But the fact was, terrors of every kind had so encompassed them round since their arrival on the island that the mere additional certainty of a date and mode of execution was rather a relief to their minds than otherwise.

It partook of the nature of a reprieve, not of a sentence.

Besides, this meeting with another speaker of a European tongue seemed to them so full of promise and hope that they almost forgot the terrors of their threatened end in their discussion of possible schemes for escape to freedom.

Even M.Peyron himself, who had spent nine long years of exile in the island, felt that the arrival of two new Europeans gave him some hope of effecting at last his own retreat from this unendurable position.

His talk was all of passing steamers.