The feeling of happiness was an odd one; it had come over him suddenly, without visible cause; but, such as it was, our hero made the most of it.

As he lay there it seemed to deepen; his immersion and his exercise in the salt water had given him an agreeable languor.
This presently became a drowsiness which was not less agreeable, and Bernard felt himself going to sleep.

There were sounds in the air above his head--sounds of the crunching and rattling of the loose, smooth stones as his neighbors moved about on them; of high-pitched French voices exchanging colloquial cries; of the plash of the bathers in the distant water, and the short, soft breaking of the waves.

But these things came to his ears more vaguely and remotely, and at last they faded away.

Bernard enjoyed half an hour of that light and easy slumber which is apt to overtake idle people in recumbent attitudes in the open air on August afternoons.