So much has nature done for this wonderful pyramid in the sea.  Then man came and fashioned it to his liking.  He piled the stones at its base into titanic walls; he carved about its sides the rounded breasts of bastions; he piled higher and higher up the dizzy heights a medley of palaces, convents, abbeys, cloisters, to lay at the very top the fitting crown of all, a jewelled Norman-Gothic cathedral.

Earth and man have thrown their gauntlet down to the sea—­this rock is theirs, they cry to the waves and the might of the oceans.  And the sea laughs—­as strong men laugh when boys are angry or insistent.  She has let them build and toil, and pray and fight; it is all one to her what is done on the rock—­whether men carve its stones into lace, or rot and die in its dungeons; it is all the same to her whether each spring the daffodils creep up within the crevices and the irises nod to them from the gardens.

It is all one to her.  For twice a day she recaptures the Mont.  She encircles it with the strong arm of her tides; with the might of her waters she makes it once more a thing of the sea.

The tide was rising now.

The fringe of the downs had dabbled in the shoals till they became one.  We had left behind the last of the shepherd lads, come out to the edge of the land to search for a wandering kid.  We were all at once plunging into high water.  Our road was sunk out of sight; we were driving through, waves as high as our cart wheels....

Our cart still pitched and tossed—­we were still rocked about in our rough cradle.  But the sun, now freed from the banks of clouds, was lighting our way with a great and sudden glory.  And for the rest of our watery journey we were conscious only of that lighting.  Behind the Mont lay a vast sea of saffron.  But it was in the sky; against it the great rock was as black as if the night were upon it.

Here and there, through the curve of a flying buttress, or the apertures of a pierced parapet, gay bits of this yellow world were caught and framed.  The sea lay beneath like a quiet carpet; and over this carpet ships and sloops swam with easy gliding motion, with sails and cordage dipt in gold.  The smaller craft, moored close to the shore, seemed transfigured as in a fog of gold.  And nearer still were the brown walls of the Mont making a great shadow, and in the shadow the waters were as black as the skin of an African.  In the shoals there were lovely masses of turquoise and palest green; for here and there a cloudlet passed, to mirror its complexion in the translucent pools....

There was a rapid dashing beneath the great walls; a sudden night of darkness as we plunged through an open archway into a narrow village street; a confused impression of houses built into side-walls; of machicolated gateways; of rocks and roof-tops tumbling about our ears; and within the street was sounding the babel of a shrieking troop of men and women.  Porters, peasants, and children were clamoring about our cartwheels like so many jackals.  The bedlam did not cease as we stopt before a brightly-lit open doorway.