--"_Ou pa ka pagayé,--anh?--ou ni bousoin demi?_?" (Thou dost not
paddle, eh?--thou wouldst go to sleep?)
--"_Si! moin ka pagayé,--epi fò!_" (I am paddling, and hard, too!)
responded Stéphane....
--"_Ou ka pagayé!--ou ka menti!_" (Thou art paddling!--thou liest!)
vociferated Maximilien.... "And the fault is all thine. I cannot, all by
myself, make the canoe to go in water like this! The fault is all thine:
I told thee not to dive, thou stupid!"
--"_Ou fou!_" cried Stéphane, becoming angry. "_Moin ka pagayé!_" (I
am paddling.)
--"Beast! never may we get home so! Paddle, thou lazy;--paddle, thou
nasty!"
--"_Macaque_ thou!--monkey!"
--"_Chabin!_--must be chabin, for to be stupid so!"
--"Thou black monkey!--thou species of _ouistiti!_"
--"Thou tortoise-of-the-land!--thou slothful more than _molocoye!_"
--"Why, thou cursed monkey, if thou sayest I do not paddle, thou dost
not know how to paddle!"...
... But Maximilien's whole expression changed: he suddenly stopped
paddling, and stared before him and behind him at a great violet band
broadening across the sea northward out of sight; and his eyes were big
with terror as he cried out:--
--"_Mais ni qui chose qui douôle içitt!_... There is something queer,
Stéphane; there is something queer."...
--"Ah! you begin to see now, Maximilien!--it is the current!"
--"A devil-current, Stéphane.... We are drifting: we will go to the
horizon!"...
To the horizon--"_nou kallé Ihorizon!_"--a phrase of terrible
picturesqueness.... In the creole tongue, "to the horizon" signifies to
the Great Open--into the measureless sea.
--"_C'est pa lapeine pagayé atouèlement!_" (It is no use to paddle
now), sobbed Maximilien, laying down his palettes.
--"_Si! si!_" said Stéphane, reversing the motion: "paddle with the
current."
--"With the current! It runs to La Dominique!"
--"_Pouloss_," phlegmatically returned Stéphane,--"_ennou!_--let us
make for La Dominique!"
--"Thou fool!--it is more than past forty kilometres.... _Stéphane,
mi! gadé!--mi qui gouôs requ'em!_"
A long black fin cut the water almost beside them, passed, and
vanished,--a requin indeed! But, in his patois, the boy almost re-echoed
the name as uttered by quaint Père Du Tertre, who, writing of strange
fishes more than two hundred years ago, says it is called REQUIEM,
because for the man who findeth himself alone with it in the midst of
the sea, surely a requiem must be sung.
--"Do not paddle, Stéphane!--do not put thy hand in the water again!"