The truce was to continue until the first of February, when the bands were again to assemble on the Place Vendome; it was of the utmost consequence therefore that Adrian should arrive in Paris by that day, since an hair might turn the scale, and peace, scared away by intestine broils, might only return to watch by the silent dead.  It was now the twenty-eighth of January; every vessel stationed near Dover had been beaten to pieces and destroyed by the furious storms I have commemorated.  Our journey however would admit of no delay.  That very night, Adrian, and I, and twelve others, either friends or attendants, put off from the English shore, in the boat that had brought over the deputies.  We all took our turn at the oar; and the immediate occasion of our departure affording us abundant matter for conjecture and discourse, prevented the feeling that we left our native country, depopulate England, for the last time, to enter deeply into the minds of the greater part of our number.  It was a serene starlight night, and the dark line of the English coast continued for some time visible at intervals, as we rose on the broad back of the waves.  I exerted myself with my long oar to give swift impulse to our skiff; and, while the waters splashed with melancholy sound against its sides, I looked with sad affection on this last glimpse of sea-girt England, and strained my eyes not too soon to lose sight of the castellated cliff, which rose to protect the land of heroism and beauty from the inroads of ocean, that, turbulent as I had lately seen it, required such cyclopean walls for its repulsion.  A solitary sea-gull winged its flight over our heads, to seek its nest in a cleft of the precipice.  Yes, thou shalt revisit the land of thy birth, I thought, as I looked invidiously on the airy voyager; but we shall, never more!  Tomb of Idris, farewell!  Grave, in which my heart lies sepultured, farewell for ever!

We were twelve hours at sea, and the heavy swell obliged us to exert all our strength.  At length, by mere dint of rowing, we reached the French coast.  The stars faded, and the grey morning cast a dim veil over the silver horns of the waning moon—­the sun rose broad and red from the sea, as we walked over the sands to Calais.  Our first care was to procure horses, and although wearied by our night of watching and toil, some of our party immediately went in quest of these in the wide fields of the unenclosed and now barren plain round Calais.  We divided ourselves, like seamen, into watches, and some reposed, while others prepared the morning’s repast.  Our foragers returned at noon with only six horses—­on these, Adrian and I, and four others, proceeded on our journey towards the great city, which its inhabitants had fondly named the capital of the civilized world.  Our horses had become, through their long holiday, almost wild, and we crossed the plain round Calais with impetuous speed.  From the height near Boulogne, I turned again to look on England; nature had cast a misty pall over her, her cliff was hidden—­there was spread the watery barrier that divided us, never again to be crossed; she lay on the ocean plain,