asleep before the sea had been reached. The last sound in my ears
was the voice of Père Victorien reciting his rosary.

I awoke to find a breeze careening our sail and the _Jeanne d'Arc_
rushing through a pale blue world--pale blue water, pale blue sky,
and, it seemed, pale blue air. No single solid thing but the boat
was to be seen in the indefinite immensity. Sprawling on its bottom
in every attitude of limp relaxation, the oarsmen lay asleep; only Père
Victorien was awake, his hands on the tiller and his eyes gazing
toward the east.

"_Bonjour!_" said he. "You have slept well. Your angel guardian
thinks well of you. The dawn comes."

I asked him if I might relieve him of tiller and sheet, and he, with
an injunction to keep the sail full and far, unpocketed his breviary,
and was instantly absorbed in its contents.

Our tack was toward the eastern distance, and no glimpse of land or
cloud made us aught but solitary travelers in illimitable space. The
sun was beneath the deep, but in the hush of the pale light one felt
the awe of its coming. Slowly a faint glow began to gild a line that
circled the farthest east. Gold it was at first, like a segment of a
marriage ring, then a bolt of copper shot from the level waters to
the zenith and a thousand vivid colors were emptied upon the sky and
the sea. Roses were strewn on the glowing waste, rose and gold and
purple curtained the horizon, and suddenly, without warning, abrupt
as lightning, the sun beamed hot above the edge of the world.

The Marquesans stirred, their bodies stretched and their lungs