"At last!" he said, looking out through the dripping windows at the foam-tipped waves of the Rhone, where the storm seemed to him like repose after that through which he had passed. But, when the first carriage reached the triumphal arch at the end of the bridge, bombs were exploded, the drums beat, saluting the monarch's arrival upon his faithful subject's domain, and the climax of irony was reached when, in the half light, a blaze of gas suddenly illuminated the roof of the château with letters of fire, over which the rain and wind caused great shadows to run to and fro, but which still displayed very legibly the legend: "Viv' L' B'y M'h'med."
"That's the bouquet," said the unhappy Nabob, unable to restrain a smile, a very pitiful, very bitter smile. But no, he was mistaken. The bouquet awaited him at the door of the chateâu; and it was Amy Férat who came forward to present it to him, stepping out of the group of maidens from Arles, who were sheltering their watered silk skirts and figured velvet caps under the marquée, awaiting the first carriage. Her bunch of flowers in her hand, modestly, with downcast eyes and roguish ankle, the pretty actress darted to the door and stood almost kneeling in an attitude of salutation, which she had been rehearsing for a week. Instead of the bey, Jansoulet stepped out, excited, stiffly erect, and passed her by without even looking at her. And as she stood there, her nosegay in her hand, with the stupid expression of a balked fairy, Cardailhac said to her with the blague of a Parisian who speedily makes the best of things:
"Take away your flowers, my dear, your affair has fallen through. The Bey isn't coming—he forgot his handkerchief, and as that's what he uses to talk to ladies, why, you understand—"
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 Noël, 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.