There was a slight, scarcely perceptible, shading into a lighter tinge of the clinging black shadows that veiled the eastern sky, dimly revealing misty outlines of white, fleecy clouds extending above the faint horizon line, until they assumed a spectral brightness, causing me to dream of the fairies' dwellings which my mother pictured to me in childhood. Gently the delicate awakening spread along the wider expanse of sky, which became bluish gray, gradually expanding and reflecting its glow along the water, until this also became a portion of the vast arch, while the darker borderland, now far astern, formed merely a distant shade, a background to the majestic picture. The east became gradually a lighter, more pronounced gray; rosy streaks shot upward through the cloud masses, driving them higher into an ever-deepening upper blue like a flock of frightened birds, until at last the whole eastern horizon blushed like a red rose, while above the black line of distant, shadowy trees, the blazing rim of the sun itself uplifted, casting a wide bar of dazzling gold along our wake. Gazing thus, every thought of our surroundings, our dangers, and fatigue passed from memory. Bending to the oar, my soul was far away upon a voyage of its own.
Some unusual movement served to attract attention from this day-dreaming, my eyes falling suddenly upon De Noyan. His face, turned partially away from the rising sun, was gray with anxiety, and I noted he shivered in his wet clothes. Yet his smile and speech seemed jauntily unconcerned as ever.
"Yonder was to have been my last sunrise," he remarked grimly, nodding backward across his shoulder. "'Tis about the hour now for those in the hands of the Dons to have their backs against the wall."
I caught a sound as of a partially suppressed sob behind me, but before I could turn sufficiently to ascertain the cause, the Chevalier sprang past, rocking the little boat furiously, and my ears overheard that which caused me to keep my face set the other way.
"Eloise!" he exclaimed exultantly. "Are you here, little wife? Mon Dieu! I dreamed it not; yet should have known you would never leave such duty to the slaves."
"I was simply compelled to come," she answered, and I could mark her voice falter. "Do not be angry with me. What have I now left except you? The rising of the sun sealed my father's fate."
"True," he admitted soberly, lifting his hat in grave gesture. "I feel like a condemned coward, my name a byword for the rabble, being here in such comparative safety, when, in honor, I should be lying beside my comrades."