"I, mother? I have only been there once, and it was a long time ago ... However, I daresay I can find the way. Come, M. Odiot, and be prepared for a stiff climb."
Mlle. Marguerite and I started at once to climb a very steep path which wound along the side of the mountain, passing in some places through clumps of trees. The girl stopped from time to time in her swift and easy ascent to see if I were following her, and, panting a little, smiled at me without speaking. On reaching the bare heath which formed the plateau, I saw, a short way off, a village church, the lines of its little steeple sharply defined against the sky.
"That's where it is," said my young guide, quickening her pace.
Beyond the church was a cemetery shut in by walls. She opened the gate, and made her way with difficulty through the tall grass and trailing brambles, which choked the place of rest, towards a kind of semicircular perron which stood at the farther end. Two or three rough steps, defaced by time and rather strangely ornamented with massive balls, led to a narrow platform raised to the level of the wall. A granite cross stood in the centre of the semicircle.
Mlle. Marguerite had scarcely reached the platform and looked into the space that opened before her, when I saw her place her hand before her eyes as if she were suddenly dazzled. I hastened to join her. The beautiful day, nearing to its end, lighted with its last splendours a scene so vast, so strange, and so sublime, that I shall never forget it.
"I fell on my knees, I could not keep back my tears" (see page [245])
Facing us, and at a great depth below the platform, extended, farther than we could see, a sort of marsh studded with shining patches, and looking like a region slowly emerging from a deluge. This great bay stretched from under our feet to the heart of the jagged mountains. On the banks of mud and sand which separated the shifting lagoons, a growth of reeds and sea plants tinged with a thousand shades, sombre but distinct, contrasted sharply with the gleaming surfaces of the waters. At each of its rapid strides to the horizon, the sun lit up or darkened some of the many lakes which checkered the half-dried gulf. He seemed to take in turn from his celestial casket the most precious substances—silver and gold, ruby and diamond—and make them flash on each point of this gorgeous plain. As the planet neared the end of his career, a strip of undulating mist at the farther limit of the marshes, reddened all at once with the glare of a conflagration, and for a moment, kept the radiant transparency of a cloud furrowed by lightning. I was absorbed in the contemplation of a picture so full of divine grandeur, and enriched as with another ray of glory by the great memory of Cæsar, when a low, half-stifled voice murmured:
"Oh, how beautiful it is!"
I had not expected this sympathetic outburst from my companion. I turned eagerly towards her with a surprise that was not lessened, when the emotion in her face, and the slight trembling of her lips, had convinced me of the profound sincerity of her admiration.