Night came on ere the singing and reciting ended, a balmy Southern evening, lit by a thousand fires from tower and battlement and moat, the old walls glowing red against the violet sky.
Picture this scene to yourself, reader mine, and you will understand the enthusiasm of the artists and writers in our clan. It needed but little imagination then to reconstruct the past and fancy one's self back in the days when the "Trancavel" held this city against the world.
Sleep that night was filled with a strange phantasmagoria of crenelated chateaux and armored knights, until the bright Provencal sunlight and the call for a hurried departure dispelled such illusions. By noon we were far away from Carcassonne, mounting the rocky slopes of the Cevennes amid a wild and noble landscape; the towering cliffs of the "Causses," zebraed by zig-zag paths, lay below us, disclosing glimpses of fertile valley and vine-engarlanded plain.
One asks one's self in wonder why these enchanting regions are so unknown. En route our companions were like children fresh from school, taking haphazard meals at the local inns and clambering gayly into any conveyance that came to hand.
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