to the eye, more formidable than another, but the bulls and mares feared it and carefully avoided it.

On the surface of the water was what looked like a thick crust of mouldy verdure. It was not, however, the leprous formation of duck-weed that lies sleeping on our stagnant ponds. It was a sort of felt-like substance, composed of dead rushes, roots, twined and twisted weeds, which made a solid but movable crust upon the water, swaying beneath the feet that ventured upon it, ready to bear their weight for a moment and ready to give way beneath them.

This crust (the transtaÏÈre) was broken with fissures here and there, through which the water could be seen, dark as night, its surface flecked with transient specks of light, gleaming like a mirror of black glass. Around the edges, at the foot of the scattered tamarisks, grew reeds innumerable in thick clusters, always rustling against one another, and incessantly brushed, with a noise like rustling paper, by the slender wings of the dragon-flies with their monster-like heads. Many of these canÉous bear white flowers streaked with purple. As they rise above one another on the long stalks, you would take them for the flowers of a tall marsh-mallow. These reeds, with their long leaves, remind one of the thyrsi of antiquity, left standing there in the damp earth by bacchantes who have gone to rest somewhere near at hand in the shade of the tamarisks, or to abandon themselves to the centaurs. They make one think, also, of the wand of the fable, which, when planted in the ground, was at once covered with flowers, and thereby had power over marriages.

These thyrsi of the bog are reeds besieged by climbing plants. The convolvulus fastens itself to the reed, twines its arms about it, rises in a spiral course, seeks the sunlight at its summit, and robes the long murmuring stalk in brilliant and harmonious colors.

The sharp leaves of the young reeds stand erect like lance-heads. The older ones break off and fell at right angles. The delicate, graceful foliage of the tamarisks is like a transparent cloud, and their little pink flowers, hanging in clusters that are too heavy for the branches, especially before they open, cause the flexible plumes of the gracefully rounded tree-top to bend in every direction.

Through the reeds and tamarisks Renaud sought to discover the hut that he knew, and that Audiffret had spoken of to him the night before. But he could hardly distinguish the little inclined cross placed at the highest point of the roof of all the Camargue cabins, which are built of joists, boards, grayish mud (tape), and straw. The cabin was formerly entirely visible from the spot where he stood, but the reeds had grown so thickly on the islet on which it was built, that they completely hid it. The path leading to it was on the opposite side of the bog. He must make a wide dÉtour in order to reach it, the bog de la Cabane, so called, being of a very erratic shape.

From the south side of the cabin he went around to the north side. He no longer had the transtaÏÈre in front of him; but beneath the surface of the water, where reeds and thorn-broom flourish, was the gargate, the slime, wherein he who steps foot is quickly buried.

There are many other dangers in these accursed bogs. There are the lorons, a sort of bottomless well found here and there under the water, the location of which must be thoroughly understood. The mares and heifers know them and are clever in avoiding them, but now and then one of them falls in, and now and then a man as well. And he who falls in remains. No time for argument, my man! You are in—adieu!

The drovers will tell you, and it is the truth, that from every loron comes a little twisting column of smoke, by which those mouths of hell can be located. A hundred lorons, a hundred columns of smoke. There, my friends, is something to dream about, is it not, when the malignant fever, bred in the swamps, smites you on the hip? Renaud was anxious to know if Rampal was occupying the cabin, but not to attack him there, for it is a treacherous spot. “If he is there, he will come out some time or other. I will wait for him on the solid ground. Ah! I see the path!”

It was a winding path hiding under a sheet of shallow water. The bed of the path was of stones, very narrow but very firm, the right edge being marked, as far as the cabin, by stakes at short intervals, just on a level with the water.

Renaud dismounted, and looked for the first stake, holding his horse by the rein. Although he knew its location, it took him some time to find it. With the end of his spear he put aside the grass, and when he discovered the stake, he felt for the solid road whose width it measured. Bending over, he gazed long and very closely at the grasses and the reeds, which met in places above the concealed pathway, and when he rose he was certain that it had not been used for some time.

He was not mistaken. In truth, Rampal was a little suspicious of that hiding-place, which was too well known, he thought, and to which he could easily be traced. He often slept in the neighborhood, ready to take refuge in the cul-de-sac, if it should become necessary, but he preferred, meanwhile, to feel at liberty, with plenty of open space about him.

Renaud remounted Prince, and crossed the RhÔne again an hour later. That night he lay in one of the great cabins which serve as stables—winter jasses—for the droves of mares, in those months when the weather is so bad that the bulls can find no pasturage except by breaking the ice with their horns.

The next day, an hour before noon, he saw before him the church of Saintes-Maries standing out like a lofty ship against the blue background of the sea.

Little black curlews were flying hither and thither around it, mingled with a flock of great sea-gulls with gracefully rounded wings.

A cart was moving slowly over the sandy road.

“Good-day, Renaud.”

“Good-day, Marius. Where are you going?”

“To carry fish to Arles.”

Marius raised the branches which apparently made up his load, but which were simply used to shade a dozen or more baskets and hampers. Well pleased with his freight, he put aside the cloth that was spread over his treasure under the branches. Baskets and hampers were filled to the brim with fish taken in the ponds and the sea. There were mullet and bream, still alive, animated prisms with mouths and gills wide open like bright red marine flowers amid a mass of dark-blue, olive-green, and gleaming gold. There were enormous eels, too, caught for the most part in the canals of Camargue, which are veritable fish-preserves.

The dark-hued, slippery creatures twisted in and out, tying and untying endless slip-knots with their snake-like bodies. By the livid spots upon some of the great eels, Renaud recognized them as murÆnÆ, possessors of voracious mouths, well stocked with sharp teeth.

“See how they all keep moving!” said Marius.

At that moment, as if to justify his words, a great flat fish flapped out of one of the baskets and fell to the ground.

With the end of his three-pronged spear the mounted drover nailed him to the earth to prevent his leaping into the ditch, filled with water, that ran along the road.

“Hallo!” said he in surprise, “isn’t that a cramp-fish. When I spear one of them with my regular fish-spear, which is longer than this three-pronged one, it gives me a shock I didn’t feel at all to-day.”

“That’s because the fish is in the water then, and your spear is damp,” said Marius, laughing. “But let the fellow stay there,” he added. “He isn’t worth much. The snakes will have a feast on him.”

Thereupon, horseman and fisherman went their respective ways.

The drover’s thoughts wandered from the cramp-fish and the murÆnÆ to the electric fish of America, of which old sailors had spoken to him. They had told him that it was charged with electricity like the cramp-fish, but resembled the conger more in shape, and that it could, with its overpowering current, kill a horse; in order to make it exhaust its stock of electricity, so that it can safely be taken, it is customary to send wild horses into the water against it; they receive the first shock, and sometimes die from the effects.

As he rode on toward Saintes-Maries, Renaud mused in a vague way upon the miracles of life, which there is naught to explain.