AN ICELAND FISHERMAN [34]
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
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