MOUNT PELÉE
The good fortune that had followed him pursued also the _Anne Martin_,
the wind held steady, the sky clear; flying, fresh weather and a
sparkling sea brought her into the Caribbean; they sighted ships but
always at a distance, sails that flecked the far off horizon and
vanished, long wreaths of steamer smoke, phantoms speaking as vaguely
of the world of men as the strips of fucus floating past on the swell.
Not only had they good weather but good temper reigned on board.
Stock, a “hard case” in the language of sailors, had taken in, with the
news of Sagesse’s death, a cargo of good humour that promised to last
him till they fetched Martinique.
Gaspard had his meals in the cabin, with the few words of English that
he knew and a few more that he picked up daily, he could make his wants
understood without the assistance of Diego; as for conversation, he
did just as well with his half dozen words as with a thousand, for
conversation there was none amidst the after guard of the _Anne Martin_.
As day followed day and Martinique crept closer to them, so did the
idea of Marie grow in Gaspard’s mind, ousting the idea of Fortune
and all other ideas and preoccupations. Just as, on the approach to
Skeleton Island, the vision of treasure drove her image from his mind,
now on his approach to Martinique, so did her image cast out the vision
of treasure. If he thought of his wealth at all, it was only connection
with her.
One night, under a sky blazing with stars, he was standing on deck
watching the phosporescent gleams in the water. Captain Stock, who had
just emerged from the cabin companion-way came towards him, leaned over
the bulwark, took his cigar from his mouth and expectorated into the
sea.
“To-morrow,” said the Captain, pointing right ahead.
Gaspard started.
“Martinique?”
“Yes.”
Then the Captain went forward, leaving Gaspard alone.
He knew they were close to the island, but he had not reckoned that
they were so near as that.
To-morrow, he would see Marie to-morrow. To-morrow, he would be walking
the pleasant sunlit streets of St. Pierre, he remembered the shops of
the Rue Victor Hugo. O, what would he not buy her! He would take her
and say, “All St. Pierre is yours—take what you please.”
Then he cast his thoughts abroad, all through St. Pierre, wandering
hither and thither, and touching this person, and that, with a loving
hand. Man’m Faly, Pierre-Alphonse, the girls who were Marie’s friends.
Finotte, Honorine, Lys, they would all share in his jubilee, and there
was something grim in the idea that the pleasantest thing he was
bringing with him, the thing that would make him most welcome in the
coloured city, was the news of Pierre Sagesse’s death.
He went below and turned in, and fell asleep with his mind full of
these pleasant imaginings.
This was the season of the most heavy rains and he had been asleep
scarcely an hour when the _Anne Martin_ sailed into a rain squall, and
the thunder of rain on the deck reached him in dreamland.
The scenery of his dreams at once took the form of the little Place de
la Fontaine, where he had first met Marie. He was walking there with
her and the sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue. Then, all at
once, he lost her. She had vanished amidst the crowd of dream people
who were strolling through the Place.
Then, just as on the day he first met her “clash—ripple—clash” came
the _carillon_ of the cathedral bells, but they did not bring him to
Marie, clouds darkened the sky and the thunder of rain filled the air,
and through it all the bells ringing on joyous, triumphant, golden,
like the voice of the love that lives beyond disaster and death—Then
he awoke.
It was pitch dark and the thunder of the rain on deck was ceasing.
He lay awake for an hour and then he slept again, only to repeat the
dream.
A little after dawn he awoke with the bells sounding so loudly in
his ears that he could have sworn they were anchored in the bay and
that the cathedral was greeting them with a peal, but he knew by the
movement of the ship that this was not so.
He put his hand into the upper bunk, and taking the treasure bundle
from beneath the mattress, put it in his pocket. Then he came on deck.
The sun had already shewed himself just above the horizon, but the sky
was clouded to southward and rain squalls dimmed the horizon.
S. S. E. and perhaps not more than ten miles away lay Martinique with
Pelée wrapped in ragged and dirty-coloured clouds. He looked like a
king whose robes had gone to tatters till the sun rising more fully,
touched him with gold, and white, and pearl against the deepening blue
of the sky.
Gaspard gazed awhile at this majestic sight. They had not opened the
Bay of St. Pierre yet, but the _Anne Martin_ was already altering her
course and in half an hour or less they would have the bay and city
full in view.
Dominica to eastward lay unclouded, haze-blue upon the morning sea,
beautiful as a dream.
Gaspard, turning from the weather bulwarks on which he had been
leaning, began to cut some tobacco in the palm of his hand and to fill
his pipe. Whilst he was engaged in this business, he heard a hurried
footstep and Skinner came running aft.
The mate darted down the companion-way to the cabin and almost
immediately reappeared with a telescope; after him came Captain Stock,
a pair of marine glasses in his hand.
The two men went forward to the bow. Gaspard followed them. He judged
from their manner that something of interest had hove in sight and he
was not wrong; leaning against the weather bulwarks a little forward
of the foremast, Skinner clapped the glass to his eye and pointed it
at Martinique. Stock raised his binoculars. At that moment, there was
nothing to be seen, for the clouds on Pelée had fanned out and the bay
of St. Pierre was veiled by sheets of sun-dazzled rain, then, against
the vanishing clouds, slowly appeared the stem of a broken arch,
the foot of a rainbow. It passed with the clouds and the sun struck
Martinique.
The sun was high now and it struck the western coast over the
shoulders of Pelée and the mountains; not a cloud lingered upon the
island, except a cloud, a cone of smoke rising from Pelée, yet to
Gaspard as he strained his eyes, it seemed that a thick grey cloud
clung to Pelée from apex to base, clung to St. Pierre, veiling the
coloured houses utterly from sight, and to the whole arc of the bay,
hiding the trees, the triumphant palms, the angelines, the tamarinds.
“My God!” said Skinner. The hand that held the glass was shaking,
his face had become bloodless under its bronze. Captain Stock, the
binoculars still glued to his eyes, was talking rapidly to himself in
an undertone. Gaspard, who could not see as they saw, who could not
understand as they understood, could, yet, comprehend dimly the terror
before him, sunlit, and facing the gem-like sea.
St. Pierre had vanished utterly, Pelée was no longer the verdant
mountain towering triumphantly above the flower-like city; a cone of
dismal ashes smoking to the sky, above a land of dismal ashes, that was
all there was left of that lovely world. And it was all so still, so
peaceful with the peace that hangs over ruins of great antiquity!
Yet, but a few weeks ago, Pelée was youthful with foliage, the
_canotiers_ were paddling in the sapphire bay, the city was waving
its flags to the sun, mirroring its coloured houses in the water. The
children were singing their songs and telling their Tim-Tim in the
streets. The market-place was gay with life, the gardens gay with
colour, the streets with laughter and over all hung the poetry of
eternal summer. And now all that was with Thebes, with Nineveh—a world
of ashes, desolation, silence.
Stock, the Yankee skipper, a man whom few things could move, lowered
the glasses, pressed his left hand tight over his eyes as if they had
been hurt by some painful light and then, leaning over the bulwarks,
became violently sick.
Gaspard, who had seized the glasses from his hand, looked. As he looked
he swayed from side to side as though the vision before him had grasped
him by the shoulders and he was wrestling with it.
Skinner caught him as the glasses fell from his hand. He had fainted
and Diego, with the assistance of another sailor carried him below and
put him in his bunk.
Captain Stock and the mate followed, they loosed his collar and left
him lying whilst they sat down at the saloon table and Diego fetched
them rum.
It was British Navy rum, thirty above proof and it gave them the
stiffening they required.
“It’s that cursed mountain,” said Stock at last. “She’s blown her side
out—must have occurred just after we left Boston or we’d have had news
of it by cable from some of the other islands, sure.”
They rose to go on deck, but before doing so they looked in to see how
Gaspard was doing.
He had recovered consciousness, but he lay like a man dazed after some
terrible accident. His eyes were fixed as if on some form seen only by
himself and on his cheek there were tears.
They spoke to him and he heard, but he made no reply, only a movement
of the hand as though to say, “Let me be.”