Ah! he turns round, and gives an order; they are rolling a piece of cannon forward--they are loading it--pointing it.

_Misericorde!_ they are firing at us!" And by a mechanical movement, the skipper put aside the telescope, and the pursuing ship, relegated to the horizon, appeared again in its true aspect.

The vessel was still at the distance of nearly a league, but the maneuver sighted thus was not less real.

A light cloud of smoke appeared beneath the sails, more blue than they, and spreading like a flower opening; then, at about a mile from the little canoe, they saw the ball take the crown off two or three waves, dig a white furrow in the sea, and disappear at the end of it, as inoffensive as the stone with which, in play, a boy makes ducks and drakes.

It was at once a menace and a warning.
"What is to be done ?" asked the patron.
"They will sink us!" said Goenne, "give us absolution, monseigneur!" And the sailors fell on their knees before him.
"You forget that they can see you," said he.
"That is true!" said the sailors, ashamed of their weakness.