That night the weather changed completely. When Coqueville awoke the
following day an unclouded sun was shining; the sea spread out without
a wrinkle, like a great piece of green satin. And it was warm, one of
those pale glows of autumn.
First of the village, La Queue had risen, still clouded from the dreams
of the night. He kept looking for a long time toward the sea, to the
right, to the left. At last, with a sour look, he said that he must in
any event satisfy M. Mouchel. And he went away at once with Tupain and
Brisemotte, threatening Margot to touch up her sides if she did not walk
straight. As the “Zéphir” left the harbor, and as he saw the “Baleine”
swinging heavily at her anchor, he cheered up a little saying: “To-day,
I guess, not a bit of it! Blow out the candle, Jeanetton! those
gentlemen have gone to bed!”
And as soon as the “Zéphir” had reached the open sea, La Queue cast his
nets. After that he went to visit his “jambins.” The jambins are a kind
of elongated eel-pot in which they catch more, especially lobsters and
red garnet. But in spite of the calm sea, he did well to visit his
jambins one by one. All were empty; at the bottom of the last one, as
if in mockery, he found a little mackerel, which he threw back angrily
into the sea. It was fate; there were weeks like that when the fish
flouted Coqueville, and always at a time when M. Mouchel had expressed
a particular desire for them. When La Queue drew in his nets, an hour
later, he found nothing but a bunch of seaweed. Straightway he swore,
his fists clenched, raging so much the more for the vast serenity of the
ocean, lazy and sleeping like a sheet of burnished silver under the
blue sky. The “Zéphir,” without a waver, glided along in gentle ease. La
Queue decided to go in again, after having cast his nets once more. In
the afternoon he came to see them, and he menaced God and the saints,
cursing in abominable words. In the meanwhile, Rouget, Fouasse, and
Delphin kept on sleeping. They did not succeed in standing up until
the dinner hour. They recollected nothing, they were conscious only of
having been treated to something extraordinary, something which they
did not understand. In the afternoon, as they were all three down at the
harbor, the Emperor tried to question them concerning the liquor, now
that they had recovered their senses. It was like, perhaps, eau-de-vie
with liquorice-juice in it; or rather one might say rum, sugared and
burned. They said “Yes”; they said “No.” From their replies, the
Emperor suspected that it was ratafia; but he would not have sworn to
it. That day Rouget and his men had too many pains in their sides to
go a-fishing. Moreover, they knew that La Queue had gone out without
success that morning, and they talked of waiting until the next day
before visiting their jambins. All three of them, seated on blocks
of stone, watched the tide come in, their backs rounded, their mouths
clammy, half-asleep.
But suddenly Delphin woke up; he jumped on to the stone, his eyes on the
distance, crying: “Look, Boss, off there!”
“What?” asked Rouget, who stretched his limbs.
“A cask.”
Rouget and Fouasse were at once on their feet, their eyes gleaming,
sweeping the horizon.
“Where is it, lad? Where is the cask?” repeated the boss, greatly moved.
“Off there--to the left--that black spot.”
The others saw nothing. Then Rouget swore an oath. “Nom de Dieu!”
He had just spotted the cask, big as a lentil on the white water in a
slanting ray of the setting sun. And he ran to the “Baleine,” followed
by Delphin and Fouasse, who darted forward tapping their backs with
their heels and making the pebbles roll.
The “Baleine” was just putting out from the harbor when the news that
they saw a cask out at sea was circulated in Coqueville. The children,
the women, began to run. They shouted: “A cask! a cask!”
“Do you see it? The current is driving it toward Grandport.”
“Ah, yes! on the left--a cask! Come, quick!”
And Coqueville came; tumbled down from its rock; the children arrived
head over heels, while the women picked up their skirts with both hands
to descend quickly. Soon the entire village was on the beach as on the
night before.
Margot showed herself for an instant, then she ran back at full speed to
the house, where she wished to forestall her father, who was discussing
an official process with the Emperor. At last La Queue appeared. He was
livid; he said to the _garde champêtre_: “Hold your peace! It’s Rouget
who has sent you here to beguile me. Well, then, he shall not get it.
You’ll see!”
When he saw the “Baleine,” three hundred metres out, making with all her
oars toward the black dot, rocking in the distance, his fury redoubled.
And he shoved Tupain and Brisemotte into the “Zéphir,” and he pulled out
in turn, repeating: “No, they shall not have it; I’ll die sooner!”
Then Coqueville had a fine spectacle; a mad race between the “Zéphir”
and the “Baleine.” When the latter saw the first leave the harbor, she
understood the danger, and shot off with all her speed. She may have
been four hundred metres ahead; but the chances remained even, for the
“Zéphir” was otherwise light and swift; so excitement was at its height
on the beach. The Mahès and the Floches had instinctively formed into
two groups, following eagerly the vicissitudes of the struggle, each
upholding its own boat. At first the “Baleine” kept her advantage, but
as soon as the “Zéphir” spread herself, they saw that she was gaining
little by little. The “Baleine” made a supreme effort and succeeded
for a few minutes in holding her distance. Then the “Zéphir” once more
gained upon the “Baleine,” came up with her at extraordinary speed.
From that moment on, it was evident that the two barks would meet in
the neighborhood of the cask. Victory hung on a circumstance, on the
slightest mishap.
“The ‘Baleine’! The ‘baleine’!” cried the Mahés.
But they soon ceased shouting. When the “Baleine” was almost touching
the cask, the “Zéphir,” by a bold maneuvre, managed to pass in front of
her and throw the cask to the left, where La Queue harpooned it with a
thrust of the boat-hook.
“The ‘Zéphir’! the ‘Zéphir!” screamed the Floches.
And the Emperor, having spoken of foul play, big words were exchanged.
Margot clapped her hands. The Abbé Radiguet came down with his breviary,
made a profound remark which abruptly calmed the people, and then threw
them into consternation.
“They will, perhaps, drink it all, these, too,” he murmured with a
melancholy air.
At sea, between the “Baleine” and the “Zéphir,” a violent quarrel broke
out. Rouget called La Queue a thief, while the latter called Rouget a
good-for-nothing. The men even took up their oars to beat each other
down, and the adventure lacked little of turning into a naval combat.
More than this, they engaged to meet on land, showing their fists and
threatening to disembowel each other as soon as they found each other
again.
“The rascal!” grumbled Rouget. “You know, that cask is bigger than the
one of yesterday. It’s yellow, this one--it ought to be great.” Then
in accents of despair: “Let’s go and see the jambins; there may very
possibly be lobsters in them.”
And the “Baleine” went on heavily to the left, steering toward the
point.
In the “Zëphir,” La Queue had to get in a passion in order to hold
Tupain and Brisemotte from the cask. The boat-hook, in smashing a hoop,
had made a leaking for the red liquid, which the two men tasted from the
ends of their fingers and which they found exquisite. One might easily
drink a glass without its producing much effect. But La Queue would not
have it. He caulked the cask and declared that the first who sucked it
should have a talk with him. On land, they would see.
“Then,” asked Tupain, sullenly, “are we going to draw out the jambins?”
“Yes, right away; there is no hurry!” replied La Queue.
He also gazed lovingly at the barrel. He felt his limbs melt with
longing to go in at once and taste it. The fish bored him.
“Bah!” said he at the end of a silence. “Let’s go back, for it’s late.
We will return to-morrow.” And he was relaxing his fishing when he
noticed another cask at his right, this one very small, and which stood
on end, turning on itself like a top. That was the last straw for the
nets and the jambins. No one even spoke of them any longer. The “Zéphir”
gave chase to the little barrel, which was caught very easily.
During this time a similar adventure overtook the “Baleine.” After
Rouget had already visited five jambins completely empty, Delphin,
always on the watch, cried out that he saw something. But it did not
have the appearance of a cask, it was too long.
“It’s a beam,” said Fouasse.
Rouget let fall his sixth jambin without drawing it out of the water.
“Let’s go and see, all the same,” said he.
As they advanced, they thought they recognized at first a beam, a chest,
the trunk of a tree. Then they gave a cry of joy.
It was a real cask, but a very queer cask, such as they had never seen
before. One would have said a tube, bulging in the middle and closed at
the two ends by a layer of plaster.
“Ah, that’s comical!” cried Rouget, in rapture. “This one I want the
Emperor to taste. Come, children, let’s go in.”
They all agreed not to touch it, and the “Baleine” returned to
Coqueville at the same moment as the “Zéphir,” in its turn, anchored in
the little harbor. Not one inquisitive had left the beach. Cries of joy
greeted that unexpected catch of three casks. The _gamins_ hurled their
caps into the air, while the women had at once gone on the run to
look for glasses. It was decided to taste the liquid on the spot. The
wreckage belonged to the village. Not one protest arose. Only they
formed into two groups, the Mahés surrounded Rouget, the Floches would
not let go of La Queue.
“Emperor, the first glass for you!” cried Rouget. “Tell us what it is.”
The liquor was of a beautiful golden yellow. The _garde champêtre_
raised his glass, looked at it, smelt it, then decided to drink.
“That comes from Holland,” said he, after a long silence.
He did not give any other information. All the Mahés drank with
deference. It was rather thick, and they stood surprised, for it tasted
of flowers. The women found it very good. As for the men, they would
have preferred less sugar. Nevertheless, at the bottom it ended by being
strong at the third or fourth glass. The more they drank, the better
they liked it. The men became jolly, the women grew funny.
But the Emperor, in spite of his recent quarrels with the Mayor, had
gone to hang about the group of Floches.
The biggest cask gave out a dark-red liquor, while they drew from the
smallest a liquid white as water from the rock; and it was this latter
that was the stiff est, a regular pepper, something that skinned the
tongue.
Not one of the Floches recognized it, neither the red nor the white.
There were, however, some wags there. It annoyed them to be regaling
themselves without knowing over what.
“I say, Emperor, taste that for me!” said La Queue, thus taking the
first step.
The Emperor, who had been waiting for the invitation, posed once more as
connoisseur.
“As for the red,” he said, “there is orange in that! And for the white,”
he declared, “that--that is excellent!”
They had to content themselves with these replies, for he shook his
head with a knowing air, with the happy look of a man who has given
satisfaction to the world.
The Abbé Radiguet, alone, did not seem convinced. As for him, he had the
names on the tip of his tongue; and to thoroughly reassure himself, he
drank small glasses, one after the other, repeating: “Wait, wait, I know
what it is. In a moment I will tell you.”
In the mean while, little by little, merriment grew in the group of the
Mahés and the group of the Floches. The latter, particularly, laughed
very loud because they had mixed the liquors, a thing that excited them
the more. For the rest, the one and the other of the groups kept
apart. They did not offer each other of their casks, they simply cast
sympathetic glances, seized with the unavowed desire to taste their
neighbor’s liquor, which might possibly be better. The inimical
brothers, Tupain and Fouasse, were in close proximity all the evening
without showing their fists. It was remarked, also, that Rouget and
his wife drank from the same glass. As for Margot, she distributed the
liquor among the Floches, and as she filled the glasses too full, and
the liquor ran over her fingers, she kept sucking them continually,
so well that, though obeying her father who forbade her to drink, she
became as fuddled as a girl in vintage time. It was not unbecoming to
her; on the contrary, she got rosy all over, her eyes were like candles.
The sun set, the evening was like the softness of springtime. Coqueville
had finished the casks and did not dream of going home to dine. They
found themselves too comfortable on the beach. When it was pitch
night, Margot, sitting apart, felt some one blowing on her neck. It was
Delphin, very gay, walking on all fours, prowling behind her like a
wolf. She repressed a cry so as not to awaken her father, who would have
sent Delphin a kick in the back.
“Go away, imbecile!” she murmured, half angry, half laughing; “you will
get yourself caught!”