It was already some distance from the land when the king stopped the man who was rowing and signed to Marouin that he had forgotten something.  On the beach lay a bag into which Murat had put a magnificent pair of pistols mounted with silver gilt which the queen had given him, and which he set great store on.  As soon as he was within hearing he shouted his reason for returning to his host.  Marouin seized the valise, and without waiting for Murat to land he threw it into the boat; the bag flew open, and one of the pistols fell out.  The fisherman only glanced once at the royal weapon, but it was enough to make him notice its richness and to arouse his suspicions.  Nevertheless, he went on rowing towards the frigate.  M. Marouin seeing him disappear in the distance, left his brother on the beach, and bowing once more to the king, returned to the house to calm his wife’s anxieties and to take the repose of which he was in much need.

Two hours later he was awakened.  His house was to be searched in its turn by soldiers.  They searched every nook and corner without finding a trace of the king.  Just as they were getting desperate, the brother came in; Maroum smiled at him; believing the king to be safe, but by the new-comer’s expression he saw that some fresh misfortune was in the wind.  In the first moment’s respite given him by his visitors he went up to his brother.

“Well,” he said, “I hope the king is on board?”

“The king is fifty yards away, hidden in the outhouse.”

“Why did he come back?”

“The fisherman pretended he was afraid of a sudden squall, and refused to take him off to the brig.”

“The scoundrel!”

The soldiers came in again.

They spent the night in fruitless searching about the house and buildings; several times they passed within a few steps of the king, and he could hear their threats and imprecations.  At last, half an hour before dawn, they went away.  Marouin watched them go, and when they were out of sight he ran to the king.  He found him lying in a corner, a pistol clutched in each hand.  The unhappy man had been overcome by fatigue and had fallen asleep.  Marouin hesitated a moment to bring him back to his wandering, tormented life, but there was not a minute to lose.  He woke him.

They went down to the beach at once.  A morning mist lay over the sea.  They could not see anything two hundred yards ahead.  They were obliged to wait.  At last the first sunbeams began to pierce this nocturnal mist.  It slowly dispersed, gliding over the sea as clouds move in the sky.  The king’s hungry eye roved over the tossing waters before him, but he saw nothing, yet he could not banish the hope that somewhere behind that moving curtain he would find his refuge.  Little by little the horizon came into view; light wreaths of mist, like smoke, still floated about the surface of the water, and in each of them the king thought he recognised the white sails of his vessel.  The last gradually vanished, the sea was revealed in all its immensity, it was deserted.  Not daring to delay any longer, the ship had sailed away in the night.