The assistants looked at Candia's stranger with surprise. Their number increased. Some occupied the embankment, planted with acacias; others crowned the arid promontory rearing up perpendicularly above the rocks. Here and there, lying on the great, monstrous blocks, clumps of reeds shone like gold, at the foot of the enormous slide of the cliffs, resembling a ruin of a cyclopean tower in front of the immense sea.
Suddenly, above the heights, a voice announced:
"Here she is."
Other voices followed:
"The mother, the mother!"
Everybody turned round; some came down from the embankment; those on the promontory leaned forward. Expectation rendered all dumb. The guardian recovered the corpse with the cloth. In the silence, the sea scarcely gasped, the acacias scarcely rustled.
And then, in the silence, one heard the cries of the new arrival.
The mother came along the shore, in the sun, crying. She was dressed in widow's weeds. Her body bent, she stumbled along on the sand, crying:
"My son! My son!"
She raised her hands to heaven, crying: