an incarnation of Africa to these raw peasants, who had never before
stirred beyond the provinces where they were born, went on taking
the tickets, and tossing the woollen rugs to the passing figures, and
pointing ferociously to the gangway. He got very tired of his task
towards the end, and showed his fatigue to the latest comers, shoving
their rugs into their arms with brusque violence. And when at length the
wharf was bare he spat on it, rubbed his short-fingered, sunburnt hands
down the sides of his blue jacket, and swaggered on board with the air
of a dutiful but injured man who longed to do harm in the world. By this
time the ship was about to cast off, and the recruits, ranged in line
along the bulwarks of the lower deck, were looking in silence towards
Marseilles, which, with its tangle of tall houses, its forest of masts,
its long, ugly factories and workshops, now represented to them the
whole of France. The bronchial hoot of the siren rose up menacingly.
Suddenly two Arabs, in dirty white burnouses and turbans bound with
cords of camel's hair, came running along the wharf. The siren hooted
again. The Arabs bounded over the gangway with grave faces. All the
recruits turned to examine them with a mixture of superiority and
deference, such as a schoolboy might display when observing the
agilities of a tiger. The ropes fell heavily from the posts of the
quay into the water, and were drawn up dripping by the sailors, and _Le
General Bertrand_ began to move out slowly among the motionless ships.

Domini, looking towards the land with the vague and yet inquiring glance
of those who are going out to sea, noticed the church of Notre dame de
la Garde, perched on its high hill, and dominating the noisy city,
the harbour, the cold, grey squadrons of the rocks and Monte Cristo's
dungeon. At the time she hardly knew it, but now, as she lay in bed in
the silent inn, she remembered that, keeping her eyes upon the church,
she had murmured a confused prayer to the Blessed Virgin for the