The Marie projected over the sea a shadow long and black as night, or rather appearing deep green in the midst of the polished surface, which reflected all the purity of the heavens; in this shadowed part, which had no glitter, could be plainly distinguished through the transparency, myriads upon myriads of fish, all alike, gliding slowly in the same direction, as if bent towards the goal of their perpetual travels. They were cod, performing their evolutions all as parts of a single body, stretched full length in the same direction, exactly parallel, offering the effect of gray streaks, unceasingly agitated by a quick motion that gave a look of fluidity to the mass of dumb lives. Sometimes, with a sudden quick movement of the tail, all turned round at the same time, showing the sheen of their silvered sides; and the same movement was repeated throughout the entire shoal by slow undulations, as if a thousand metal blades had each thrown a tiny flash of lightning from under the surface.

The sun, already very low, lowered further; so night had decidedly come. As the great ball of flame descended into the leaden-coloured zones that surrounded the sea, it grew yellow, and its outer rim became more clear and solid. Now it could be looked straight at, as if it were but the moon. Yet it still gave out light and looked quite near in the immensity; it seemed that by going in a ship, only so far as the edge of the horizon, one might collide with the great mournful globe, floating in the air just a few yards above the water.

Fishing was going on well; looking into the calm water, one could see exactly what took place; how the cod came to bite, with a greedy spring; then, feeling themselves hooked, wriggled about, as if to hook themselves still firmer. And every moment, with rapid action, the fishermen hauled in their lines, hand overhand, throwing the fish to the man who was to clean them and flatten them out.

The Paimpol fleet were scattered over the quiet mirror, animating the desert. Here and there appeared distant sails, unfurled for mere form's sake, considering there was no breeze. They were like clear white outlines upon the greys of the horizon. In this dead calm, fishing off Iceland seemed so easy and tranquil a trade that ladies' yachting was no name for it.

"Jean Francois de Nantes; Jean Francois, Jean Francois!"

So they sang, like a couple of children.

Yann little troubled whether or no he was handsome and good-looking. He was boyish only with Sylvestre, it is true, and sang and joked with no other; on the contrary, he was rather distant with the others and proud and disdainful—very willing though, when his help was required, and always kind and obliging when not irritated.

So the twain went on singing their song, with two others, a few steps off, singing another, a dirge—a clashing of sleepiness, health, and vague melancholy. But they did not feel dull, and the hours flew by.

Down in the cabin a fire still smouldered in the iron range, and the hatch was kept shut, so as to give the appearance of night there for those who needed sleep. They required but little air to sleep; indeed, less robust fellows, brought up in towns, would have wanted more. They used to go to bed after the watch at irregular times, just when they felt inclined, hours counting for little in this never-fading light. And they always slept soundly and peacefully without restlessness or bad dreams.

"Jean Francois de Nantes; Jean Francois, Jean Francois!"

They looked attentively at some almost imperceptible object, far off on the horizon, some faint smoke rising from the waters like a tiny jot of another gray tint slightly darker than the sky's. Their eyes were used to plumbing depths, and they had seen it.

"A sail, a sail, thereaway!"

"I have an idea," said the skipper, staring attentively, "that it's a government cruiser coming on her inspection-round."

This faint smoke brought news of home to the sailors, and among others, a letter we wrote of, from an old grandam, written by the hand of a beautiful girl. Slowly the steamer approached till they perceived her black hull. Yes, it was the cruiser, making the inspection in these western fjords.

At the same time, a slight breeze sprang up, fresher yet to inhale, and began to tarnish the surface of the still waters in patches; it traced designs in a bluish green tint over the shining mirror, and scattering in trails, these fanned out or branched off like a coral tree; all very rapidly with a low murmur; it was like a signal of awakening foretelling the end of this intense torpor. The sky, its veil being rent asunder, grew clear; the vapours fell down on the horizon, massing in heaps like slate-coloured wadding, as if to form a soft bank to the sea. The two ever-during mirrors between which the fishermen lived, the one on high and the one beneath, recovered their deep lucidity, as if the mists tarnishing them had been brushed away.

The weather was changing in a rapid way that foretold no good. Smacks began to arrive from all points of the immense plane; first, all the French smacks in the vicinity, from Brittany, Normandy, Boulogne, or Dunkirk. Like birds flocking to a call, they assembled round the cruiser; from the apparently empty corners of the horizon, others appeared on every side; their tiny gray wings were seen till they peopled the pallid waste.

No longer slowly drifting, for they had spread out their sails to the new and cool breeze, and cracked on all to approach.

Far-off Iceland also reappeared, as if she would fain come near them also; showing her great mountains of bare stones more distinctly than ever.

And there arose a new Iceland of similar colour, which little by little took a more definite form, and none the less was purely illusive, its gigantic mountains merely a condensation of mists. The sun, sinking low, seemed incapable of ever rising over all things, though glowing through this phantom island so tangible that it seemed placed in front of it. Incomprehensible sight! no longer was it surrounded by a halo, but its disc had become firmly spread, rather like some faded yellow planet slowly decaying and suddenly checked there in the heart of chaos.

The cruiser, which had stopped, was fully surrounded by the fleet of Icelanders. From all boats were lowered, like so many nut-shells, and conveyed their strong, long-bearded men, in barbaric-looking dresses, to the steamer.

Like children, all had something to beg for; remedies for petty ailments, materials for repairs, change of diet, and home letters. Others came, sent by their captains, to be clapped in irons, to expiate some fault; as they had all been in the navy, they took this as a matter of course. When the narrow deck of the cruiser was blocked-up by four or five of these hulking fellows, stretched out with the bilboes round their feet, the old sailor who had just chained them up called out to them, "Roll o' one side, my lads, to let us work, d'ye hear?" which they obediently did with a grin.

There were a great many letters this time for the Iceland fleet. Among the rest, two for "La Marie, Captain Guermeur"; one addressed to "Monsieur Gaos, Yann," the other to "Monsieur Moan, Sylvestre." The latter had come by way of Rykavyk, where the cruiser had taken it on.

The purser, diving into his post-bags of sailcloth, distributed them all round, often finding it hard to read the addresses, which were not always written very skilfully, while the captain kept on saying: "Look alive there, look alive! the barometer is falling."

He was rather anxious to see all the tiny yawls afloat, and so many vessels assembled in that dangerous region.

Yann and Sylvestre used to read their letters together. This time they read them by the light of the midnight sun, shining above the horizon, still like a dead luminary. Sitting together, a little to one side, in a retired nook of the deck, their arms about each other's shoulders, they very slowly read, as if to enjoy more thoroughly the news sent them from home.

In Yann's letter Sylvestre got news of Marie Gaos, his little sweetheart; in Sylvestre's, Yann read all Granny Moan's funny stories, for she had not her like for amusing the absent ones you will remember; and the last paragraph concerning him came up: the "word of greeting to young Gaos."

When the letters were got through, Sylvestre timidly showed his to his big friend, to try and make him admire the writing of it.

"Look, is it not pretty writing, Yann?"

But Yann, who knew very well whose hand had traced it, turned aside, shrugging his shoulders, as much as to say that he was worried too often about this Gaud girl.

So Sylvestre carefully folded up the poor, rejected paper, put it into its envelope and all in his jersey, next his breast, saying to himself sadly: "For sure, they'll never marry. But what on earth can he have to say against her?"

Midnight was struck on the cruiser's bell. And yet our couple remained sitting there, thinking of home, the absent ones, a thousand things in reverie. At this same moment the everlasting sun, which had dipped its lower edge into the waters, began slowly to reascend, and lo! this was morning.



PART II — IN THE BRETON LAND



CHAPTER I—THE PLAYTHING OF THE STORM

The Northern sun had taken another aspect and changed its colour, opening the new day by a sinister morn. Completely free from its veil, it gave forth its grand rays, crossing the sky in fitful flashes, foretelling nasty weather. During the past few days it had been too fine to last. The winds blew upon that swarm of boats, as if to clear the sea of them; and they began to disperse and flee, like an army put to rout, before the warning written in the air, beyond possibility to misread. Harder and harder it blew, making men and ships quake alike.

And the still tiny waves began to run one after another and to melt together; at first they were frosted over with white foam spread out in patches; and then, with a whizzing sound, arose smoke as though they burned and scorched, and the whistling grew louder every moment. Fish-catching was no longer thought of; it was their work on deck. The fishing lines had been drawn in, and all hurried to make sail and some to seek for shelter in the fjords, while yet others preferred to round the southern point of Iceland, finding it safer to stand for the open sea, with the free space about them, and run before the stern wind. They could still see each other a while: here and there, above the trough of the sea, sails wagged as poor wearied birds fleeing; the masts tipped, but ever and anon righted, like the weighted pith figures that similarly resume an erect attitude when released after being blown down.

The illimitable cloudy roof, erstwhile compacted towards the western horizon, in an island form, began to break up on high and send its fragments over the surface. It seemed indestructible, for vainly did the winds stretch it, pull and toss it asunder, continually tearing away dark strips, which they waved over the pale yellow sky, gradually becoming intensely and icily livid. Ever more strongly grew the wind that threw all things in turmoil.

The cruiser had departed for shelter at Iceland; some fishers alone remained upon the seething sea, which now took an ill-boding look and a dreadful colour. All hastily made preparations for bad weather. Between one and another the distance grew greater, till some were lost sight of.

The waves, curling up in scrolls, continued to run after each other, to reassemble and climb on one another, and between them the hollows deepened.

In a few hours, everything was belaboured and overthrown in these regions that had been so calm the day before, and instead of the past silence, the uproar was deafening. The present agitation was a dissolving view, unconscientious and useless, and quickly accomplished. What was the object of it all? What a mystery of blind destruction it was!

The clouds continued to stream out on high, out of the west continually, racing and darkening all. A few yellow clefts remained, through which the sun shot its rays in volleys. And the now greenish water was striped more thickly with snowy froth.

By midday the Marie was made completely snug for dirty weather: her hatches battened down, and her sails storm-reefed; she bounded lightly and elastic; for all the horrid confusion, she seemed to be playing like the porpoises, also amused in storms. With her foresail taken in, she simply scudded before the wind.

It had become quite dark overhead, where stretched the heavily crushing vault. Studded with shapeless gloomy spots, it appeared a set dome, unless a steadier gaze ascertained that everything was in the full rush of motion; endless gray veils were drawn along, unceasingly followed by others, from the profundities of the sky-line—draperies of darkness, pulled from a never-ending roll.

The Marie fled faster and faster before the wind; and time fled also—before some invisible and mysterious power. The gale, the sea, the Marie, and the clouds were all lashed into one great madness of hasty flight towards the same point. The fastest of all was the wind; then the huge seething billows, heavier and slower, toiling after; and, lastly, the smack, dragged into the general whirl. The waves tracked her down with their white crests, tumbling onward in continual motion, and she—though always being caught up to and outrun—still managed to elude them by means of the eddying waters she spurned in her wake, upon which they vented their fury. In this similitude of flight the sensation particularly experienced was of buoyancy, the delight of being carried along without effort or trouble, in a springy sort of way. The Marie mounted over the waves without any shaking, as if the wind had lifted her clean up; and her subsequent descent was a slide. She almost slid backward, though, at times, the mountains lowering before her as if continuing to run, and then she suddenly found herself dropped into one of the measureless hollows that evaded her also; without injury she sounded its horrible depths, amid a loud splashing of water, which did not even sprinkle her decks, but was blown on and on like everything else, evaporating in finer and finer spray until it was thinned away to nothing. In the trough it was darker, and when each wave had passed the men looked behind them to see if the next to appear were higher; it came upon them with furious contortions, and curling crests, over its transparent emerald body, seeming to shriek: "Only let me catch you, and I'll swallow you whole!"

But this never came to pass, for, as a feather, the billows softly bore them up and then down so gently; they felt it pass under them, with all its boiling surf and thunderous roar. And so on continually, but the sea getting heavier and heavier. One after another rushed the waves, more and more gigantic, like a long chain of mountains, with yawning valleys. And the madness of all this movement, under the ever-darkening sky, accelerated the height of the intolerable clamour.

Yann and Sylvestre stood at the helm, still singing, "Jean Francois de Nantes"; intoxicated with the quiver of speed, they sang out loudly, laughing at their inability to hear themselves in this prodigious wrath of the wind.

"I say, lads, does it smell musty up here too?" called out Guermeur to them, passing his bearded face up through the half-open hatchway, like Jack-in-the-box.

Oh, no! it certainly did not smell musty on deck. They were not at all frightened, being quite conscious of what men can cope with, having faith in the strength of their barkey and their arms. And they furthermore relied upon the protection of that china Virgin, which had voyaged forty years to Iceland, and so often had danced the dance of this day, smiling perpetually between her branches of artificial flowers.

Generally speaking, they could not see far around them; a few hundred yards off, all seemed entombed in the fearfully big billows, with their frothing crests shutting out the view. They felt as if in an enclosure, continually altering shape; and, besides, all things seemed drowned in the aqueous smoke, which fled before them like a cloud with the greatest rapidity over the heaving surface. But from time to time a gleam of sunlight pierced through the north-west sky, through which a squall threatened; a shuddering light would appear from above, a rather spun-out dimness, making the dome of the heavens denser than before, and feebly lighting up the surge. This new light was sad to behold; far-off glimpses as they were, that gave too strong an understanding that the same chaos and the same fury lay on all sides, even far, far behind the seemingly void horizon; there was no limit to its expanse of storm, and they stood alone in its midst!

A tremendous tumult arose all about, like the prelude of an apocalypse, spreading the terror of the ultimate end of the earth. And amidst it thousands of voices could be heard above, shrieking, bellowing, calling, as from a great distance. It was only the wind, the great motive breath of all this disorder, the voice of the invisible power ruling all. Then came other voices, nearer and less indefinite, threatening destruction, and making the water shudder and hiss as if on burning coals; the disturbance increased in terror.

Notwithstanding their flight, the sea began to gain on them, to "bury them up," as they phrased it: first the spray fell down on them from behind, and masses of water thrown with such violence as to break everything in their course. The waves were ever increasing, and the tempest tore off their ridges and hurled them, too, upon the poop, like a demon's game of snowballing, till dashed to atoms on the bulwarks. Heavier masses fell on the planks with a hammering sound, till the Marie shivered throughout, as if in pain. Nothing could be distinguished over the side, because of the screen of creamy foam; and when the winds soughed more loudly, this foam formed into whirling spouts, like the dust of the way in summer time. At length a heavy rain fell crossways, and soon straight up and down, and how all these elements of destruction yelled together, clashed and interlocked, no tongue can tell.

Yann and Sylvestre stuck staunchly to the helm, covered with their waterproofs, hard and shiny as sharkskin; they had firmly secured them at the throat by tarred strings, and likewise at wrists and ankles to prevent the water from running in, and the rain only poured off them; when it fell too heavily, they arched their backs, and held all the more stoutly, not to be thrown over the board. Their cheeks burned, and every minute their breath was beaten out or stopped.

After each sea was shipped and rushed over, they exchanged glances, grinning at the crust of salt settled in their beards.

In the long run though, this became tiresome, an unceasing fury, which always promised a worse visitation. The fury of men and beasts soon falls and dies away; but the fury of lifeless things, without cause or object, is as mysterious as life and death, and has to be borne for very long.

"Jean Francois de Nantes;

Jean Francois,

Jean Francois!"

Through their pale lips still came the refrain of the old song, but as from a speaking automaton, unconsciously taken up from time to time. The excess of motion and uproar had made them dumb, and despite their youth their smiles were insincere, and their teeth chattered with cold; their eyes, half-closed under their raw, throbbing eyelids, remained glazed in terror. Lashed to the helm, like marble caryatides, they only moved their numbed blue hands, almost without thinking, by sheer muscular habit. With their hair streaming and mouths contracted, they had become changed, all the primitive wildness in man appearing again. They could not see one another truly, but still were aware of being companioned. In the instants of greatest danger, each time that a fresh mountain of water rose behind them, came to overtower them, and crash horribly against their boat, one of their hands would move as if involuntarily, to form the sign of the cross. They no more thought of Gaud than of any other woman, or any marrying. The travail was lasting too long, and they had no thoughts left. The intoxication of noise, cold, and fatigue drowned all in their brain. They were merely two pillars of stiffened human flesh, held up by the helm; two strong beasts, cowering, but determined they would not be overwhelmed.



CHAPTER II—A PARDONABLE RUSE

In Brittany, towards the end of September, on an already chilly day, Gaud was walking alone across the common of Ploubazlanec, in the direction of Pors-Even.

The Icelanders had returned a month back, except two, which had perished in that June gale. But the Marie had held her own, and Yann and all her crew were peacefully at home.

Gaud felt very troubled at the idea of going to Yann's house. She had seen him once since the return from Iceland, when they had all gone together to see poor little Sylvestre off to the navy. They accompanied him to the coaching-house, he blubbering a little and his grandmother weeping, and he had started to join the fleet at Brest.

Yann, who had come also to bid good-bye to his little friend, had feigned to look aside when Gaud looked at him, and as there were many people round the coach to see the other sailors off, and parents assembled to say good-bye, the pair had not a chance to speak. So, at last, she had formed a strong resolution, and rather timidly wended her way towards the Gaos's home.

Her father had formerly had mutual interests with Yann's father (complicated business, which, with peasants and fishers alike, seems to be endless), and owed him a hundred francs for the sale of a boat, which had just taken place in a raffle.

"You ought to let me carry the money to him, father," she had said. "I shall be pleased to see Marie Gaos. I never have been so far in Ploubazlanec, either, and I shall enjoy the long walk."

To speak the truth, she was curiously anxious to know Yann's family, which she might some day enter; and she also wanted to see the house and village.

In one of their last chats, before his departure, Sylvestre had explained to her, in his own way, his friend's shyness.

"D'ye see, Gaud, he's like this, he won't marry anybody, that's his idea; he only loves the sea, and one day even, in fun, he said he had promised to be wedded to it."

Whereupon, she forgave him all his peculiar ways, and remembered only his beautiful open smile on the night of the ball, and she hoped on and on.

If she were to meet him in his home, of course she would say nothing; she had no intention of being so bold. But if he saw her closely again, perhaps he might speak.



CHAPTER III—OF SINISTER PORTENT

She had been walking for the last hour, lightly yet oppressed, inhaling the healthy open breeze whistling up the roads to where they crossed and Calvaires were erected, ghastly highway ornaments of our Saviour on His cross, to which Bretons are given.

From time to time she passed through small fishing villages, which are beaten about by the winds the whole year through till of the colour of the rocks. In one of these hamlets, where the path narrows suddenly between dark walls, and between the whitewashed roofs, high and pointed like Celtic huts, a tavern sign-board made her smile. It was "The Chinese Cider Cellars." On it were painted two grotesque figures, dressed in green and pink robes, with pigtails, drinking cider. No doubt the whim of some old sailor who had been in China. She saw all on her way; people who are greatly engrossed in the object of a journey always find more amusement than others in its thousand details.

The tiny village was far behind her now, and as she advanced in this last promontory of the Breton land, the trees around her became more scarce, and the country more mournful.

The ground was undulating and rocky, and from all the heights the open sea could be seen. No more trees now; nothing but the shorn heaths with their green reeds, and here and there the consecrated crosses rose, their outstretched arms outlined against the sky, giving the whole country the aspect of a cemetery.

At one of the cross-ways, guarded by a colossal image of Christ, she hesitated between two roads running among thorny slopes.

A child happening to pass, came to her rescue: "Good-day, Mademoiselle Gaud!"

It was one of the little Gaoses, one of Yann's wee sisters. Gaud kissed her and asked her if her parents were at home.

"Father and mother are, yes. But brother Yann," said the little one, without intent, of course, "has gone to Loguivy; but I don't think he'll be very late home again."

So he was not there? Again destiny was between them, everywhere and always. She thought at first of putting off her visit to another day. But the little lass who had met her might mention the fact. What would they think at Pors-Even? So she decided to go on, but loitering so as to give Yann time to return.

As she neared his village, in this lost country, all things seemed rougher and more desolate. Sea breezes that made men stronger, made shorter and more stubbly plants. Seaweeds of all kinds were scattered over the paths, leaves from growths in another element, proving the existence of a neighbouring world; their briny odour mingled with the perfume of the heather.

Now and again Gaud met passers-by, sea-folk, who could be seen a long way off, over the bare country, outlined and magnified against the high sea-line. Pilots or fishers, seeming to watch the great sea, in passing her wished her good-day. Broad sun-burnt faces were theirs, manly and determined under their easy caps.

Time did not go quickly enough, and she really did not know what to do to lengthen the way; these people seemed surprised at seeing her walk so slowly.

What could Yann be doing at Loguivy? Courting the girls, perhaps.

Ah! if she only had known how little he troubled his head about them! He had simply gone to Loguivy to give an order to a basket-maker, who was the only one in the country knowing how to weave lobster pots. His mind was very free from love just now.

She passed a chapel, at such a height it could be seen remotely. It was a little gray old chapel in the midst of the barren. A clump of trees, gray too, and almost leafless, seemed like hair to it, pushed by some invisible hand all on one side.

It was that same hand that had wrecked the fishers' boats, the eternal hand of the western winds, and had twisted all the branches of the coast trees in the direction of the waves and of the off-sea breezes. The old trees had grown awry and dishevelled, bending their backs under the time-honoured strength of that hand.

Gaud was almost at the end of her walk, as the chapel in sight was that of Pors-Even; so she stopped there to win a little more time.

A petty mouldering wall ran round an enclosure containing tombstones. Everything was of the same colour, chapel, trees, and graves; the whole spot seemed faded and eaten into by the sea-wind; the stones, the knotty branches, and the granite saints, placed in the wall niches, were covered by the same grayish lichen, splashed pale yellow.

On one of the wooden crosses this name was written in large letters:

"GAOS.—GAOS, JOEL, 80 years."

Yes, this was the old grandfather—she knew that—for the sea had not wanted this old sailor. And many of Yann's relatives, besides, slept here; it was only natural, and she might have expected it; nevertheless, the name upon the tomb had made a sad impression.

To waste a little more time, she entered to say a prayer under the old cramped porch, worn away and daubed over with whitewash. But she stopped again with a sharp pain at her heart. "Gaos"—again that name, engraved upon one of the slabs erected in memory of those who die at sea.

She read this inscription:

"To the Memory of GAOS, JEAN-LOUIS, Aged 24 years; seaman on board the Marguerite. Disappeared off Iceland, August 3d, 1877. May he rest in peace!"

Iceland—always Iceland! All over the porch were wooden slabs bearing the names of dead sailors. It was the place reserved for the shipwrecked of Pors-Even. Filled with a dark foreboding she was sorry to have gone there.

In Paimpol church she had seen many such inscriptions; but in this village the empty tomb of the Iceland fishers seemed more sad because so lone and humble. On each side of the doorway was a granite seat for the widows and mothers; and this shady spot, irregularly shaped like a grotto, was guarded by an old image of the Virgin, coloured red, with large staring eyes, looking most like Cybele—the first goddess of the earth.

"Gaos!" Again!

"To the Memory of GAOS, FRANCOIS, Husband of Anne-Marie le Goaster, Captain on board the Paimpolais, Lost off Iceland, between the 1st and 3d of May, 1877, With the twenty-three men of his crew. May they rest in peace!"

And, lower down, were two cross-bones under a black skull with green eyes, a simple but ghastly emblem, reminding one of all the barbarism of a bygone age.

"Gaos, Gaos!" The name was everywhere. As she read, thrills of sweet tenderness came over her for this Yann of her choice, damped by a feeling of hopelessness. Nay, he would never be hers! How could she tear him from the sea where so many other Gaoses had gone down, ancestors and brothers, who must have loved the sea like he! She entered the chapel. It was almost dark, badly lit by low windows with heavy frames. And there, her heart full of tears that would better have fallen, she knelt to pray before the colossal saints, surrounded by common flowers, touching the vaulted roof with their massive heads. Outside, the rising wind began to sob as if it brought the death-gasps of the drowned men back to their Fatherland.

Night drew near; she rose and went on her way. After having asked in the village, she found the home of the Gaos family, which was built up against a high cliff. A dozen granite steps led up to it. Trembling a little at the thought that Yann might have returned, she crossed the small garden where chrysanthemums and veronicas grew.

When she was indoors, she explained she had come to bring the money for the boat, and they very politely asked her to sit down, to await the father's return, as he was the one to sign the receipt for her. Amidst all, her eyes searched for Yann—but did not see him.

They were very busy in the home. Already they were cutting out the new waterproof cloth on the clean white table, and getting it ready for the approaching Iceland season.

"You see, Mademoiselle Gaud, it's like this: every man wants two new suits."

They explained to her how they set to work to make them, and to render their seams waterproof with tar, for they were for wet weather wear. And while they worked, Gaud looked attentively around the home of these Gaoses.

It was furnished after the traditional manner of all Breton cottages; an immense chimney-place took up one whole end, and on the sides of the walls the Breton beds, bunks, as on shipboard, were placed one above another. But it was not so sombre and sad as the cabins of other peasants, which are generally half-hidden by the wayside; it was all fresh and clean, as the homes of seamen usually are. Several little Gaoses were there, girls and boys, all sisters and brothers of Yann; without counting two big ones, who were already out at sea. And, besides, there was a little fair girl, neat, but sad, unlike the others.

"We adopted her last year," explained the mother; "we had enough children as it was, of course, but what else could we do, Mademoiselle Gaud, for her daddy belonged to the Maria-Dieu-t'aime, lost last season off Iceland, as you know; so the neighbours divided the little ones between them, and this one fell to our lot."

Hearing herself spoken of, the adopted child hung her pretty head and smiled, hiding herself behind little Laumec Gaos, her favourite.

There was a look of comfort all over the place, and radiant health bloomed on all the children's rosy cheeks.

They received Gaud very profusely, like a great lady whose visit was an honour to the family. She was taken upstairs, up a newly-built wooden staircase, to see the room above, which was the glory of the home. She remembered the history of its construction; it was after the finding of a derelict vessel in the channel, which luck had befallen Yann's father and his cousin the pilot.

The room was very gay and pretty in its whiteness; there were two town beds in it, with pink chintz curtains, and a large table in the middle. Through the window the whole of Paimpol could be seen, with the Icelanders at anchor off shore, and the channel through which they passed.

She did not dare question, but she would have liked to have known where Yann slept; probably as a child he had slept downstairs in one of the antique cupboard-beds. But perhaps now he slept under those pink draperies. She would have loved to have known all the details of his life, especially what he did in the long winter evenings.

A heavy footstep on the stairs made her tremble. But it was not Yann, though a man much like him; notwithstanding his white hair, as tall and as straight. It was old father Gaos returning from fishing.

After he had saluted her and asked her the object of her visit, he signed her receipt for her which was rather a long operation, as his hand was not very steady, he explained.

But he would not accept the hundred francs as a final payment, but only as an instalment; he would speak to M. Mevel again about it. Whereupon Gaud, to whom money was nothing, smiled imperceptibly; she had fancied the business was not quite terminated, and this just suited her.

They made something like excuses for Yann's absence; as if they found it more orthodox for the whole family to assemble to receive her. Perhaps the father had guessed, with the shrewdness of an old salt, that his son was not indifferent to this beautiful heiress; for he rather insisted upon talking about him.

"It's very queer," said he, "the boy's never so late out. He went over to Loguivy, Mademoiselle Gaud, to buy some lobster baskets; as you know, lobster-catching is our main winter fishery."

She dreamily lengthened out her call, although conscious that it was too long already, and feeling a tug at her heart at the idea that she would not see him after all.

"A well-conducted young man like Yann—what can he be doing? Surely he's not at the inn. We don't fear that for our lad. I don't say that now and then, of a Sunday, with his mates——You know, Mademoiselle Gaud, what them sailors are. Eh! ye know, he's but a young chap, and must have some liberty now and again. But it's very rare with him to break out, for he's a straight-goer; we can say that."

But night was falling, and the work had been folded up. The little ones on the benches around drew closer to one another, saddened by the grey dismal gloaming, and eyed Gaud hard, seeming to say—

"Why doesn't she go now?"

On the hearth, the flames burned redder in the midst of the falling shadows.

"You ought to stay and have a bit o' supper with us, Mademoiselle Gaud."

"Oh, no! I couldn't think of it!" The blood rushed to her face at the idea of having remained so late. She got up and took her leave.

Yann's father also rose to accompany her part of the way, anyhow as far as a lonely nook where the old trees make a dark lane.

As they walked along together, she felt a sudden sympathy of respect and tenderness towards him; she would have liked to have spoken as to a father in the sudden gushes of feeling that came over her; but the words were stifled in her throat, and she said not a word.

And so they went their way, in the cold evening wind, full of the odour of the sea, passing here and there, on the barren heath, some poor hovels, where beach-combers dwelt and had already sealed themselves up for the night; dark and neglected they looked under the weather-beaten roofs; these crosses, clumps of reeds, and boulders they left behind.

What a great way off Pors-Even was, and what a time she had remained!

Now and then they met folks returning from Paimpol or Loguivy; and as she watched the shadows approach, each time she thought it was Yann; but it was easy to recognise him at a good distance off, and so she was quickly undeceived. Every moment her feet caught in the brown trailing plants, tangled like hair, which were sea-weeds littering the pathway.

At the Cross of Plouezoc'h she bade good-bye to the old man, and begged him to return. The lights of Paimpol were already in view, and there was no more occasion to be afraid.

So hope was over for this time. Who could tell her when she might see Yann again?

An excuse to return to Pors-Even would have been easy; but it would really look too bad to begin her quest all over again. She would have to be braver and prouder than that. If only her little confidant Sylvestre had been there, she might have asked him to go and fetch Yann, so that there could be some explanation. But he was gone now, and for how many years?



CHAPTER IV—HIS RELUCTANCE

"Me get married?" said Yann to his parents that same evening. "Me get married? Good heavens, why should I? Shall I ever be as happy as here with ye? no troubles, no tiffs with any one, and warm soup ready for me every night when I come home from sea. Oh! I quite understand that you mean the girl that came here to-day, but what's such a rich girl to do with us? 'Tisn't clear to my thinking. And it'll be neither her, nor any other. It's all settled, I won't marry—it ain't to my liking."

The two old Gaoses looked at one another in silence, deeply disappointed, for, after having talked it over together, they were pretty well sure that this young lady would not refuse their handsome Yann. But they did not try to argue, knowing how useless that would be. The mother lowered her head, and said no more; she respected the will of her son, her eldest born, who was all but the head of the family; although he was always tender and gentle with her, more obedient than a child in the petty things of life, he long ago had been her absolute master for the great ones, eluding all restraint with a quiet though savage independence. He never sat up late, being in the habit, like other fishermen, of rising before break of day. And after supper at eight o'clock, he had given another satisfactory look to his baskets and new nets from Loguivy, and began to undress—calm to all appearances, and went up to sleep in the pink-curtained bed, which he shared with his little brother Laumec.



CHAPTER V—SAILORS AT THE PLAY

For the last fortnight Gaud's little confidant, Sylvestre, had been quartered in Brest; very much out of his element, but very quiet and obedient to discipline. He wore his open blue sailor-collar and red-balled, flat, woollen cap, with a frank, fearless look, and was noble and dignified in his sailor garb, with his free step and tall figure, but at the bottom of his heart he was still the same innocent boy as ever, and thinking of his dear old grandam.

One evening he had got tipsy together with some lads from his parts, simply because it is the custom; and they had all returned to the barracks together arm-in-arm, singing out as lustily as they could.

And one Sunday, too, they had all gone to the theatre, in the upper galleries. A melodrama was being played, and the sailors, exasperated against the villain, greeted him with a howl, which they all roared together, like a blast of the Atlantic cyclones.



CHAPTER VI—ORDERED ON FOREIGN SERVICE

One day Sylvestre was summoned before the officer of his company; and they told him he was among those ordered out to China—in the squadron for Formosa. He had been pretty well expecting it for some time, as he had heard those who read the papers say that out there the war seemed never-ending.

And because of the urgency of the departure, he was informed at the same time that he would not be able to have the customary leave for his home farewells; in five days' time he would have to pack up and be off.

Then a bitter pain came over him; though charmed at the idea of far-off travels amid the unknown and of the war. There also was agony at the thought of leaving all he knew and loved, with the vague apprehension that he might never more return.

A thousand noises rang in his head. Around was the bustle of the barrack-rooms, where hundreds of others were called up, like himself, chosen for the Chinese squadron. And rapidly he wrote to his old grandmother, with a stump of pencil, crouching on the floor, alone in his own feverish dream, though in the thick of the continual hurry and hubbub amidst all the young sailors hurried away like himself.



CHAPTER VII—MOAN'S SWEETHEART

"His sweetheart's a trifle old!" said the others, a couple of days later, as they laughed after Sylvestre and his grandmother, "but they seem to get on fine together all the same."

It amused them to see the boy, for the first time, walk through the streets of Recouvrance, with a woman at his side, like the rest of them; and, bending towards her with a tender look, whisper what seemed to be very soft nothings.

She was a very quick, diminutive person seen from behind, with rather short skirts for the fashion of the day; and a scanty brown shawl, and a high Paimpol coiffe. She, too, hanging on his arm, turned towards him with an affectionate glance.

"A trifle old was his sweetheart!"

That's what the others called after him, we say, but without spite, for any one could see that she was his old granny, come up from the country. She had come, too, in a hurry, suddenly terrified at the news of his sudden departure; for this Chinese war had already cost Paimpol many sailors. So she had scraped together all her poor little savings, put her best Sunday dress and a fresh clean coiffe in a box, and had set out to kiss him once again.

She had gone straight to the barracks to ask for him; at first his adjutant had refused to let him go out.

"If you've anything to say, my good woman, go and speak to the captain yourself. There he is, passing."

So she calmly walked up to him, and he allowed himself to be won over.

"Send Moan to change his clothes, to go out," said he.

All in hot haste Moan had gone to rig up in his best attire, while the good old lady, to make him laugh, of course, made a most inimitably droll face and a mock curtsey at the adjutant behind his back.

But when the grandson appeared in his full uniform, with the inevitable turned-down collar, leaving his throat bare, she was quite struck with his beauty; his black beard was cut into a seamanly fashionable point by the barber, and his cap was decked out with long floating ribbons, with a golden anchor at each end. For the moment she almost saw in him her son Pierre, who, twenty years before, had also been a sailor in the navy, and the remembrance of the far past, with all its dead, stealthily shadowed the present hour.

But the sadness soon passed away. Arm-in-arm they strolled on, happy to be together; and it was then that the others had pretended to see in her his sweetheart, and voted her "a trifle old."

She had taken him, for a treat, to dine in an inn kept by some people from Paimpol, which had been recommended to her as rather cheap. And then, still arm-in-arm, they had sauntered through Brest, looking at the shop-windows. There never were such funny stories told as those she told her grandson to make him laugh; of course all in Paimpol Breton, so that the passers-by might not understand.



CHAPTER VIII—OLD AND YOUNG

She stayed three days with him, three happy days, though over them hung a dark and ominous forecast; one might as well call them three days of respite.

At last she was forced to return to Ploubazlanec, for she had come to the end of her little savings, and Sylvestre was to embark the day afterward. The sailors are always inexorably kept in barracks the day before foreign cruises (a custom that seems rather barbarous at first, but which is a necessary precaution against the "flings" they would have before leaving definitely).

Oh that last day! She had done her very best to hatch up some more funny stories in her head, to tell her boy just at the parting; but she had remembered nothing—no; only tears had welled up, and at every moment sobs choked her. Hanging on his arm, she reminded him of a thousand things he was not to forget to do, and he also tried hard to repress his tears. They had ended by going into a church to say their prayers together.

It was by the night train that she went. To save a few pence, they had gone on foot to the station; he carrying her box, and holding her on his strong arm, upon which she weighed heavily.

She was so very, very tired—poor old lady! She had scarcely any strength left after the exertion of the last three or four days. Her shoulders were bent under her brown shawl, and she had no force to bear herself up; her youngish look was gone, and she felt the weight of her seventy-six years.

Oh! how her heart ached at the thought that it was all over, and that in a few moments she must leave him! Was he really to go out so far, to China, perhaps to slaughter. She still had him there with her, quite close, her poor hands could yet grasp him—and yet he must go; all the strength of her will, all her tears, and all her great heartrending despair—all! would nothing be of avail to keep him back?

With her ticket, and her lunch-basket, and her mittens in her grasp, agitated, she gave him her last blessing and advice, and he answered her with an obedient "Ay, ay," bending his head tenderly towards her and gazing lovingly at her, in his soft childish way.

"Now then, old lady, you must make up your mind plaguey quick if you want to go by this train!"

The engine whistled. Suddenly terrified at the idea of losing the train, she bore her box from Sylvestre's grasp, and flinging it down, threw her arms round his neck in a last and supreme embrace.

Many people on the platform stared at them, but not one smiled. Hustled about by the porters, worn out and full of pain, she pressed into the first carriage near; the door was banged quickly upon her, while Sylvestre, with all the speed of a young sailor, rushed out of the station to the rails beside the line to see the train pass.

A shrill screeching whistle, a noisy grinding of the wheels, and his grandmother passed away, leaving him leaning against the gate and swinging up his cap with its flying ribbons, while she, hanging out of the window of her third-class carriage, made an answering signal with her handkerchief; and for as long as she could see the dark blue-clad figure, that was her child, followed him with her eyes, throwing her whole soul into that "good-bye!" kept back to the last, and always uncertain of realization when sailors are concerned.

Look long at your little Sylvestre, poor old woman; until the very latest moment, do not lose sight of his fleeting shadow, which is fading away for ever.

When she could see him no longer, she fell back, completely crushing her still clean unrumpled cap, weeping and sobbing in the agony of death itself.

He had turned away slowly, with his head bent, and big tears falling down his cheeks. The autumn night had closed in; everywhere the gas was flaring, and the sailors' riotous feasts had begun anew. Paying no heed to anything about him, he passed through Brest and over the Recouvrance Bridge, to the barracks.

"Whist! here, you darling boy!" called out some nocturnal prowlers to him; but he passed on, and entering the barracks, flung himself down in his hammock, weeping, all alone, and hardly sleeping until dawn.



CHAPTER IX—THE EASTERN VOYAGE

Sylvestre was soon out on the ocean, rapidly whisked away over the unknown seas, far more blue than Iceland's. The ship that carried him off to the confines of Asia was ordered to go at full speed and stop nowhere. Ere long he felt that he was far away, for the speed was unceasing, and even without a care for the sea or the wind. As he was a topman, he lived perched aloft, like a bird, avoiding the soldiers crowded upon the deck.

Twice they stopped, however, on the coast of Tunis, to take up more Zouaves and mules; from afar he had perceived the white cities amid sands and arid hills. He had even come down from his top to look at the dark-brown men draped in their white robes who came off in small boats to peddle fruit; his mates told him that these were Bedouins.

The heat and the sun, which were unlessened by the autumn season, made him feel out of his element.

One day they touched at Port Said. All the flags of Europe waved overhead from long staves, which gave it an aspect of Babel on a feast-day, and the glistening sands surrounded the town like a moving sea.

They had stopped there, touching the quays, almost in the midst of the long streets full of wooden shanties. Since his departure, Sylvestre never had seen the outside world so closely, and the movement and numbers of boats excited and amused him.

With never-ending screeching from their escape-pipes, all these boats crowded up in the long canal, as narrow as a ditch, which wound itself in a silvery line through the infinite sands. From his post on high he could see them as in a procession under a window, till disappearing in the plain.

On the canal all kinds of costumes could be seen; men in many-coloured attire, busy and shouting like thunder. And at night the clamour of confused bands of music mingled with the diabolical screams of the locomotives, playing noisy tunes, as if to drown the heart-breaking sorrow of the exiles who for ever passed onward.

The next day, at sunrise, they, too, glided into the narrow ribbon of water between the sands. For two days the steaming in the long file through the desert lasted, then another sea opened before them, and they were once again upon the open. They still ran at full speed through this warmer expanse, stained like red marble, with their boiling wake like blood. Sylvestre remained all the time up in his top, where he would hum his old song of "Jean-Francois de Nantes," to remind him of his dear brother Yann, of Iceland, and the good old bygone days.

Sometimes, in the depths of the shadowy distance, some wonderfully tinted mountain would arise. Notwithstanding the distance and the dimness around, the names of those projected capes of countries appeared as the eternal landmarks on the great roadways of the earth to the steersmen of this vessel; but a topman is carried on like an inanimate thing, knowing nothing, and unconscious of the distance over the everlasting, endless waves.

All he felt was a terrible estrangement from the things of this world, which grew greater and greater; and the feeling was very defined and exact as he looked upon the seething foam behind, and tried to remember how long had lasted this pace that never slackened night or day. Down on deck, the crowd of men, huddled together in the shadow of the awnings, panted with weariness. The water and the air, even the very light above, had a dull, crushing splendour; and the fadeless glory of those elements were as a very mockery of the human beings whose physical lives are so ephemeral.

Once, up in his crow's nest, he was gladdened by the sight of flocks of tiny birds, of an unknown species, which fell upon the ship like a whirlwind of coal dust. They allowed themselves to be taken and stroked, being worn out with fatigue. All the sailors had them as pets upon their shoulders. But soon the most exhausted among them began to die, and before long they died by thousands on the rigging, yards, ports, and sails—poor little things!—under the blasting sun of the Red Sea. They had come to destruction, off the Great Desert, fleeing before a sandstorm. And through fear of falling into the blue waters that stretched on all sides, they had ended their last feeble flight upon the passing ship. Over yonder, in some distant region of Libya, they had been fledged in masses. Indeed, there were so many of them, that their blind and unkind mother, Nature, had driven away before her this surplus, as unmoved as if they had been superabundant men. On the scorching funnels and ironwork of the ship they died away; the deck was strewn with their puny forms, only yesterday so full of life, songs, and love. Now, poor little black dots, Sylvestre and the others picked them up, spreading out their delicate blue wings, with a look of pity, and swept them overboard into the abysmal sea.

Next came hosts of locusts, the spawn of those conjured up by Moses, and the ship was covered with them. At length, though, it surged on a lifeless blue sea, where they saw no things around them, except from time to time the flying fish skimming along the level water.



CHAPTER X—THE ORIENT

Rain in torrents, under a heavy black sky. This was India. Sylvestre had just set foot upon land, chance selecting him to complete the crew of a whale boat. He felt the warm shower upon him through the thick foliage, and looked around, surprised at the novel sight. All was magnificently green; the leaves of the trees waved like gigantic feathers, and the people walking beneath them had large velvety eyes, which seemed to close under the weight of their lashes. The very wind that brought the rain had the odour of musk and flowers.

At a distance, dusky girls beckoned him to come to them. Some happy strain they sang, like the "Whist! here, you darling boy!" so often heard at Brest. But seductive as was their country, their call was imperious and exasperating, making his very flesh shudder. Their perfect bosoms rose and fell under transparent muslin, in which they were solely draped; they were glowing and polished as in bronze statues. Hesitating, fascinated by them, he wavered about, following them; but the boatswain's sharp shrill whistle rent the air with bird-like trills, summoning him hurriedly back to his boat, about to push off.

He took his flight, and bade farewell to India's beauties.

After a second week of the blue sea, they paused off another land of dewy verdure. A crowd of yellow men appeared, yelling out and pressing on deck, bringing coal in baskets.

"Already in China?" asked Sylvestre, at the sight of those grotesque figures in pigtails.

"Bless you, no, not yet," they told him; "have a little more patience."

It was only Singapore. He went up into his mast-top again, to avoid the black dust tossed about by the breeze, while the coal was feverishly heaped up in the bunkers from little baskets.

One day, at length, they arrived off a land called Tourane, where the Circe was anchored, to blockade the port. This was the ship to which Sylvestre had been long ago assigned, and he was left there with his bag.

On board he met with two mates from home, Icelanders, who were captains of guns for the time being. Through the long, hot, still evenings, when there was no work to be done, they clustered on deck apart from the others, to form together a little Brittany of remembrances.

Five months he passed there in inaction and exile, locked up in the cheerless bay, with the feverish desire to go out and fight and slay, for change's sake.



CHAPTER XI—A CURIOUS RENCONTRE

In Paimpol again, on the last day of February, before the setting-out for Iceland. Gaud was standing up against her room door, pale and still. For Yann was below, chatting to her father. She had seen him come in, and indistinctly heard his voice.

All through the winter they never had met, as if some invincible fate always had kept them apart.

After the failure to find him in her walk to Pors-Even, she had placed some hope on the Pardon des Islandais where there would be many chances for them to see and talk to one another, in the market-place at dusk, among the crowd.

But on the very morning of the holiday, though the streets were already draped in white and strewn with green garlands, a hard rain had fallen in torrents, brought from the west by a soughing wind; never had so black a sky shadowed Paimpol. "What a pity! the boys won't come over from Ploubazlanec now," had moaned the lasses, whose sweethearts dwelt there. And they did not come, or else had gone straight into the taverns to drink together.

There had been no processions or strolls, and she, with her heart aching more than ever, had remained at her window the whole evening listening to the water streaming over the roofs, and the fishers' noisy songs rising and falling out of the depths of the taverns.

For the last few days she had been expecting this visit, surmising truly that old Gaos would send his son to terminate the business concerning the sale of the boat, as he did not care to come into Paimpol himself. She determined then that she would go straight to him, and, unlike other girls, speak out frankly, to have her conscience clear on the subject. She would reproach him with having sought her out and having abandoned her like a man without honour. If it were only stubbornness, timidity, his great love for his sailor-life, or simply the fear of a refusal, as Sylvestre had hinted, why, all these objections would disappear, after a frank, fair understanding between them. His fond smile might return, which had charmed and won her the winter before, and all would be settled. This hope gave her strength and courage, and sweetened her impatience. From afar, things always appear so easy and simple to say and to do.

This visit of Yann's fell by chance at a convenient hour. She was sure that her father, who was sitting and smoking, would not get up to walk part of the way with him; so in the empty passage she might have her explanation out with him.

But now that the time had come, such boldness seemed extreme. The bare idea of looking him face to face at the foot of those stairs, made her tremble; and her heart beat as if it would break. At any moment the door below might open, with the squeak she knew so well, to let him out!

"No, no, she never would dare; rather would she die of longing and sorrow, than attempt such an act." She already made a few return steps towards the back of her room, to regain her seat and work. But she stopped again, hesitating and afraid, remembering that to-morrow was the sailing day for Iceland, and that this occasion stood alone. If she let it slip by, she would have to wait through months upon months of solitude and despair, languishing for his return—losing another whole summer of her life.

Below, the door opened—Yann was coming out!

Suddenly resolute, she rushed downstairs, and tremblingly stood before him.

"Monsieur Yann, I—I wish to speak to you, please."

"To me, Mademoiselle Gaud?" queried he, lowering his voice and snatching off his hat.

He looked at her fiercely, with a hard expression in his flashing eyes, and his head thrown back, seeming even to wonder if he ought to stop for her at all. With one foot ready to start away, he stood straight up against the wall, as if to be as far apart from her as possible, in the narrow passage, where he felt imprisoned.

Paralyzed, she could remember nothing of what she had wished to say; she had not thought he would try and pass on without listening to her. What an affront!

"Does our house frighten you, Monsieur Yann?" she asked, in a dry, odd tone—not at all the one she wished to use.

He turned his eyes away, looking outside; his cheeks blazed red, a rush of blood burned all his face, and his quivering nostrils dilated with every breath, keeping time with the heavings of his chest, like a young bull's.

"The night of the ball," she tried to continue, "when we were together, you bade me good-bye, not as a man speaks to an indifferent person. Monsieur Yann, have you no memory? What have I done to vex you?"

The nasty western breeze blowing in from the street ruffled his hair and the frills of Gaud's coiffe, and behind them a door was banged furiously. The passage was not meet for talking of serious matters in. After these first phrases, choking, Gaud remained speechless, feeling her head spin, and without ideas. They still advanced towards the street door; he seemed so anxious to get away, and she was so determined not to be shaken off.

Outside the wind blew noisily and the sky was black. A sad livid light fell upon their faces through the open door. And an opposite neighbour looked at them: what could the pair be saying to one another in that passage together, looking so troubled? What was wrong over at the Mevel's?

"Nay, Mademoiselle Gaud," he answered at last, turning away with the powerful grace of a young lion, "I've heard folks talk about us quite enough already! Nay, Mademoiselle Gaud, for, you see, you are rich, and we are not people of the same class. I am not the fellow to come after a 'swell' lady."

He went forth on his way. So now all was over for ever and ever. She had not even said what she wished in that interview, which had only made her seem a very bold girl in his sight. What kind of a fellow was this Yann, with his contempt for women, his scorn for money, and all desirable things?

At first she remained fixed to the spot, sick with giddiness, as things swam around her. One intolerably painful thought suddenly struck her like a flash of lightning—Yann's comrades, the Icelanders, were waiting for him below in the market-place. What if he were to tell them this as a good joke—what a still more odious affront upon her! She quickly returned to her room to watch them through her window-curtains.

Before the house, indeed, she saw the men assembled, but they were simply contemplating the weather, which was becoming worse and worse, and discussed the threatening rain.

"It'll only be a shower. Let's go in and drink away the time, till it passes."

They poked jokes and laughed loudly over Jeannie Caroff and other beauties; but not even one of them looked up at her window. They were all joyful, except Yann, who said nothing, and remained grave and sad. He did not go in to drink with them; and without noticing either them or the rain, which had begun to fall, he slowly walked away under the shower, as if absorbed in his thoughts, crossing the market-place towards Ploubazlanec.

Then she forgave him all, and a feeling of hopeless tenderness for him came, instead of the bitter disappointment that previously had filled her heart. She sat down and held her head between her hands. What could she do now?

Oh! if he had listened only a moment to her, or if he could come into that room, where they might speak together alone, perhaps all might yet be arranged. She loved him enough to tell him so to his face. She would say to him: "You sought me out when I asked you for nothing; now I am yours with my whole soul, if you will have me. I don't mind a bit being the wife of a fisherman, and yet, if I liked, I need but choose among all the young men of Paimpol; but I do love you, because, notwithstanding all, I believe you to be better than others. I'm tolerably well-to-do, and I know I am pretty; although I have lived in towns, I am sure that I am not a spoiled girl, as I never have done anything wrong; then, if I love you so, why shouldn't you take me?"

But all this never would be said except in dreams; it was too late! Yann would not hear her. Try and talk to him a second time? Oh, no! what kind of a creature would he take her then to be? She would rather die.

Yet to-morrow they would all start for Iceland. The whitish February daylight streamed into her fine room. Chill and lonely she fell upon one of the chairs along the wall. It seemed to her as if the whole world were crashing and falling in around her. All things past and present were as if buried in a fearful abyss, which yawned on all sides of her. She wished her life would end, and that she were lying calm beneath some cold tombstone, where no more pain might touch her.

But she had sincerely forgiven him, and no hatred mingled with her desperate love.



CHAPTER XII—STRIKING THE ROCK UNKNOWN

The sea, the gray sea once more, where Yann was gently gliding along its broad, trackless road, that leads the fishermen every year to the Land of Ice.

The day before, when they all had set off to the music of the old hymns, there blew a brisk breeze from the south, and all the ships with their outspread sails had dispersed like so many gulls; but that breeze had suddenly subsided, and speed had diminished; great fog-banks covered the watery surface.

Yann was perhaps quieter than usual. He said that the weather was too calm, and appeared to excite himself, as if he would drive away some care that weighed upon him. But he had nothing to do but be carried serenely in the midst of serene things; only to breathe and let himself live. On looking out, only the deep gray masses around could be seen; on listening, only silence.

Suddenly there was an almost imperceptible rumbling, which came from below, accompanied by a grinding sensation, as when a brake comes hard down on carriage wheels. The Marie ceased all movement. They had struck. Where, and on what? Some bank off the English coast probably. For since overnight they had been able to see nothing, with those curtains of mist.

The men ran and rushed about, their bustle contrasting strongly with the sudden rigidity of their ship. How had the Marie come to a stop in that spot? In the midst of that immensity of fluid in this dull weather, seeming to be almost without consistence, she had been seized by some resistless immovable power hidden beneath the waves; she was tight in its grasp, and might perish there.

Who has not seen poor birds caught by their feet in the lime? At first they can scarcely believe they are caught; it changes nothing in their aspect; but they soon are sure that they are held fast, and in danger of never getting free again. And when they struggle to get free, and the sticky stuff soils their wings and heads, they gradually assume that pitiful look of a dumb creature in distress, about to die. Such was the case with the Marie. At first it did not seem much to be concerned about; she certainly was careened a little on one side, but it was broad morning, and the weather was fair and calm; one had to know such things by experience to become uneasy, and understand that it was a serious matter.

The captain was to be pitied. It was his fault, as he had not understood exactly where they were. He wrung his hands, saying: "God help us! God help us!" in a voice of despair.

Close to them, during a lifting of the fog, they could distinguish a headland, but not recognize it. But the mists covered it anew, and they saw it no longer.

There was no sail or smoke in sight. They all jostled about, hurrying and knocking the deck lumber over. Their dog Turc, who did not usually mind the movement of the sea, was greatly affected too by this incident, these sounds from down below, these heavy wallowings when the low swell passed under, and the sudden calm that afterwards followed; he understood that all this was unusual, and hid himself away in corners, with his tail between his legs. They got out the boats to carry the kedges and set them firm, and tried to row her out of it by uniting all their forces together upon the tow-lines—a heavy piece of work this, which lasted ten successive hours. So, when evening came, the poor bark, which had only that morning been so fresh and light, looked almost swamped, fouled, and good for nothing. She had fought hard, floundered about on all sides, but still remained there, fixed as in a dock.

Night was overtaking them; the wind and the waves were rising; things were growing worse, when, all of a sudden, towards six o'clock, they were let go clear, and could be off again, tearing asunder the tow-lines, which they had left to keep her head steady. The men wept, rushing about like madmen, cheering from stem to stern—"We're afloat, boys!"

They were afloat, with a joy that cannot be described; what it was to feel themselves going forwards on a buoyant craft again, instead of on the semi-wreck it was before, none but a seaman feels, and few of them can tell.

Yann's sadness had disappeared too. Like his ship, he became lively once more, cured by the healthy manual labour; he had found his reckless look again, and had thrown off his glum thoughts.

Next morning, when the kedges were fished up, the Marie went on her way to Iceland, and Yann's heart, to all appearance, was as free as in his early years.



CHAPTER XIII—HOME NEWS

The home letters were being distributed on board the Circe, at anchor at Ha-Long, over on the other side of the earth. In the midst of a group of sailors, the purser called out, in a loud voice, the names of the fortunate men who had letters to receive. This went on at evening, on the ship's side, all crushing round a funnel.

"Moan, Sylvestre!" There was one for him, postmarked "Paimpol," but it was not Gaud's writing. What did that mean? from whom did it come else?

After having turned and flourished it about, he opened it fearingly, and read:

"PLOUBAZLANEC, March 5th, 1884.

"MY DEAR GRANDSON:"

So, it was from his dear old granny. He breathed free again. At the bottom of the letter she even had placed her signature, learned by heart, but trembling like a school-girl's scribble: "Widow Moan."

"Widow Moan!" With a quick spontaneous movement he carried the paper to his lips and kissed the poor name, as a sacred relic. For this letter arrived at a critical moment of his life; to-morrow at dawn, he was to set out for the battlefield.

It was in the middle of April; Bac-Ninh and Hong-Hoa had just been taken. There was no great warfare going on in Tonquin, yet the reinforcements arriving were not sufficient; sailors were taken from all the ships to make up the deficit in the corps already disembarked. Sylvestre, who had languished so long in the midst of cruises and blockades, had just been selected with some others to fill up the vacancies.

It is true that now peace was spoken of, but something told them that they yet would disembarck in good time to fight a bit. They packed their bags, made all their other preparations, and said good-bye, and all the evening through they strolled about with their unfortunate mates who had to remain, feeling much grander and prouder than they. Each in his own way showed his impression at this departure—some were grave and serious, others exuberant and talkative.

Sylvestre was very quiet and thoughtful, though impatient; only, when they looked at him, his smile seemed to say, "Yes, I'm one of the fighting party, and huzza! the action is for to-morrow morning!"

Of gunshots and battle he formed but an incomplete idea as yet; but they fascinated him, for he came of a valiant race.

The strange writing of his letter made him anxious about Gaud, and he drew near a porthole to read the epistle through. It was difficult amid all those half-naked men pressing round, in the unbearable heat of the gundeck.

As he thought she would do, in the beginning of her letter Granny Moan explained why she had had to take recourse to the inexperienced hand of an old neighbour:

"My dear child, I don't ask your cousin to write for me to-day, as she is in great trouble. Her father died suddenly two days ago. It appears that his whole fortune has been lost through unlucky gambling last winter in Paris. So his house and furniture will have to be sold. Nobody in the place was expecting this. I think, dear child, that this will pain you as much as it does me.

"Gaos, the son, sends you his kind remembrance; he has renewed his articles with Captain Guermeur of the Marie, and the departure for Iceland was rather early this year, for they set sail on the first of the month, two days before our poor Gaud's trouble, and he don't know of it yet.

"But you can easily imagine that we shall not get them wed now, for she will be obliged to work for her daily bread."

Sylvestre dwelt stupor-stricken; this bad news quite spoiled his glee at going out to fight.



PART III — IN THE SHADOW



CHAPTER I—THE SKIRMISH

Hark! a bullet hurtles through the air!

Sylvestre stops short to listen!

He is upon an infinite meadow, green with the soft velvet carpet of spring. The sky is gray, lowering, as if to weigh upon one's very shoulders.

They are six sailors reconnoitring among the fresh rice-fields, in a muddy pathway.

Hist! again the whizz, breaking the silence of the air—a shrill, continuous sound, a kind of prolonged zing, giving one a strong impression that the pellets buzzing by might have stung fatally.

For the first time in his life Sylvestre hears that music. The bullets coming towards a man have a different sound from those fired by himself: the far-off report is attenuated, or not heard at all, so it is easier to distinguish the sharp rush of metal as it swiftly passes by, almost grazing one's ears.

Crack! whizz! ping! again and yet again! The balls fall in regular showers now. Close by the sailors they stop short, and are buried in the flooded soil of the rice-fields, accompanied by a faint splash, like hail falling sharp and swift in a puddle of water.

The marines looked at one another as if it was all a piece of odd fun, and said:

"Only John Chinaman! pish!"

To the sailors, Annamites, Tonquinese, or "Black Flags" are all of the same Chinese family. It is difficult to show their contempt and mocking rancour, as well as eagerness for "bowling over the beggars," when they speak of "the Chinese."

Two or three bullets are still flying about, more closely grazing; they can be seen bouncing like grasshoppers in the green. The slight shower of lead did not last long.

Perfect silence returns to the broad verdant plain, and nowhere can anything be seen moving. The same six are still there, standing on the watch, scenting the breeze, and trying to discover whence the volley came. Surely from over yonder, by that clump of bamboos, which looks like an island of feathers in the plain; behind it several pointed roofs appear half hidden. So they all made for it, their feet slipping or sinking into the soaked soil. Sylvestre runs foremost, on his longer, more nimble legs.

No more buzz of bullets; they might have thought they were dreaming.

As in all the countries of the world, some features are the same; the cloudy gray skies and the fresh tints of fields in spring-time, for example; one could imagine this upon French meadows, and these young fellows, running merrily over them, playing a very different sport from this game of death.

But as they approach, the bamboos show the exotic delicacy of their foliage, and the village roofs grow sharper in the singularity of their curves, and yellow men hidden behind advance to reconnoitre; their flat faces are contracted by fear and spitefulness. Then suddenly they rush out screaming, and deploy into a long line, trembling, but decided and dangerous.

"The Chinese!" shout the sailors again, with their same brave smile.

But this time they find that there are a good many—too many; and one of them turning round perceives other Chinese coming from behind, springing up from the long tall grass.

At this moment, young Sylvestre came out grand; his old granny would have been proud to see him such a warrior. Since the last few days he had altered. His face was bronzed, and his voice strengthened. He was in his own element here.

In a moment of supreme indecision the sailors hit by the bullets almost yielded to an impulse of retreat, which would certainly have been death to them all; but Sylvestre continued to advance, clubbing his rifle, and fighting a whole band, knocking them down right and left with smashing blows from the butt-end. Thanks to him the situation was reversed; that panic or madness that blindly deceives all in these leaderless skirmishes had now passed over to the Chinese side, and it was they who began to retreat.

It was soon all over; they were fairly taking to their heels. The six sailors, reloading their repeating rifles, shot them down easily; upon the grass lay dead bodies by red pools, and skulls were emptying their brains into the river.

They fled, cowering like leopards. Sylvestre ran after them, although he had two wounds—a lance-thrust in the thigh and a deep gash in his arm; but feeling nothing save the intoxication of battle, that unreasoning fever that comes of vigorous blood, gives lofty courage to simple souls, and made the heroes of antiquity.

One whom he was pursuing turned round, and with a spasm of desperate terror took a deliberate aim at him. Sylvestre stopped short, smiling scornfully, sublime, to let him fire, and seeing the direction of the aim, only shifted a little to the left. But with the pressure upon the trigger the barrel of the Chinese jingal deviated slightly in the same direction. He suddenly felt a smart rap upon his breast, and in a flash of thought understood what it was, even before feeling any pain; he turned towards the others following, and tried to cry out to them the traditional phrase of the old soldier, "I think it's all up with me!" In the great breath that he inhaled after having run, to refill his lungs with air, he felt the air rush in also by a hole in his right breast, with a horrible gurgling, like the blast in a broken bellows. In that same time his mouth filled with blood, and a sharp pain shot through his side, which rapidly grew worse, until it became atrocious and unspeakable. He whirled round two or three times, his brain swimming too; and gasping for breath through the rising red tide that choked him, fell heavily in the mud.



CHAPTER II—"OUT, BRIEF CANDLE!"

About a fortnight later, as the sky was darkening at the approach of the rains, and the heat more heavily weighed over yellow Tonquin, Sylvestre brought to Hanoi, was sent to Ha-Long, and placed on board a hospital-ship about to return to France.

He had been carried about for some time on different stretchers, with intervals of rest at the ambulances. They had done all they could for him; but under the insufficient conditions, his chest had filled with water on the pierced side, and the gurgling air entered through the wound, which would not close up.

He had received the military medal, which gave him a moment's joy. But he was no longer the warrior of old—resolute of gait, and steady in his resounding voice. All that had vanished before the long-suffering and weakening fever. He had become a home-sick boy again; he hardly spoke except in answering occasional questions, in a feeble and almost inaudible voice. To feel oneself so sick and so far away; to think that it wanted so many days before he could reach home! Would he ever live until then, with his strength ebbing away? Such a terrifying feeling of distance continually haunted him and weighed at every wakening; and when, after a few hours' stupor, he awoke from the sickening pain of his wounds, with feverish heat and the whistling sound in his pierced bosom, he implored them to put him on board, in spite of everything. He was very heavy to carry into his ward, and without intending it, they gave him some cruel jolts on the way.

They laid him on one of the iron camp bedsteads placed in rows, hospital fashion, and then he set out in an inverse direction, on his long journey through the seas. Instead of living like a bird in the full wind of the tops, he remained below deck, in the midst of the bad air of medicines, wounds, and misery.

During the first days the joy of being homeward bound made him feel a little better. He could even bear being propped up in bed with pillows, and at times he asked for his box. His seaman's chest was a deal box, bought in Paimpol, to keep all his loved treasures in; inside were letters from Granny Yvonne, and also from Yann and Gaud, a copy-book into which he had copied some sea-songs, and one of the works of Confucius in Chinese, caught up at random during pillage; on the blank sides of its leaves he had written the simple account of his campaign.

Nevertheless he got no better, and after the first week, the doctors decided that death was imminent. They were near the Line now, in the stifling heat of storms. The troop-ship kept on her course, shaking her beds, the wounded and the dying; quicker and quicker she sped over the tossing sea, troubled still as during the sway of the monsoons.

Since leaving Ha-Long more than one patient died, and was consigned to the deep water on the high road to France; many of the narrow beds no longer bore their suffering burdens.

Upon this particular day it was very gloomy in the travelling hospital; on account of the high seas it had been necessary to close the iron port-lids, which made the stifling sick-room more unbearable. Sylvestre was worse; the end was nigh. Lying always upon his wounded side, he pressed upon it with both hands with all his remaining strength, to try and allay the watery decomposition that rose in his right lung, and to breathe with the other lung only. But by degrees the other was affected and the ultimate agony had begun.

Dreams and visions of home haunted his brain; in the hot darkness, beloved or horrible faces bent over him; he was in a never-ending hallucination, through which floated apparitions of Brittany and Iceland. In the morning was called in the priest, and the old man, who was used to seeing sailors die, was astonished to find so pure a soul in so strong and manly a body.

He cried out for air, air! but there was none anywhere; the ventilators no long gave any; the attendant, who was fanning him with a Chinese fan, only moved unhealthy vapours over him of sickening staleness, which revolted all lungs. Sometimes fierce, desperate fits came over him; he wished to tear himself away from that bed, where he felt death would come to seize him, and rush above into the full fresh wind and try to live again. Oh! to be like those others, scrambling about among the rigging, and living among the masts. But his extreme effort only ended in the feeble lifting of his weakened head; something like the incompleted movement of a sleeper. He could not manage it, but fell back in the hollow of his crumpled bed, partly chained there by death; and each time, after the fatigue of a like shock, he lost all consciousness.

To please him they opened a port at last, although it was dangerous, the sea being very rough. It was going on for six in the evening. When the disk was swung back, a red light entered, glorious and radiant. The dying sun appeared upon the horizon in dazzling splendour, through a torn rift in a gloomy sky; its blinding light glanced over the waves, and lit up the floating hospital, like a waving torch.

But no air rushed in; the little there was outside, was powerless to enter and drive before it the fevered atmosphere. Over all sides of that boundless equatorial sea, floated a warm and heavy moisture, unfit for respiration. No air on any side, not even for the poor gasping fellows on their deathbeds.

One vision disturbed him greatly; it was of his old grandmother, walking quickly along a road, with a heartrending look of alarm; from low-lying funereal clouds above her, fell the drizzling rain; she was on her way to Paimpol, summoned thither to be informed of his death.

He was struggling now, with the death-rattle in his throat. From the corners of his mouth they sponged away the water and blood, which had welled up in quantities from his chest in writhing agony. Still the grand, glorious sun lit up all, like a conflagration of the whole world, with blood-laden clouds; through the aperture of the port-hole, a wide streak of crimson fire blazed in, and, spreading over Sylvestre's bed, formed a halo around him.



At that very moment that same sun was to be seen in Brittany, where midday was about to strike. It was, indeed, the same sun, beheld at the precise moment of its never-ending round; but here it kept quite another hue. Higher up in the bluish sky, it kept shedding a soft white light on grandmother Yvonne, sitting out at her door, sewing.

In Iceland, too, where it was morning, it was shining at that same moment of death. Much paler there, it seemed as if it only showed its face by some miracle. Sadly it shed its rays over the fjord where La Marie floated; and now its sky was lit up by a pure northern light, which always gives the idea of a frozen planet's reflection, without an atmosphere. With a cold accuracy, it outlined all the essentials of that stony chaos that is Iceland; the whole of the country as seen from La Marie seemed fixed in one same perspective and held upright. Yann was there, lit up by a strange light, fishing, as usual, in the midst of this lunar-like scenery.



As the beam of fiery flame that came through the port-hole faded, and the sun disappeared completely under the gilded billows, the eyes of the grandson rolled inward toward his brow as if to fall back into his head.

They closed his eyelids with their own long lashes, and Sylvestre became calm and beautiful again, like a reclining marble statue of manly repose.



CHAPTER III—THE GRAVE ABROAD

I cannot refrain from telling you about Sylvestre's funeral, which I conducted myself in Singapore. We had thrown enough other dead into the Sea of China, during the early days of the home voyage; and as the Malay land was quite near, we decided to keep his remains a few hours longer; to bury him fittingly.

It was very early in the morning, on account of the terrible sun. In the boat that carried him ashore, his corpse was shrouded in the national flag. The city was in sleep as we landed. A wagonette, sent by the French Consul, was waiting on the quay; we laid Sylvestre upon it, with a wooden cross made on board—the paint still wet upon it, for the carpenter had to hurry over it, and the white letters of his name ran into the black ground.

We crossed that Babel in the rising sun. And then it was such an emotion to find the serene calm of an European place of worship in the midst of the distasteful turmoil of the Chinese country. Under the high white arch, where I stood alone with my sailors, the "Dies Iroe," chanted by a missionary priest, sounded like a soft magical incantation. Through the open doors we could see sights that resembled enchanted gardens, exquisite verdure and immense palm-trees, the wind shook the large flowering shrubs and their perfumed crimson petals fell like rain, almost to the church itself. Thence we marched to the ceremony, very far off. Our little procession of sailors was very unpretentious, but the coffin remained conspicuously wrapped in the flag of France. We had to traverse the Chinese quarter, through seething crowds of yellow men; and then the Malay and Indian suburbs, where all types of Asiatic faces looked upon us with astonishment.

Then came the open country already heated; through shady groves where exquisite butterflies, on velvety blue wings, flitted in masses. On either side, waved tall luxuriant palms, and quantities of flowers in splendid profusion. At last we came to the cemetery, with mandarins' tombs and many-coloured inscriptions, adorned with paintings of dragons and other monsters; amid astounding foliage and plants growing everywhere. The spot where we laid him down to rest resembled a nook in the gardens of Indra. Into the earth we drove the little wooden cross, lettered:

SYLVESTRE MOAN, AGED 19.

And we left him, forced to go because of the hot rising sun; we turned back once more to look at him under those marvellous trees and huge nodding flowers.



CHAPTER IV—TO THE SURVIVORS, THE SPOILS

The trooper continued its course through the Indian Ocean. Down below in the floating hospital other death-scenes went on. On deck there was carelessness of health and youth. Round about, over the sea, was a very feast of pure sun and air.

In this fine trade-wind weather, the sailors, stretched in the shade of the sails, were playing with little pet parrots and making them run races. In this Singapore, which they had just left, the sailors buy all kinds of tame animals. They had all chosen baby parrots, with childish looks upon their hooknose faces; they had no tails yet; they were green, of a wonderful shade. As they went running over the clean white planks, they looked like fresh young leaves, fallen from tropical trees.