Sylvestre was soon out on the ocean, rapidly whisked away over theunknown seas, far more blue than Iceland's. The ship that carried himoff to the confines of Asia was ordered to go at full speed and stopnowhere. Ere long he felt that he was far away, for the speed wasunceasing, and even without a care for the sea or the wind. As he wasa topman, he lived perched aloft, like a bird, avoiding the soldierscrowded upon the deck.

　　Twice they stopped, however, on the coast of Tunis, to take up moreZouaves and mules; from afar he had perceived the white cities amidsands and arid hills. He had even come down from his top to look atthe dark-brown men draped in their white robes who came off in smallboats to peddle fruit; his mates told him that these were Bedouins.

　　The heat and the sun, which were unlessened by the autumn season, madehim feel out of his element.

　　One day they touched at Port Said. All the flags of Europe wavedoverhead from long staves, which gave it an aspect of Babel on afeast-day, and the glistening sands surrounded the town like a movingsea.

　　They had stopped there, touching the quays, almost in the midst of thelong streets full of wooden shanties. Since his departure, Sylvestrenever had seen the outside world so closely, and the movement andnumbers of boats excited and amused him.

　　With never-ending screeching from their escape-pipes, all these boatscrowded up in the long canal, as narrow as a ditch, which wound itselfin a silvery line through the infinite sands. From his post on high hecould see them as in a procession under a window, till disappearing inthe plain.

　　On the canal all kinds of costumes could be seen; men in many-colouredattire, busy and shouting like thunder. And at night the clamour ofconfused bands of music mingled with the diabolical screams of thelocomotives, playing noisy tunes, as if to drown the heart-breakingsorrow of the exiles who for ever passed onward.

　　The next day, at sunrise, they, too, glided into the narrow ribbon ofwater between the sands. For two days the steaming in the long filethrough the desert lasted, then another sea opened before them, andthey were once again upon the open. They still ran at full speedthrough this warmer expanse, stained like red marble, with theirboiling wake like blood. Sylvestre remained all the time up in histop, where he would hum his old song of "Jean-Francois de Nantes," toremind him of his dear brother Yann, of Iceland, and the good oldbygone days.

　　Sometimes, ............