“Oh! what am I by these two hearts?” said Henri.

“You are,” replied Diana, “the only human creature, except Remy, on whom I have looked twice for years.”

Henri knelt.  “Thanks, madame,” said he, “I bow to my destiny.  You belong to God; I cannot be jealous.”

As he rose, they heard the sound of trumpets on the plain, from which the water was rapidly disappearing.  The gendarmes seized their arms and were on horseback at once.

Henri listened.  “Gentlemen,” cried he, “those are the admiral’s trumpets; I know them.  Oh, God! may they announce my brother!”

“You see that you still wish something, and still love something; why, then, should you choose despair, like those who desire nothing—­like those who love no one?”

“A horse!” cried Henri; “who will lend me a horse?”

“But the water is still all around us,” said the ensign.

“But you see that the plain is practicable; they must be advancing, since we hear their trumpets.”

“Mount to the top of the bank, M. le Comte, the sky is clear, perhaps you will see.”

Henri climbed up; the trumpets continued to sound at intervals, but were seemingly stationary.

CHAPTER LXXI.

The two brothers.

A quarter of an hour after, Henri returned; he had seen a considerable detachment of French troops intrenched on a hill at some distance.  Excepting a large ditch, which surrounded the place occupied by the gendarmes of Aunis, the water had begun to disappear from the plain, the natural slope of the ground in the immediate neighborhood making the waters run toward the sea, and several points of earth, higher than the rest, began to reappear.  The slimy mud brought by the rolling waters had covered the whole country, and it was a sad spectacle to see, as the wind cleared the mist, a number of cavaliers stuck in the mud, and trying vainly to reach either of the hills.  From the other hill, on which the flag of France waved, their cries of distress had been heard, and that was why the trumpets had sounded.  The gendarmes now sounded their cornets, and were answered by guns in joyful recognition.  About eleven o’clock the sun appeared over this scene of desolation, drying some parts of the plain, and rendering practicable a kind of road.  Henri, who tried it first, found that it led by a detour from where they were to the opposite hill, and he believed that though his horse might sink to a certain extent, he would not sink altogether.  He therefore determined to try it, and recommending Diana and Remy to the care of the ensign, set off on his perilous way.  At the same time as he started, they could see a cavalier leave the opposite hill, and, like Henry, try the road.  All the soldiers seemed trying to stop him by their supplications.  The two men pursued their way courageously, and soon perceived that their task was less difficult than had been feared.  A small stream of water, escaped from a broken aqueduct, washed over the path, and little by little was clearing away the mud.  The cavaliers were within two hundred feet of each other.