XXVII.

The weather the next day was equally fair, so that
it seemed an imprudence not to make sure of Aigues-
Mortes. Nimes itself could wait; at a pinch, I could
attend to Nimes in the rain. It was my belief that
Aigues-Mortes was a little gem, and it is natural to
desire that gems should have an opportunity to sparkle.
This is an excursion of but a few hours, and there is
a little friendly, familiar, dawdling train that will con-
vey you, in time for a noonday breakfast, to the small
dead town where the blessed Saint-Louis twice em-
barked for the crusades. You may get back to Nimes
for dinner; the run - or rather the walk, for the train
doesn't run - is of about an hour. I found the little
journey charming, and looked out of the carriage win-
dow, on my right, at the distant Cevennes, covered
with tones of amber and blue, and, all around, at
vineyards red with the touch of October. The grapes
were gone, but the plants had a color of their own.
Within a certain distance of Aigues-Mortes they give
place to wide salt-marshes, traversed by two canals;
and over this expanse the train rumbles slowly upon
a narrow causeway, failing for some time, though you
know you are near the object of your curiosity, to
bring you to sight of anything but the horizon. Sud-
denly it appears, the towered and embattled mass,
lying so low that the crest of its defences seems to
rise straight out of the ground; and it is not till the