If they want to lie by a little, or to refresh the crew, they come to Piriac along the coast; from Piriac they find another inverse current, which carries them to the Isle-Dumal, two leagues and a half." "Granted." "There the current of the Vilaine throws them upon another isle, the Isle of Hoedic." "I agree with that." "Well, monsieur, from that isle to Belle-Isle the way is quite straight.
The sea, broken both above and below, passes like a canal--like a mirror between the two isles; the _chalands_ glide along upon it like ducks upon the Loire; that's how it is." "It does not signify," said the obstinate M.Agnan; "it is a long way round." "Ah! yes; but M.Fouquet will have it so," replied, as conclusive, the fisherman, taking off his woolen cap at the enunciation of that respected name.
A look from D'Artagnan, a look as keen and piercing as a sword-blade, found nothing in the heart of the old man but a simple confidence--on his features, nothing but satisfaction and indifference.

He said, "M.
Fouquet will have it so," as he would have said, "God has willed it." D'Artagnan had already advanced too far in this direction; besides, the _chalands_ being gone, there remained nothing at Piriac but a single bark--that of the old man, and it did not look fit for sea without great preparation.

D'Artagnan therefore patted Furet, who, as a new proof of his charming character, resumed his march with his feet in the salt-mines, and his nose to the dry wind, which bends the furze and the broom of this country.

They reached Le Croisic about five o'clock.
If D'Artagnan had been a poet, it was a beautiful spectacle: the immense strand of a league or more, the sea covers at high tide, and which, at the reflux, appears gray and desolate, strewed with polypi and seaweed, with pebbles sparse and white, like bones in some vast old cemetery.

But the soldier, the politician, and the ambitious man, had no longer the sweet consolation of looking towards heaven to read there a hope or a warning.