CAPTAIN SAGESSE
A lantern shot its light over the port quarter, a voice hailed him from
the deck:
“Hi yi ow!” shrill as a bird, and at the cry, like a shaken beehive,
the forecastle broke into life; the decks in a moment were a-swarm,
chattering like a tree full of monkeys, another lantern shewed over the
port bow, and above the lantern a face black as the face of a devil
with glittering eyeballs and white teeth grinned down on the boat below.
Next moment something struck Gaspard across the chest, it was a rope;
seizing it he held on, and the little boat came up grinding against the
great washing wall of the vessel, carried with her on her slow way and
right beneath the broad channel of the foremast. He seized the rope’s
end to the forward seat, caught up the belt with the pouch of gold
and fastened it to his waist; then, reaching up, he caught hold of a
channelplate and with the help of another rope flung by the chattering
crowd above, swung himself on to the channel. Next moment he was on
deck.
The starlight lit the decks dimly fore and aft, he was surrounded with
negroes swarming and chattering like monkeys; a man in a panama hat
who had helped him over the side, and who, disregarding him, was now
shouting directions in shrill French to a black man who had slipped
down into the boat, seemed the only white man on board.
Having finished his directions he turned, kicked a negro who stood in
his way, caught up a lantern, and coming up to Gaspard held the light
to him as if he were a work of art he wished to examine.
“French?” said the man in the panama, speaking in that language and
fixing Gaspard with a pair of beady unwinking black eyes. His face lit
up by the lantern-light was round, good-tempered looking, the face of
a _bon bourgeois_—yet the eyes chilled Gaspard for a moment ere he
replied:
“Yes, French, shipwrecked and floating about in that cursed boat till
you nearly ran me down.”
“What ship?”
“The _Rhone_ of the _Compagnie Transatlantique_.”
“The _Rhone_; I have seen her in Havana harbour, is she lost then?”
“Yes, ripped her bottom out on a reef and gone with all on board.”
“You are the only one saved?”
“Yes.”
“_Boufre_!” said the other, betraying his _provence_ in the word. “A
Moco, too, so was I till I became a man of my own. Well I have saved
you, and _I take the boat_! I am Captain Sagesse, and this is my barque
_La Belle Arlésienne_.”
He seized Gaspard by the coat lapel as he brought the words out with
emphasis.
“The boat is mine, you understand.”
“Oh the boat, she is yours and welcome.”
“She is worth five hundred francs, and a brush full of white paint
will take the _Rhone’s_ name off her. I found you on a raft—no, on a
hencoop—no, on a spar—” he slipped his arm through Gaspard’s and was
leading him aft to the deck-house on the poop. “You were floating on a
spar. Here is the deck-house. Come in.” He opened the deck-house door
disclosing a cabin comfortably, yet roughly furnished. A table stood
in the middle, over the table hung a swinging lamp. Two doors opening
aft gave entrance to the captain and mate’s cabins, tiny holes not much
bigger than dog-kennels. The captain flung his panama on the table and
Gaspard took a seat, and looked at his companion who was now opening a
locker, and fetching out a bottle of rum and some glasses and a basket
of ship biscuits. This roundfaced and contented looking personage had,
in the first moment of their acquaintance, invented and asked him to
assist in a microscopic felony. He placed his hand on the bag of gold
at his side as, leaning on the table, he replied:
“But, see here, that boat doesn’t belong to the _Rhone_ at all.”
The man in the panama had placed the things on the table, he turned.
“But you said—”
“Yes, but you have not heard all; I was wrecked from the _Rhone_ right
enough, on a spar too, away on an island down there, then the boat came
floating along, she has no name on her that I have seen, I got into her
and rowed away—that’s all.”
“_Outre_,” said Sagesse, pouring out two glasses of rum, whilst
Gaspard took a biscuit. The little man almost seemed disappointed; one
might have fancied that he regretted the lost chance of “doing” the
_Compagnie Transatlantique_ out of a boat, then he took a Martinique
cigar from his pocket, lit it, and with his elbows on the table began
to talk and ask questions.
He asked questions without waiting for an answer, nay, he sometimes
answered them himself, as—
“The _Rhone_, I have seen her in Havana harbour, what tonnage was she?
Oh, I know, seven thousand; she and the _Roxelane_ were sister ships.
The _Roxelane_ called regularly at St. Pierre. Oh, yes, I ought to know
her, Martinique bred as I am. Not born, mind you. No, I was born at
Arles, but I have spent thirty years in these seas. One can make money
in these seas, but one never can forget the old land, and you were
born at Montpellier, you say, ’tis the same thing, and all Provençals
are brothers. Think you, if I picked up a Dutchlander or an English,
or even a Ponantaise, I would be giving him rum in my cabin—” Then
mellowed by the rum and the presence of another Provençal, he leaned
his elbows further on the table and continued talking and asking
questions without seeming to hear the answer.