A Tale of Brittany (Mon frère Yves)

No, Yves has not deserted, for the ship he is on is the warship Primauguet.

He has not deserted, for he is still with me, and when he announced from aloft the approach of the reefs it was I who climbed up to him in his top, to reconnoitre with him.

At Brest on that unhappy day when he had decided to leave us, I had seen him pass in common seaman's garb, carrying his sailor's kit so neatly folded in a handkerchief, and I had followed him at a distance as far as Recouvrance. I had let Marie enter and then I had entered too, after them; and as he came out he had found me waiting outside his door, barring his passage with my outspread arms—as, once before, at Toulven. Only this time it was not merely a matter of checking a childish caprice; I was about to engage in a supreme struggle with him.

And long and cruel the struggle was, and there was a moment when I almost lost heart and abandoned him to the gloomy destiny which was carrying him away. And then, abruptly, it had ended. Tears came to save him, tears that had been wanting to come for the last two days—but could not, so little used were his eyes to this form of weakness. Then we put little Pierre, who had just awakened, on his knee; his little Pierre bore him no ill-will at all, but put his arms straightway round his neck. And Yves, at last, had said to me:

"Very well, brother, I will do anything you tell me to do. But, no matter what, you must see now that I am done for. . . ."

His case was indeed very serious and I did not know myself what course to take: it was a sort of rebellion, to have escaped from the ship after having been sentenced to irons, and then to have absented himself for three days! I had been tempted to say to them, after I had made them embrace: "Desert both of you, all three of you, my dear friends; for it is too late now to do anything better. Let Yves go away on the Belle-Rose and do you go and join him in America."

But no, that was too desperate a remedy, to abandon for ever their Breton land, and the little house at Toulven, and their old parents!

So, trembling a little at my responsibility, I had taken the contrary decision: to return that very evening the advance already received, to free Yves from the hands of this Captain Kerjean, and, when morning came, as soon as the port should open, to hand him over to the naval authorities. Anxious days had followed, days of applications and of waiting, and at last, with much leniency and kindness, the matter had been settled in this way: a month in irons and six months' suspension from the rating of petty officer, with return to the pay of a simple sailor.

That is how my poor Yves, embarked once more with me on this Primauguet, finds himself back in the crow's nest, again a topman as before, and performing the rough work he knew of old.

Standing, both of us, on the yard of the foresail, our bodies swung out into the void, with one hand shading our eyes, with the other holding on to the cordage, we watched together, in the distance of the resplendent blue solitudes, the white line of breakers growing ever more distinct; the continuous noise they made was like the distant sound of a church organ in the midst of the silence of the sea.

It was in fact a large coral island which no navigator had hitherto discovered; it had risen slowly from the depths below; century after century it had put forth patiently its branches of stone; even now it was only an immense crown of white foam, making, amid the infinite calm of the sea, the noise of a living thing, a kind of mysterious and eternal murmuring.

Everywhere else the blue expanse was uniform, safe, deep, infinite; we could proceed on our way without misgiving.

"You have won the double, brother," I said to Yves.

I meant: the double ration of wine at dinner. On board, this double is the usual recompense for a sailor who has been the first to sight land or to announce a danger—or for him who catches a rat without the help of a trap—or even for him who has turned himself out more smartly than the others for the Sunday inspection.

Yves smiled, but with the air of one who suddenly has a sombre thought.

"You know very well that now wine and I . . . But that's no matter, I can give it to the topmen at my table. They will drink it willingly enough."

It was the fact that since the day when he had pushed little Pierre against the fire-irons in the grate, far away, in Brest, he had drunk only water. He had sworn this on the poor little wounded head, and it was the first solemn oath of his life.

We were talking together, in the pure virgin air, among the loosely hanging sails, which looked very white in the sun, when the sound of a whistle came from below, a quite distinctive whistle which meant in nautical language: "The leader of the foresail top is wanted below. Let him come down quickly!"

It was Yves who was leader of the foresail top; he descended in great haste to see what was wanted of him. The second-in-command had asked to see him in his room; and I knew very well why.

In the remote and tranquil seas in which we were cruising the sailors became rather hazy about the seasons, the months and the days; they lost the sense of the passage of time in the monotony of the days.

And in fact summer and winter had lost their qualities; they were no longer recognizable, for the climate was different. Nor did the things of nature serve now to mark them out. There was always this infinity of water, always this wooden house in which we dwelt, and, in the spring, there came no touch of green.

Yves had resumed without difficulty his former occupation, his habits of topman, his life in the crow's nest, well-nigh naked, exposed to wind and sun, with his knife and his "mooring." He had ceased to count the days because they were all alike, merged one into another by the regularity of the watches, by the alternation of a sun that was always hot with nights that were always clear. He had accepted this time of exile without measuring it.

But to-day was the day when his six months of punishment expired; and the captain had to tell him to take back his stripes, his silver whistle and his authority as petty officer. He did so with much cordiality and shook him by the hand; for Yves, while his punishment had lasted, had shown himself exemplary in conduct and courage and no top had ever been kept like his.

Yves came back to me with a broad smile of happiness:

"Why didn't you tell me it was to-day?"

He had been promised that, if he went on as he was going, his punishment would soon be quite forgotten. Clearly, the oath he had taken on the wounded head of his little Pierre, at the end of that dreadful evening, was succeeding beyond his hope.

CHAPTER LXXXIII

The afternoon of the same day. Yves is in my room, busy putting his stripes on his sleeves, in haste to finish before darkness falls, looking comical as always, with his big air of sea-rover, when he is engaged in sewing.

They are not very elegant, his poor clothes; they show signs of hard wear. For he was not rich when he left Brest with his reduced pay; and, so as not to break into his allowance, he had refrained from drawing too many things from the store. But they are so clean, the little woollen stripes are so neatly placed one above the other, on each forearm and on the bottom of each sleeve, that he will pass muster very well. These new stripes give them even a certain lustre of youth. Besides, Yves looks well in anything; and then, too, one wears very little clothing on board, and as he will put them on but rarely, they will certainly serve him until the end of the voyage. As for money, Yves has none; he has forgotten even the use and value of it, as often happens to sailors—for he allots to his wife, at Brest, his pay and his stripe-money, all that he earns.

By the time it is dark, his work is finished. He carefully folds his coat and then sweeps away the little ends of thread which he has let fall on the floor. Then he informs himself very exactly of the month and the date, lights a candle, and begins to write.

"AT SEA, ON BOARD THE Primauguet,

"23rd April, 1882.

"MY DEAR WIFE,—I am writing these few words in advance to-day in M. Pierre's room. I will post them next month when we touch at the Hawaii Islands (a country . . . but I don't suppose you will know where it is).

"I want to tell you that I have recovered my stripes to-day and that you may set your mind at rest, I shall not lose them again; I have sewn them on very tight this time.

"Dear wife, this reminds me that it is only six months since we parted, and that it will be a long time yet before we see each other again. But I assure you that I should dearly love to be back for a time at Toulven, to give you a hand in getting our house ready; and yet, it is not simply for that, you know, but above all, to spend some time with you, and to see our little Pierre running about. They will have to give me a long leave when we return, at least fifteen or twenty days; indeed I do not think twenty will be enough and I shall ask for as many as thirty.

"Dear Marie, I can tell you, however, that I am very happy on board, especially because I have been able to embark with M. Pierre. It is what I had hoped for for a very long time. It has been a very fine voyage and a very economical one for me who have need to save a lot of money as you know. Perhaps I may get another promotion before we disembark, seeing that I am on very good terms with all the officers.

"I have also to tell you that the flying fish . . ."

Crack! On deck someone whistles: "Aloft everyone!" Yves hurries away; and no one has ever heard the end of the story of the flying fish.

He has preserved with his wife his childlike manner of being and writing. With me, he is changed, he has become a new Yves, more complex, more sophisticated than the Yves of old.

CHAPTER LXXXIV

The night which follows is clear and exquisite. We are moving very slowly, in the Coral sea, before a light, warm breeze, advancing with precaution, in fear of encountering white islands, listening to the silence, in fear of hearing the murmur of reefs.

From midnight to four o'clock in the morning, the time of the watch has passed in vigil, amid the great, strange peace of the southern waters.

Everything is of a blue-green, of a blue of night, of a colour of infinite depth; the moon, which at first sails high in the heaven, throws little flickering reflections on the sea, as if everywhere, on the immense empty plain, mysterious hands were agitating silently thousands of little mirrors.

The half-hours pass one after another, undisturbed, the breeze steady, the sails very lightly stretched. The sailors of the watch, in their linen clothes, are asleep on the bare deck, in rows, all on the same side, fitted in one with another, like rows of white mummies.

At each half-hour a bell rings, startlingly; and two voices come from the bow of the ship, singing out one after the other, in a kind of slow rhythm: "Keep a look out on the port bow!" says one. "Keep a look out on the starboard bow!" replies the other. The noise is surprising, producing the impression of a formidable clamour in all this silence; and then the vibrations of the voices and of the bell die away and there is no longer a sound.

Meanwhile the moon is slowly sinking and its blue light grows wan; it is much nearer the water now and its reflection in it makes a long trail of light.

It becomes yellower, scarcely giving any light, like a dying lamp.

Slowly, it begins to get larger, disproportionately larger; then it becomes red, loses its shape, and is swallowed up, strange, terrifying. And then what one sees has no longer a name: on the horizon is a great dull fire, blood-red. It is too large to be the moon, and, besides, distant things now mass in front of it in large dark shadows; colossal towers, toppling mountains, palaces, Babels!

One feels as it were a veil of darkness weighing upon the senses. There comes to you an impression of apocalyptic cities, of clouds heavy with blood, of suspended maledictions; a conception of gigantic horrors, of chaotic destructions, of the end of the world. . . .

For a moment the mind has slept, involuntarily; and a waking dream has come and gone, very quickly.

Mirage! And now it is over and the moon has set. There was nothing beyond save the infinite sea and floating mists announcing the approach of dawn; now that the moon is no longer behind them, they are not even discernible. All has vanished and the darkness has returned, the real darkness of night, clear and calm as ever.

They are far away from us, those countries of the Apocalypse: for we are in the Coral Sea, on the other side of the world, and there is nothing here but the immense circle, the limitless mirror of the waters. . . .

A signalman has gone to see the time by the chronometer. Out of deference to the moon, he is going to note in the large register, always open, which is the ship's log, the precise moment at which it set.

Then he comes to me and says:

"Captain, it is time to call the watch." My four hours of the night watch are already finished, then, and the officer to relieve me will shortly make his appearance.

I give the order:

"Master-gunners and loaders, call the watch!"[5]

Then, some of those who were sleeping on the deck, like white mummies, get up and awaken some of the others; they move off in a group and go below. And then, from the spar-deck, comes the sound of twenty voices, singing one after the other—in the manner of glee-singing—a very ancient air, at once joyous and mocking.

They sing:

"Have you heard, you larboard men, get up for the watch, get up, get up, get up! . . . Have you heard, you larboard men, get up for the watch, get up, get up, get up! . . ."

They move hither and thither, stooping under the suspended hammocks, and, as they pass, shake the sleepers with thrusts of their powerful shoulders.

And presently, inexorable, I give the order:

"Fall in on deck, the larboard watch!"

And they come up half-naked; there are some who yawn, others who stretch themselves, who stumble. They line up in groups, while a man, with a lantern, peers into their faces and counts them. The others who were sleeping on deck go below and sleep in their place.

Yves has come up with the men of the larboard watch who have just been awakened. I recognize at once his way of whistling which I had not heard now for a year. And presently I recognize his voice which rings out in command for the first time on the deck of the Primauguet.

Then I call him very officially by the title which has just been restored to him: "Master of the Watch."

It was only to shake him by the hand, to wish him good luck and good night before I went to bed.

CHAPTER LXXXV

"Haul away there, Goulven!"

It was a difficult boarding. I had come, in a cutter from the Primauguet, to examine a suspicious-looking whaling ship, which showed no flag.

In the southern ocean, still; near the Isle of Tonga, and to windward of it. The Primauguet itself was anchored in a bay of the island, within the line of reefs, in the shelter of a coral bank. The whaler lay off-shore almost in the open sea, as if in readiness for flight, and the swell was heavy about her.

I had been sent with a party to reconnoitre her, to "speak" to her as we say in the navy.

"Haul away there, Goulven! Haul!"

I looked up at the man who was called Goulven; he was the one, who, on the deck of the equivocal craft, held the rope which had just been thrown to me. And I was struck by his face, by his familiar look: he was another Yves, not so young, more sunburnt and more athletic perhaps—harsher in feature, as one who had suffered more—but he was so like him in the eyes, in the expression, that he looked to me like his double.

I had sometimes thought that we might come across this brother Goulven, on one of these whaling boats which we found, now and then, in the anchorages of the southern seas, and which we "spoke" to when we did not like their look.

I went straight to him, without worrying about the captain, who was a huge American, headed like a pirate, with a long, thick, seaweed-like beard. I entered there as on conquered territory and etiquette mattered little to me.

"So it's you, Goulven Kermadec?"

And I advanced towards him holding out my hand, so sure was I of his identity.

But he, for his part, paled under his tan, and shrank back. He was afraid.

And I saw him, in an instinct of uncivilized man, clenching his fists, stiffening his muscles, as if prepared to resist to the utmost, in a desperate struggle.

Poor Goulven! The surprise of hearing me call him by his name—and then my uniform—and the sixteen armed sailors who accompanied me, had been too much for him. He thought that I had come in the name of the law of France, to seize him, and, like Yves, he became exasperated under the threat of force.

It took a minute or two to reassure him; and then when he was persuaded that his little brother had become mine, and that he was hard by, on the warship from which I had come, he asked my pardon for his fear with the same frank smile I knew so well in Yves.

It was a singular looking crew. The boat itself had the movements and the appearance of a pirate-ship. Licked and fretted by the sea, during the three years in which it had wandered in the swell of the great ocean without having once touched any civilized country, but solid still, and built for the seas' highways. In its shrouds, from bottom to top, on each ratline, hung whale's fins, looking like long dark fringes. One would have said that it had passed under the water and become covered with seaweed.

Within, it was laden with the fats and oils from the bodies of all the great beasts which they had slain. There was enough there to make a small fortune, and the captain was reckoning on returning shortly to America, to California where his home was.

A mixed crew: two Frenchmen, two Americans, three Spaniards, a German, an Indian "boy," and a Chinese cook. In addition a Peruvian chola—half-naked like the men—who was the wife of the captain and was suckling a baby two months old conceived and born at sea.

The living quarters of this family, in the stern, had oak walls as thick as ramparts, and doors barred with iron. Within was a veritable arsenal of revolvers, knuckle-dusters, and life-preservers. Precautions had been taken; if occasion arose one would be able there to stand a siege by the whole crew.

For the rest, her papers were in order. She had not hoisted a flag for the simple reason that she had not got one; beetles had eaten the last, of which they showed me the rags to substantiate their excuse; it had the American colours right enough, red and white stripes, with the starred Jack. There was nothing to be said; everything was, in fact, correct.

. . . Goulven asked me if I knew Plouherzel; and I told him how I had slept one night under his mother's roof.

"And you," I said, "are you never going to return."

I could see that he was much moved.

"It is too late now. I should have my punishment to do for the State, and I am married in California. I have two children in Sacramento."

"Will you come with me to see Yves?"

"Come with you?" he repeated darkly, in a low voice. He seemed astonished at what I proposed to him. "Come with you? But you know . . . I am a deserter?"

At this moment he was so like Yves, he said this so exactly as Yves might have said it, that I felt a pang.

After all, I understood his fears of a man free and jealous of his liberty; I respected his terrors of French territory—for the deck of a warship is French territory—on board the Primauguet. We should have the right to arrest him; that was the law.

"At any rate you would like to see him?"

"Like to see him! . . . My poor little Yves!"

"Very well, then, I will bring him to you. When he comes, all I ask of you is that you will advise him to be steady. You understand . . . Goulven?"

It was he then who took my hand and pressed it in his.

CHAPTER LXXXVI

I had accepted an invitation to dinner on the following day with the captain of the whaler. We had got on famously together. His manners were not those of polite society, but there was nothing vulgar or commonplace about him. And besides it was the only way in which I could get Yves on board his ship.

I half expected on the following morning, at daybreak, to find that the whaler had disappeared, flown during the night like a wild bird. But no; there it was in its position off-shore, with all its black fringes in its shrouds, standing out against the great circular mirror of the waters; which, on that morning, were motionless, and heavy, and gleaming, like coulées of silver.

The invitation was seriously meant, therefore, and they were waiting for me. As a precaution, the captain had decided that the crew of the cutter which took me should be armed and should remain with me throughout. This fitted in admirably so far as Yves was concerned, and I took him with me as coxswain.

CHAPTER LXXXVII

The captain received me on his quarter-deck, dressed in reasonably correct American fashion; the chola, transformed, wore a red silk dress with a magnificent collar of pearls collected on the Pomoto islands; I was struck by her good looks and her perfect figure.

We repair together to the room of the formidable iron-barred walls. It is dark and gloomy there; but, through the little deep-set windows, we see the splendour of what look like enchanted things: a sea of a milky blue, and with the polish of a turquoise, a distant island, of a purple iris colour, and a multitude of little orange-tinted clouds floating in a golden green sky.

Afterwards when we turn our eyes from these little open windows, from the contemplation of all this light, the low-pitched cabin seems stranger than before, with its irregular shape and its massive beams, its arsenal of revolvers, of knuckle-dusters, leather thongs and whips.

The dinner consists of tinned foods from San Francisco, exquisite fruits from the Isle of Tonga-Taboo, needle-fish, slim little inhabitants of the warm seas; and we drink French wines, Peruvian pisco and English liqueurs.

The Chinaman who waits upon us wears a silk robe of episcopal violet and slippers with thick paper soles. The chola sings a zamacuéca of Chile, playing, on a diguhela, a sort of accompaniment which sounds like the monotonous little clatter of a trotting mule. The doors of the fortress are wide open. Thanks to the presence of my sixteen armed men, a sense of security reigns, a peaceful intimacy, which are really very touching.

In the bow the men from the Primauguet are drinking and singing with the crew of the whaler. It is a general holiday on board. And, from the distance, I see Yves and Goulven, who, for their part, are not drinking, walking up and down in conversation. Goulven, the taller of the two, has passed his arm round the shoulders of his brother, who holds him, in turn, round the waist. Isolated from the rest they continued their stroll, talking together in a low voice.

The glasses were emptied everywhere in strange toasts. The captain, who at first resembled the impassive statue of a marine or river god, woke up, and began to laugh a powerful laugh which shook his whole body; his mouth opened like that of a cetacean, and he started to talk of strange things in English, forgetting himself so far in his confidences as to tell me things for which he might well have been hanged; his conversation turns into a pretty tale of unmitigated piracy. . . .

The chola retires to her cabin, and a tattooed sailor is brought in and undressed during the dessert. The object of this is to show me the tattooing which represents a fox hunt.

It begins at the neck: horsemen, hounds, in full cry, wind in a spiral round his body.

"You haven't yet seen the fox?" the captain asks me with a boisterous laugh.

The discovery of the fox, it seems, is going to be a very funny business, for he is ready to die with laughter at the thought of it. And he makes the man, who is already tipsy, turn round and round several times so that we may follow the hunt which continues its downward course. In the neighbourhood of his loins, the hunt thickens and one foresees the end is near.

"See! there he is!" cries the captain with the head of a river god, at the height of his savage merriment, throwing himself back, transported with satisfaction and laughter.

The hunted beast has gone to earth; only half of it can be seen. And that is the great culminating surprise. The sailor is invited to drink with us, as a reward for letting us see him.

It was time to go on deck and get a little pure air, the fresh and delicious air of the evening. The sea, which still was motionless and heavy, gleamed in the distance, reflecting the last lights that came from the west. And now the men began to dance to a jig-like air played on a flute.

As they danced the men cast sidelong glances at us, half in shy curiosity, half in scornful disdain. They had some of those tricks of physiognomy which sea-going men have preserved from our primitive ancestors; and comical gestures at every turn, an excessive mimicry, like animals in the wild state. Sometimes they threw themselves back, cambering their bodies; sometimes, by virtue of natural suppleness and their habits of stratagem, they crouched down, arching their backs, in the manner of wild beasts when they walk in the light of day. Round and round they went, to the sound of the fluted music, of the little jigging, infantine tol-de-rol-lol; very serious, dancing very well, with graceful poses of arms and circular movements of legs.

But Yves and Goulven continued to walk up and down together. They had many things still to say to each other, and they were making the most of these last final minutes, for they knew that I was about to leave. They had seen each other once, fifteen years before, while Yves was still quite a little fellow, on that day which Goulven had spent at Plouherzel, in hiding like a fugitive, and, as far as could be seen, they would never meet again.

Suddenly, we saw two of the dancers seize each other round the waist, throw themselves to the ground, still close grappled one with the other, and then begin to fight, to throttle one another, taken with a sudden rage; they tried to use their knives and already there were red marks of blood on the deck.

The captain with the river god head separated them by lashing them both with a whip of hippopotamus hide.

"No matter," he said in English; "they are drunk!"

It was time to go. Goulven and Yves embraced each other, and I saw tears in Goulven's eyes.

As we were returning over the tranquil sea, the first southern stars enkindling on high, Yves spoke to me of his brother:

"He is not very happy. Although he earns a good deal of money and has a little house in California, to which he hopes to return. But there it is; it is the longing for his home country which is killing him."

This captain promised to bring his chola to have dinner with me on the following day on my ship. But, during the night, the whaler put to sea, vanished into the empty immensity; we never saw her again.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII

"And so you have come to get your allowance, too Madame Quéméneur?"

"And you, too, Madame Kerdoncuff?"

"And where is your husband now, Madam Quéméneur?"

"In China, Madame Kerdoncuff, on the Kerguelen."

"And mine, too, you know, Madame Quéméneur; he is there, too, on the Vénus."

It is in the Rue des Voutes, in Brest, with a fine rain falling, that this dialogue of strangely shrill, falsetto voices takes place.

The street is full of women who have been waiting there since the morning, outside an ugly granite building: the sailors' pay office. Women of Brest, deterred in no wise by the cold rain, they are talking querulously, their feet in water, hugging the walls of the mournful little street, in the grey mist.

It is the first day of the quarter. They form a queue to get their money and none too soon, for money is wanting in all the dark dwellings of the town.

Wives of sailors far away at sea, they are waiting to draw their allowances, the pay which those sailors have allotted them.

And when they have drawn it they will spend it on drink. There is, opposite, a tavern which has been established specially for their convenience. It is called À la mère de famille and the proprietress is one Madame Pétavin. It is known in Brest as le cabaret de la délégue (the tavern of the allowance).

Madame Quéméneur, pug-faced, square-jawed, big-bellied, wears a waterproof and a bonnet of black tulle trimmed with blue shells.

Madame Kerdoncuff, sickly, greenish, with a look of a blue-bottle, shows a mean, sly-looking face under a hat trimmed with two roses with their foliage.

As the hour approaches the crowd of inebriates increases. The paying office is besieged; there are disputes at the doors. The cashier's desk is about to open.

And Marie, the wife of Yves, is there too, in this unclean promiscuousness, holding little Pierre by the hand. Timid, depressed, filled with a vague fear of all these women, she allows the more impatient to pass and waits against the wall on the side sheltered from the rain.

"Come in, my good woman, instead of letting the dear little fellow get wet like this."

It is Madame Pétavin who speaks. She has just appeared at her door, her face wreathed in smiles.

"Can I get you anything? A little of the best?"

"No, thank you; I do not drink," replies Marie, who, however, seeing that the tavern is empty, enters for fear lest her little Pierre should catch cold. "But if I am in your way. . . ."

Surely not, she was not in Madame Pétavin's way at all. Madame Pétavin had a kind heart and made her sit down.

Presently Madame Quéméneur and Madame Kerdoncuff, among the first to be paid, enter, shut up their umbrellas, and sit down.

"Madame! Madame! Bring us half a pint in two glasses."

No need to ask half a pint of what. Brandy, and raw brandy at that, is what they crave.

These good ladies begin to talk:

"What did you say your husband was, on the Kerguelen, Madame Quéméneur?"

"He's a leading seaman, Madame Kerdoncuff."

"And mine, too, you know, is a leading seaman, Madame Quéméneur! Wives of leading seamen ought to be friends! Here's to you, Victoire-Yvonne!"

The women were already addressing each other by their Christian names. The glasses were emptied.

Marie turned upon them big, serious eyes, examining them suddenly with much curiosity, as one might animals in a menagerie. And she had an impulse to leave, to get away. But, outside, it was raining heavily, and there was a crowd still at the door of the paying office.

"Your health, Victoire-Yvonne!"

"Your health, Françoise!"

Glasses are replenished again.

The women now begin to talk of their domestic affairs: it is difficult enough to make ends meet! But it can't be helped! The baker, this time, will have to wait until next quarter day. The butcher will have to be satisfied with something on account. To-day, pay day, may not one have a little enjoyment?

"But I, you know," says Madame Kerdoncuff, with a coquettish smile full of suggestion, "I am not too badly off, because, you see, I let a furnished room to an old sailor, who is a petty officer in the port."

There is no need to be more explicit. The face of Madame Quéméneur wears a smile of comprehension.

"And I, too, I have a quartermaster. . . . Here's to you, Françoise! . . ." (The women whisper to each other.) "He's a gay dog, my quartermaster, I can tell you! . . ."

And the chapter of intimate confidences begins.

Marie Kermadec gets up. Has she heard aright? Many of the words used are unknown to her, it is true, but the meaning of them is transparent and gestures make it doubly clear. Are there really women who can bring themselves to say such things? And she goes out, without looking back, without a word of thanks, red, conscious of her burning cheeks.

"Did you see her? We have shocked her!"

"Oh well, you know, she's from the country; she still wears the coif of Bannalec; she's green yet."

"Here's to you, Victoire-Yvonne!"

The tavern is filling. At the door, umbrellas are closed, old waterproofs are shaken; many more women come in, liquor flows.

And, at home, are little mites puling with the voices of jackals in distress; emaciated children whimpering from cold and hunger. So much the worse, here's to you, for is it not pay day!

When Marie got outside, she saw a group of women in large coifs who were standing aside to make way for the press of the brazen ones; and she went quickly and took her place amongst them so that she might once more be in honest company. Amongst them were dear old women from the villages who had come to draw the allowance of their sons, and who were waiting under their cotton umbrellas, with the dignified, prim faces, which peasant women assume in the town.

As she was waiting her turn, she entered into conversation with an old woman from Kermézeau, who told her the history of her son, a gunner on the Astrée. It appeared that in his early youth he had had bouts similar to those of Yves, but afterwards, as he got older, he had quite settled down; one need never despair of a sailor. . . .

Nevertheless in her indignation against these women of Brest, Marie had come to a momentous decision: to return to Toulven at whatever cost, and to-morrow if possible.

As soon as she got back to her room, she began to write a long letter to Yves giving the reasons for her decision. It was true, their tenancy of the lodgings at Récouvrance had still three months to run and that the little house at Toulven would not be finished for a long time yet; but she would make up for all that by working and strict economy; she would take in mending for the neighbours, and would goffer the large native collarettes, work of some difficulty, which she knew how to do very perfectly by the skilful use of very fine reeds.

And she went on to tell him all the new things which little Pierre had learnt to say and do; in very naïve terms, she told of her great love for the absent one; she enclosed a curl, cut from a certain little brown and very restless head; and put the whole in an envelope of thin paper which she superscribed thus:

"To Monsieur Kermadec, Yves, Leading Seaman on board the Primauguet, in the southern seas, c/o the French Consul at Panama, to be forwarded."

Poor little letter! Will it ever be delivered? Who can tell? It is not impossible, more unlikely things have happened. In five months, six months, travel-stained and covered with American postmarks, it will be delivered, perhaps, faithfully to Yves, and bring him the deep love of his wife and the brown curl of his son.

CHAPTER LXXXIX

May, 1882.

In the evening, in the southern solitudes. The wind was rising. Over all this moving immensity in which the Primauguet dwelt long dark blue waves were chasing one another. It was a damp wind and struck chill.

Below on the spar-deck, Le Hir the idiot was hastening, before darkness fell, to sew up a corpse in pieces of grey canvas which were the remains of sails.

Yves and Barrada, standing, were watching him with a kind of horror. They had perforce to remain close to him, in a very small mortuary chamber, which had been made by suspending other sails and which was guarded by a gunner, cutlass in hand.

It was Barazère who was being sewn up in these grey remnants. He had died of a disease contracted long before in Algiers—on a night of pleasure. . . . Many times he had believed himself cured; but the deadly poison remained in his blood, reappeared from time to time, and at last had killed him. Towards the end he had been covered with hideous sores and his friends had avoided him.

It fell to Le Hir to sew him up, for all the others had refused, out of fear of his malady. Le Hir had accepted on the strength of a promise of a pint of wine.

The rolling of the ship worried him, hampered him in his work, kept shifting the corpse out of position; and he was eager to be done and to get the wine that was waiting for him.

First, the feet; he had been told to bind them tight on account of the cannon-ball which is attached to the dead body to make it sink. Then the legs; and presently the body was entirely hidden, enveloped in many thicknesses of coarse canvas; only the pale face was now visible, tranquil in death, and looking strangely handsome with a peaceful smile. And then roughly, with a brutal indifference, Le Hir drew over it an end of the grey canvas and the face was veiled for ever.

In a French village the old parents of this Barazère were looking forward to the day of his return.

When the job was done Yves and Barrada came out of the mortuary chamber pushing Le Hir before them by the shoulders, to see that he washed his hands before he drank his wine.

They had been exchanging ideas about death apparently, for Barrada, as he came out, said in his Bordeaux accent:

"Ah! Nonsense! It is with men as with beasts; others will come, but those who die . . ."

And he finished by laughing that curious laugh of his, which sounded deep and hollow like a roar.

From his lips, there was nothing impious in the phrase; it was simply that he knew nothing better to say.

They were both, as a matter of fact, much moved; they grieved for Barazère. Now, the malady which had caused them fear was covered up, forgotten; in their memory, the dead man had emerged from that final impurity and become suddenly ennobled; they saw him again as in the time of his strength, and in thinking of him they were moved to pity.

CHAPTER XC

"There's no foppery in a sailor who has washed his skin in the waters of five or six oceans."

On the following morning, when the sun rose, the wind was still fresh. The Primauguet was moving very quickly, rocking in its course with the supple and vigorous movement of a mighty runner. In the bow the men released from the watch were singing as they made their morning toilet, stripped, resembling, with their muscular arms and shoulders, the statues of ancient Greece; they were washing themselves liberally in cold water; they plunged their head and shoulders into tubs, covered their chests with a white foam of soap and then, turn and turn about, rubbed one another down.

Suddenly they remembered the dead man and their blythe song subsided. For they had just seen the men of the other watch assembling at the order of their officer and lining up in the stern, as if for an inspection. They guessed why and drew near.

A long new plank had been placed crosswise on the nettings, overhanging, making a kind of see-saw over the water, and a sinister thing which seemed very heavy, a sheath of grey canvas which betrayed a human form, had just been brought up from below.

When Barazère was laid on the long new plank, suspended in mid air over the foaming waves, the bonnets of the sailors were all removed in a last salute; a signalman recited a prayer, hands made the sign of the cross—and then, at my command, the plank was tilted and there came the dull sound of a heavy thing plunging into the water.

The Primauguet passed on its way, and the body of Barazère sank into the abyss, immense in depth and extent, of the great ocean.

Then, very softly, as a reproach, I repeated to Yves who was near me, the phrase of the night before:

"It is with men as with beasts: more will come, but . . ."

"Oh!" he replied; "it was not I who said that; it was he." (He—that is to say, Barrada—heard him and turned his head towards us. There were tears in his eyes.)

We looked behind us with uneasiness, at the wake; for it happens sometimes, when the following shark is there, that a stain of blood appears on the surface of the sea.

But no, there was nothing; he had descended in peace into the depths below.

An infinite descent, first rapid as in a fall; then slow, slow, petering out little by little in the ever-increasing density of the deeper waters. A mysterious journey of many leagues into unplumbed abysms; during which the darkened sun shows first like a pale moon, then turns green, then trembles, and finally is effaced. And then the eternal darkness begins; the waters rise, rise, gathering over the head of the dead traveller like the waters of a deluge which should reach up to the stars.

But, below, the dead body has lost its loathsomeness; matter is never unclean in an absolute sense. In the darkness the invisible animals of the deep waters will come and encompass it; the mysterious madrepores will put forth upon it their branches, eating it very slowly with the thousand little mouths of their living flowers.

This grave of sailors cannot be violated by any human hand. He who has descended to sleep below is more dead than any other dead man; nothing of him will ever appear again; never will he mingle with that old dust of men which, on the surface of the earth, is for ever seeking to recombine in an eternal effort to live again. He belongs to the life of the world below; he is going to pass into plants of colourless stone, into sluggish animals which are without shape and without eyes. . . .

CHAPTER XCI

On the evening of the burial of Barazère, Yves had brought his friend Jean Barrada with him to my room. They were now the only survivors of the old band: Kerboul, Le Hello, had been sleeping for many a long day at the bottom of the sea, to which they too had descended in the fullness of youth; the others had left to join the merchant service, or had returned to their villages: all were scattered.

Yves and Barrada were very old friends. On shore, when they were together, it was not good to cross them in their whims.

I can still see the two of them sitting there before me, sharing the same chair on account of the limited space of the room, holding on with one hand in the habit learnt from the rolling of the ship, and looking at me with attentive eyes. For I was endeavouring to prove to them on this evening that it was not with men as with beasts, and to speak to them of the mysterious beyond. . . . And they, with Barazère's death fresh in their memory, were listening to me surprised, fascinated, in the midst of that very special peacefulness of calm evenings at sea, a peacefulness which predisposes to the comprehension of the incomprehensible.

Old arguments repeated over and over again at school which I developed to them and which it seemed to me might still make an impression on their young minds. . . . It was perhaps very stupid, this discourse on immortality; but it did them no harm; on the contrary.

CHAPTER XCII

These seas in which the Primauguet was were almost always of the same lapis blue; it was the region of the trade winds and of fine weather without an end.

Sometimes, in our passage from one group of islands to another, we had to cross the Equator, to pass through the motionless immensities and mournful splendours.

And afterwards, when, in one hemisphere or the other, we ran into the life-giving trade wind again, when the awakened Primauguet began once more to gather speed, then one realized better, by contrast, the charm of moving quickly, the charm of being on this great, inclined, quivering thing which seemed to be alive, and which obeyed you, alert and supple, as it sped onwards.

When we sailed eastward in these regions of the trade winds, we sailed close to the wind; and then the Primauguet rushed upon the regular, crisped waves of the tropics for whole days, without ever getting tired, with little joyous flutterings such as sportive fishes might have.

Afterwards, when we returned on our course, with the wind behind us, fully rigged, every inch of our white canvas spread, our progress, rapid as it was, became so easy, so effortless, that we no longer felt that we were moving; we were lifted up as it were in a kind of flight and our movement was like the soaring of a bird.

As far as the sailors were concerned one day was very much like another.

Every morning there was first of all a kind of frenzy of cleaning which began with the réveillé. One saw them, half-awake, jump up and start running to commence as quickly as might be the great diurnal washing. Naked, in their pompomed bonnets, or maybe wearing a "tricot de combat" (a little knitted thing for the neck, not unlike a baby's bib) they set to work to swill the deck. Water spurted from hosepipes; water was flung by hand from buckets. Wasting no time they threw it over legs and over backs until they were all besplashed, all streaming; they overturned everything in order to wash everything; afterwards, scouring the deck, already clean and white, with mops and scrapers to make it cleaner and whiter still.

Sometimes they would be ordered to break off and go aloft to make some alteration in the rigging, to shake out a reef or trim the sails; then they would dress themselves hastily, for decency's sake, before climbing, and quickly carry out the manœuvre ordered, eager to get down again and amuse themselves in the water.

This is the work which makes arms strong and chests round; and the feet, too, from being used to climbing bare, become in some measure prehensile, like those of monkeys.

At about eight o'clock, at the roll of a drum, the washing would be done. Then, while the hot sun was quickly drying all these things which they had made wet, they would begin to furbish; the copper-work, the iron-work, even the ordinary rings were made to shine like mirrors. Each one would address himself to the little pulley, the little object, the toilet of which had been specially entrusted to him and would polish it with solicitude, stepping back every now and then with a critical air to see how it looked, to see whether it did him credit. And, around these great children, was still and always the blue circle, the inexorable blue circle, the resplendent solitude, profound, having no end, where nothing ever changed and nothing ever passed.

Nothing passed save the madcap bands of flying fish, moving like arrows, so rapidly that one had time only to see the glistening of their wings and they were gone. They were of several kinds; some large, which were steel-blue in colour; some smaller and rarer which seemed to have colours of mauve and peony; they surprised you by their rosy flight, and, when you tried to distinguish them, it was too late; a little patch of water eddied still and sparkled in the sunshine as if under a hail of bullets; it was there they had made their plunge, but they were no longer there.

Sometimes a frigate bird—a great mysterious bird which is always alone—crossed, at a great height, the regions of the air, flying straight with its narrow wings and scissor-like tail, hastening as if it had a goal. Then the sailors pointed out to one another the strange traveller, following it with their eyes as long as it remained in sight, and its passage was recorded in the ship's log.

But a ship, never; they are too large, these southern seas; there are no meetings there.

Once, however, we came across a little oceanic island surrounded by a white belt of coral. Some women who dwelt there approached in canoes, and the captain allowed them to clamber on board, guessing why they had come. They all had admirable figures, eyes of true savages, scarcely opened and fringed with very heavy lashes, and teeth of wonderful whiteness which their laugh revealed to their whole extent. On their skin, which was of the colour of reddish copper, were very complicated tattooings resembling a network of blue lace.

Their passage had broken for a day the continence which the sailors preserved. And then the island, barely seen, had vanished with its white beach and its green palms, a very little thing amid the immense desert of the waters, and we thought of it no more.

But there was no boredom on board. The days were quite adequately filled with duties and amusements.

At certain hours, on certain days fixed in advance, the sailors were allowed to open the canvas sacks in which their treasures were stored (it was known as "getting out the sacks"). Then they spread out all their little belongings, which had been folded inside with a comical care, and the deck of the Primauguet took on all at once the appearance of a bazaar. They opened their needle-work boxes, and sewed little patches very neatly on holes in their clothes, which the continual play of strong muscles soon wore out. There were some of them who stripped to the skin and sat gravely mending their shirts; others, who pressed their big collars in a rather extraordinary way (by sitting on them for a long time); others who took from their writing cases poor little faded yellow papers, bearing the postmarks of remote little corners of Brittany or of the Basque country, and settled down to read: they were letters from mothers, sisters, sweethearts, who dwelt in villages at the other side of the earth.

And, later on, at the sound of a particular whistle, which signified: "Pack up the sacks!" all this disappeared as by enchantment, folded, packed and re-consigned once more to the bottom of the hold, in the numbered lockers which the terrible sergeants-at-arms came and locked with little iron chains.

Looking at them, one might have been deceived by their wise and patient airs, if one had not known them better; seeing them so absorbed in these occupations of little girls, in these unpackings of dolls, it was impossible to imagine what these same young men might become capable of once they were allowed on shore.

There was only one hour of inevitable melancholy; it was when the evening prayer had been said, when the Bretons had finished making the sign of the cross and the sun had set: at that hour, assuredly, many of them thought of home.

Even in the regions of wonderful light, there is still that vague hour between day and night, which brings always and everywhere a touch of sadness; then one might see sailors' heads turned involuntarily in the direction of that last band of light which persisted in the west, very low, touching the line of the waters.

A variegated band always; on the horizon there was first a dull red, above, a little orange, above again, a little pale green, a trail of phosphorescence, and then it merged with the dull greys above, with the shades of darkness and obscurity. Some last reflections of a mournful yellow lingered on the sea, which glistened still here and there before taking on the neutral colours of night; this last oblique glance of day, cast on the deserted depths, had something a little sinister, and, in spite of oneself, there came a sense of desolation in the immensity of the waters. It was the hour of secret revolts and wringing of hearts. It was the hour when the sailors had the vague notion that their life was strange and against nature, when they thought of their sequestrated and wasted youth. Some far-off image of a woman passed before their eyes, wreathed in a languishing charm, in a delectable sweetness. Or perhaps there came to them, with a sudden trouble of the senses, a dream of some senseless orgy of lust and alcohol, in which they would seek compensation and appeasement when next they were let loose on shore. . . .

But, afterwards, came night itself, warm, full of stars, and the fleeting impression was forgotten; and the sailors gathered in the bow of the ship and, sitting or lying there, began to sing.

There were some among the topmen who knew long and very pleasing songs, the choruses of which were readily learnt by heart. And in the sonorous silence of the night the voices sounded fine and vibrant.

There was, too, an old petty officer who never tired of telling to a certain attentive little circle interminable stories; stories of adventures which had really happened once upon a time to some handsome topmen whom amorous princesses had carried away to their castles.

And still the Primauguet sped on, tracing behind her, in the darkness, a vague white trail which gradually disappeared like the trail of a meteor. All night long she sped, without resting or sleeping; only, her large wings lost at night their sea-gull whiteness and outlined then, in fantastic shadow against the diffused light of the sky, the points and scallops of a bat's wing.

But speed on as she might, she was always in the middle of the same great circle, which seemed eternally to reform, to widen and to follow her.

Sometimes this circle was dark and traced all round its clean-cut inexorable line which stopped at the first stars in the sky. Sometimes the immense contour was softened by mists which mingled sea and sky together; and then it seemed as if we were sailing in a kind of grey-blue globe, spangled with stars, and the wonder was that we never encountered its fugitive walls.

The expanse was full of the soft sounds of water; it rustled continuously and to infinity, but in a restrained and almost silent manner; it gave out a powerful, unseizable sound, such as might be made by an orchestra of thousands of strings touched by bows very, very lightly and with great mystery.

At times, the southern stars shone out with surprising brilliancy; the great nebulæ sparkled like a dust of mother-of-pearl, all the colours of the night seemed to be illumined, in transparency, by strange lights. One might have imagined oneself, at these moments, in a fairyland where everything was lit up for some immense apotheosis; and one asked oneself: "What is the meaning of all this splendour, what is going to happen, what is the matter?" . . . But no, there was nothing, ever; it was simply the region of the tropics and this was its way. There was nothing but the deserted seas, and everlastingly the circular expanse, absolutely empty. . . .

These nights were indeed exquisite summer nights, mild, infinitely mild, milder than the mildest of our nights of June. And they troubled a little all these men, the eldest of whom was not yet thirty years of age.

The warm darkness brought thoughts of love which were not of their seeking. There were moments when they came near to weakening again in a troubling dream; they felt the need of opening their arms to some desired human form, of clasping it with a strong and forceful infinite tenderness. But no, no one, nothing. . . . It was necessary to pull themselves together, to remain alone, to turn over on the hard planks of the wooden deck, and to think of something else, to begin to sing again. . . . And then the songs, merry or sad, rang out more strongly than before, in the emptiness of the sea.

Nevertheless it was very pleasant on this forecastle during these evenings at sea. The fresh wind of the night blew in our faces, the virgin breezes which had never passed over land, which bore no living effluvium, which were without odour. Lying there, one lost little by little all notion of time and place, all notion of everything but speed, which is always a pleasing thing, even when you are without a goal and know not whither you are going.

They had no goal, these sailors, and they knew not whither they were going. What did it matter anyhow since nowhere were they allowed to set foot on shore? They were ignorant of the direction of this rapid course and of the infinite extent of the solitudes in which they were; but it amused them, nevertheless, to be going full speed ahead in the bluish darkness, to feel that they were moving very rapidly. As they sang their evening songs, their eyes were on the bowsprit, ever thrusting forward, with its two little horns and shape of drawn cross bow, which leapt over the sea, skimming the noisy waters in the lightsome fashion of a flying fish.

CHAPTER XCIII

On the Primauguet, my dear Yves was above reproach, as he had promised us. The officers treated him with a rather special consideration on account of his general bearing and manner which were no longer those of the others. But he remained, nevertheless, in the first rank of that hardy band of which the chief boatswain said with pride:

"It is half shark; it knows no fear."

He had resumed his old-time habit of coming, silent-footed, to my room in the evening, in the hours when I abandoned it to him. He would settle down to read my letters and my papers, knowing well that he was at liberty to look at them all; he learnt to understand the marine charts, and amused himself by marking points on them and measuring distances. Very often he used to write to his wife, and it happened that his little letters, interrupted by a call aloft, remained mixed with my papers. I found one one day which was intended no doubt to be placed in a second envelope and on which he had put this quaint address:

"To Madame Marie Kermadec, c/o her parents, at Trémeulé in Toulven, Country of Brittany, Commune of Wolves, Parish of Squirrels, on the right, under the largest oak."

It was hard to imagine my great big Yves writing these childish things.

This was his first long absence since his marriage. Half a world away, he fell to thinking much of his young wife who already had suffered so sorely on his account and who had loved him so well; she appeared to him now, at this great distance, under a new aspect.

CHAPTER XCIV

In July—the worst month of the southern winter—we left the region of the trade winds and made our way to Valparaiso.

There, I was due to leave the Primauguet and to embark on a large sailing ship which was returning to Brest after a tour round the world.

It was called the Navarin; all the men of our ship who had finished their term of service were embarking on it also: among others, Barrada, who was going to Bordeaux, with his belt lined with gold, to marry his little Spanish sweetheart.

Very abruptly, as always, I said good-bye to Yves, recommending him once more to all, and left for France by way of Cape Horn.

CHAPTER XCV

20th October, 1882.

I remember very well this day passed in Brittany. We three, under the grey sky, roaming the woods of Toulven, Marie, Anne and I.

My eyes still dazzled by sun and blue sea, and this Brittany, seen again so quickly and so suddenly for a few brief hours, absolutely as in the dreams we had of it at sea. . . . It seemed to me that I understood its charm for the first time.

And Yves was at the other side of the world, in the great ocean. How strange it was to feel that he was so far away and that I was here without him in these Toulven lanes!

We rushed about, all three, like people possessed, in the green lanes, under the grey sky, the large coifs of Marie and Anne blown back by the wind. For night was closing in and we wanted during this last hour to gather the harvest of ferns and heather, which, on the following morning, I was going to carry off to Paris. Oh! these departures, always coming too soon, changing everything, casting a sadness over the things you are about to leave, and plunging you afterwards into the unknown!

This time again, there was the pervading melancholy of the late autumn: the air was still mild, the verdure admirable, with almost the intense green of the tropics, but the Breton sky was there, grey and sombre, and already the savour of dead leaves and of winter. . . .

We had left little Pierre in the house so that we might walk more quickly. On our way we picked the last foxgloves, the last red silenes, the last scabious.

In the sunken lanes, in the green darkness, we passed long-haired old men, and women in cloth bodices embroidered with rows of eyes.

There were mysterious crossways in the woods. In the distance one could see the wooded hills ranged in monotonous lines, the unchanging ageless horizon of the country of Toulven, the same horizon as the Celts must have seen, the farthest planes losing themselves in the grey obscurities, in bluish tones tending to black.

And with what pleasure I had greeted my little Pierre, as I came along this road of Toulven! I had seen the little fellow in the distance and failed to recognize him; and he had run to meet me, skipping like a young goat. They had told him: "That is your godfather coming yonder," and he had rushed off at once. He had grown and improved in looks and had a more enterprising not to say boisterous air.

It was at this visit I saw for the first and last time little Yvonne, Yves' little daughter who was born after our departure, and who made on this earth only a brief appearance of a few months. She was very like him; the same eyes, the same expression. It was strange to see this resemblance of a small girl-baby to a man.

One day she returned to the mysterious regions whence she had come, called away suddenly by a childish malady, which neither the old nurse nor the learned woman brought in from Toulven had understood. And they laid her in the churchyard, the eyes that were so like Yves' closed for ever.

We had spent in the woods our two hours of daylight. It was not until after supper that Marie and I went to see, in the moonlight, what was to be their new home.

On the site of the oat field which we had measured in June of the preceding year stood now the four walls of Yves' house; it had yet no shutters, no floor, no roof, and, in the moonlight, looked like a ruin.

We sat down on some stones inside, alone together for the first time.

It was of Yves we talked, needless to say. She asked me anxiously about him, about his future, imagining that I knew better than she this husband whom she adored with a kind of fear, without understanding him. And I reassured her, for I was very hopeful: the sea-rover had a good and honest heart; and if we could touch him there, we ought in the end to succeed.

Anne appeared suddenly, having approached noiselessly in order to startle us:

"Oh, Marie!" she said, "move away quickly! See what an ugly shadow you are making behind you!"

We had not noticed it, but in the moonlight her head, with the wings of her coif moving in the wind, cast behind her, on the new wall, a shadow in the form of a very large and very ugly bat. It was enough to bring us misfortune.

In Toulven there was a music of bagpipes. To reach the inn, to which they were both escorting me, we had to pass through an unexpected fête, going on in the moonlight. It was the wedding of a well-to-do couple and there was dancing in the open, on the square. I stopped, with Anne and Marie, to watch the long chain of the gavotte whirl and pass, led by the shrill voice of the pipes. The full moon made whiter the coifs of the women which flitted past us as if carried away by wind and speed; on the breasts of the men we caught the fleeting glitter of embroidered gorgets and silver spangles.

At the farther end of Toulven we came upon another concourse. It did not seem natural, this animation in the village, at night; more coifs again, hurrying, pressing forward in order to get a better view; for a band of pilgrims was returning from Lourdes. They entered the village singing hymns.

"There have been two miracles, sir; we heard so this morning by telegraph."

I turned round and saw that it was Pierre Kerbras, Anne's sweetheart, who vouchsafed us this information.

The pilgrims passed, their large rosaries about their necks; behind came two infirm old women, who, for their part, had not been cured, and who were being carried in men's arms.

The following morning old Corentin, Anne and little Pierre, in their Sunday clothes, accompanied me in Pierre Kerbras' wagonette to the station at Bannalec.

In the compartment I entered two English women were already installed.

Little Pierre, his happy face the colour of a ripe peach, was lifted up to the carriage window to kiss me good-bye, and he burst out laughing at the sight of a little bulldog which the women carried in their blazoned travelling-bag. He was sorry enough that I was going away; but this little dog in the bag seemed to him so comical that he could not get over it. And the old ladies smiled also, and said that little Pierre was "a very beautiful baby."

And this was the last of Brittany for a long time; I had spent some twenty hours there, and, on the following morning, it was already far away from me.

CHAPTER XCVI

A Letter from Yves

"MELBOURNE, September, 1882.

"DEAR BROTHER,—I write to let you know we have reached Australia; we have had a very fine voyage and to-morrow we are to leave for Japan; for, you know, we have had instructions to pay a visit to that country.

"I found here two letters from you and two also from my wife; but I am looking forward to the one you will write me when you have been to Toulven.

"Dear brother, your successor on board is just like you; he is very considerate with the sailors. As regards Mr. Plunkett's successor, he is rather severe, but not with me; on the contrary. Mr. Plunkett told me he would recommend me to him when he left and I think he must have done so. The others and the second-in-command are still the same; they often speak to me of you and ask me for news of you.

"The captain has called upon me to act as boatswain since we buried poor Marsano, of Nice, who was found dead one morning in his hammock at the réveillé. And I like the work very much.

"Dear brother, the men have twice been allowed to go ashore, at San Francisco, and you will be glad to know that, with you away, I have not even given in my name to go with them. As a matter of fact, on the second night, the topmen had a great row with some Germans, and knives were used.

"I have also to tell you, dear brother, that your name has not yet been removed from above the door of your room, and I think it must have been quite forgotten. And in the evening I make my way along the spar-deck for the pleasure of seeing it.

"Next year, when we return, I hope I may have a long leave to go and see my wife and my little Pierre and my little daughter; but it will be all too short in any case, and I shall never have any real leisure until I get my pension. On the other hand, when I am old enough to put aside the blue collar, my little Pierre will be thinking of going to sea himself in his turn; or perhaps there will be a place for me a little farther away, in the direction of the pond, near the church; you know what place I mean.

"Dear brother, you think I am taking my note from you? But no, I think as I have always thought.

"As for the 'coco-nut heads'[6] I fear I must give up all idea of them, for we shall not touch Caledonia; but perhaps, later on, I may be able to return and buy some. If you should pass by the Gulf of Juan, you would give me great pleasure if you would go to Vallauris and obtain for me two of those candlesticks which they make there, and which have owls' heads on them (the parrots of France, you know). I should like very much to have some in my home. I am very eager, brother, to furnish my little house.

"Among the many things which make me sad when I awaken in the morning, that which grieves me most is the thought that my mother cannot be persuaded to come and live at Toulven. It seems to me that if I could get leave and go to see her, I should certainly be able to induce her to come. But, against this, I should then have no one belonging to me at Plouherzel; and that again is a thing I cannot bear to contemplate; for after all Plouherzel is our home, you know. If I could believe what you have often told me on the subject of a life after death, then, assuredly, I could still be contented enough. But it seems to me that you yourself do not believe very much in it. Funnily enough, though, I am afraid of ghosts, and I rather think, brother, that you are afraid of them, too.

"I ask you to forgive these dirty sheets I am sending you, but it is not altogether my fault that they are in this condition. As you know I no longer have your desk now to write my letters on like an officer. I was writing to you peacefully enough at the end of my night watch on the lockers in the bow, when the idiot Le Hir came and knocked over my candle. I have not time to copy out my letter neatly as sometimes I do, in the way you have praised. I am writing hurriedly and I ask you to forgive the hasty scrawl.

"We are leaving at daybreak to-morrow for Japan; but I will send my letter by the pilot who is coming to take us out.

"Your affectionate brother,

"YVES KERMADEC.

"Dear brother, I cannot tell you how much I love you."