When Apian’s fleet comes down the river and passes the spot where the little maid seeks for gold, the men see her and invite her on board.  She will go down to Beaucaire to sell her findings.  Jean Roche offers himself in marriage, but she will have none of him; she loves the vision seen beneath the waves.  When the Anglore spies the blond-haired Prince, she turns pale and nearly swoons. “’Tis he, ’tis he!” she cries, and she stands fascinated.  William, charmed with the little maid, says to her, “I recognize thee, O Rhone flower, blooming on the water—­flower of good omen that I saw in a dream.”  The little maid calls him Drac, identifies the flower in his hand, and lives on in this hallucination.  The boatmen consider that she has lost her reason, and say she must have drunk of the fountain of Tourne.  The little maid hears them, and bids them speak low, for their fate is written at the fountain of Tourne; and like a Sibyl, raising her bare arm, she describes the mysterious carvings on the rock, and the explanation given by a witch she knew.  These carvings, according to Mistral’s note, were dedicated to the god Mithra.  The meaning given by the witch is that the day the Drac shall leave the river Rhone forever, that day the boatmen shall perish.  The men do not laugh, for they have already heard of the great boats that can make their way against the current without horses.  Apian breaks out into furious imprecations against the men who would ruin the thousands that depend for their living upon the river.  One is struck by this introduction of a question of political economy into a poem.

During the journey to Avignon the Prince falls more and more in love with the little Anglore, whom no sort of evidence can shake out of her belief that the Prince is the Drac, for the Drac can assume any form at pleasure.  Her delusion is so complete, so naive, that the prince, romantic by nature, is entirely under the spell.

There come on board three Venetian women, who possess the secret of a treasure, twelve golden statues of the Apostles buried at Avignon.  The Prince leaves the boat to help them find the place, and the little maid suffers intensely the pangs of jealousy.  But he comes back to her, and takes her all about the great fair at Beaucaire.  That night, however, he wanders out alone, and while calling to mind the story of Aucassin and Nicolette, he is sandbagged, but not killed.  The Anglore believes he has left his human body on the ground so as to visit his caverns beneath the Rhone.  William seems unhurt, and at the last dinner before they start to go up the river again, surrounded by the crew, he makes them a truly Felibrean speech:—­