 number of the poor little spirits;
and no doubt Monsieur would be specially bewildered by one so nearly
concerned with him. Philip, half frightened, could not help stepping
forward and pulling Berenger by the cloak to make him aware of this
strange peril; but he did not get much comfort. 'Baptized? Yes; you
know she was, by the old nurse. Let me alone, I say. I would follow her
wherever she called me, the innocent, and glad--the sooner the better.'

And he shook his brother off with a sadness and impatience so utterly
unapproachable, that Philip, poor boy, could only watch his tall figure
in the wide cloak and slouched hat, stalking on ever more indistinct in
the gloom, while his much confused mind tried to settle the theological
point whether the old nurse's baptism were valid enough to prevent poor
little Berangere from becoming one of these mischievous deluders; and
all this was varied by the notion of Captain Hobbs picking up their
corpses on the beach, and of Sir Marmaduke bewailing his only son.

At last a strange muffled sound made him start in the dead silence, but
the guide hailed the sound with a joyful cry---

'Hola! Blessings on Notre-Dame and holy Father Colombeau, now are we
saved!' and on Philip's hasty interrogation, he explained that it was
from the bells of Nissard, which the good priest always caused to be
rung during these sea-fogs, to disperse all evil beings, and guide the
wanderers.

The guide strode on manfully, as the sound became clearer and nearer,
and Philip was infinitely relived to be free from all supernatural
anxieties, and to have merely to guard against the wiles of a Polish
priest, a being almost as fabulously endowed in his imagination as poor
little Berangere's soul could be in that of the fisherman.

The drenching Atlantic mist had wetted them all to the skin, and closed
round them so like a solid wall, that they had almost lost sight of each
other, and had nothing but the bells' voices to comfort them, till quite
suddenly there was a light upon the mist, a hazy reddish glea