He had just perceived a considerable number of lights in the town. In spite of the day being the Feast of St. James, he had given orders, that very morning, that all lights should be extinguished at the hour prescribed by his regulations; the castle alone being excepted from this order.
He could plainly see, here and there, the gleam of his soldiers' bayonets at their accustomed posts; but there was a solemnity in the silence, and nothing to suggest that the Spaniards were a prey to the excitement of a festival.
After having sought to explain the offense of which the inhabitants were guilty, the mystery appeared all the more unaccountable to him, because he had left officers in charge of the night police and the rounds. With all the impetuosity of youth, he was just about to leap through a breach and descend the rocks in haste, and thus arrive more quickly than by the ordinary road at a small outpost placed at the entrance of the town nearest to the castle, when a faint sound stopped him.
He thought he heard the light footfall of a woman upon the gravel walk. He turned his head and saw nothing; but his gaze was arrested by the extraordinary brightness of the sea. All of a sudden he beheld a sight so portentous that he stood dumfounded; he thought that his senses deceived him. In the far distance he could distinguish sails gleaming white in the moonlight.
He trembled and tried to convince himself that this vision was an optical illusion, merely the fantastic effect of the moon on the waves.
At this moment a hoarse voice pronounced his name.
He looked toward the breach, and saw slowly rising above it the head of the soldier whom he had ordered to accompany him to the castle.
"Is that you, commandant?"
"Yes; what do you want?" replied the young man in a low voice. A sort of presentiment warned him to be cautious.
"Those rascals down there are stirring like worms. I have hurried, with your leave, to tell you of my own little observations."