of your episcopal palace, at Vannes? Come, confess.”

“No,” replied Aramis, without daring to look at Porthos.

“Let us stay where we are, then,” said his friend, with a sigh, which, in spite of the efforts he made to restrain it, escaped his echoing breast. “Let us remain! — let us remain! And yet,” added he, “and yet, if we seriously wished, but that decidedly — if we had a fixed idea, one firmly taken, to return to France, and there were not boats — ”

“Have you remarked another thing, my friend — that is, since the disappearance of our barks, during the last two days’ absence of fishermen, not a single small boat has landed on the shores of the isle?”