"Monseigneur assures me that the devil has nothing to do with this?" asked the patron.
Aramis shrugged his shoulders.
The patron lifted the glass to his eye. "Oh! monseigneur," said he, "it is a miracle—they are there; it seems as if I were going to touch them. Twenty-five men at least! Ah! I see the captain forward. He holds a glass like this, and is looking at us. Ah! he turns round, and gives an order; they are rolling a piece of cannon forward—they are charging it—they are pointing it.—Miséricorde! they are firing at us!"
And by a mechanical movement, the patron took the glass off, and the objects, sent back to the horizon, appeared again in their true aspect. The vessel was still at the distance of nearly a league, but the maneuver announced by the patron was not less real. A light cloud of smoke appeared under the sails, more blue than they, and spreading like a flower opening; then, at about a mile from the little canoe, they saw the ball take the crown off two or three waves, dig a white furrow in the sea, and disappear at the end of that furrow, as inoffensive as the stone with which, at play, a boy makes ducks and drakes. That was at once a menace and a warning.
"What is to be done?" asked the patron.
"They will sink us!" said Goenne, "give us absolution, monseigneur!" And the sailors fell on their knees before him.
"You forget that they can see you," said he.
"That is true!" said the sailors, ashamed of their weakness. "Give us your orders, monseigneur, we are ready to die for you."
"Let us wait," said Aramis.
"How—let us wait?"