“Hi! come now, my little friends! the order has been given that all
lights on this vessel are to be put out. Blow out your light, if you
please.”
They blew out the lamp, and I heard them laugh and chatter in whispers
in the dark like school-children. I began again to walk up and down
alone on my deck, smoking my pipe. All the stars of the tropics were at
their posts, as big as little moons. I looked at them, and breathed in
air which felt fresh and pleasant.
I said to myself that the good little things had certainly guessed the
truth, and I was quite cheered up by this. It was indeed to be wagered
that one of the five Directors had changed his mind and recommended
them to me; I didn’t very well explain to myself why, for there are
affairs of state that I for my part have never understood; but, in
short, I believed it, and, without knowing why, I was satisfied.
I went down to my room, and went to look at the letter under my old
uniform coat. It had a different face: it seemed to me to laugh, and
its seals looked rose-coloured. I no longer doubted its good nature,
and made it a little signal of friendship.
In spite of that, I put my coat back on the top of it; it worried me.
We never thought of looking at it at all for some days, and we were
cheerful; but, when we approached the first degree of latitude, we
began to stop talking.
One fine morning, I woke rather surprised at feeling no motion in the
ship. To tell the truth, I always sleep with one eye open, as they say,
and, as I missed the rolling, I opened them both. We had fallen on a
dead calm, and it was below the first degree of north latitude, at the
27th of longitude. I put my nose above deck: the sea was as smooth as
a bowl of oil; all the spread sails were fallen, clinging to the masts
like empty balloons. I said at once: “Come, I shall have time to read
you!” looking sideways in the direction of the letter. I waited till
evening, at sunset. However, it had to be done: I opened the clock, and
hastily pulled out the sealed order.--Well, my dear fellow, I held it
in my hands for a quarter of an hour, without being able to read it. At
last I said to myself: “This is too much!” and I broke the three seals
with my thumb; and, as for the big red seal, I ground it into dust.
After I had read I rubbed my eyes, thinking I had made a mistake.
I re-read the whole letter; I re-read it again; I began once more
taking the last line and going back to the first. I didn’t believe
it. My legs were shaking under me a little, I sat down; I had a sort
of quivering on the skin of my face; I rubbed my cheeks a little with
rum, I put some in the hollow of my hands, I pitied myself for being so
foolish; but it only lasted a moment; I went up to get some air.
Laurette was so pretty that day, that I didn’t wish to go near her:
she had a little white frock, quite plain, her arms bare to the neck,
and her long hair loose as she always wore it. She was amusing herself
with dipping her other dress into the sea at the end of a string, and
laughed as she tried to catch the sea-wrack, a plant that looks like
bunches of grapes, and floats on the water in the tropics.
“Do come and see the grapes! come quickly!” she was crying; and her
lover leaned on her and bent down, and did not look at the water, for
he was looking at her very tenderly.
I signed to the young man to come and speak to me on the quarter-deck.
She turned round. I don’t know what I looked like, but she let her
string fall; she seized him violently by the arm, and said:
“Oh! don’t go, he is quite pale.”
That might well be; there was something to be pale about. Nevertheless
he came to me on the quarter-deck; she looked at us, leaning against
the mainmast. For a long time we walked up and down without saying
anything. I was smoking a cigar which seemed to me bitter, and I spat
it into the water. His eye followed me; I took his arm; I was choking,
truly, on my word of honour! I was choking.
“Let us see!” I said to him at last, “tell me now, my little friend,
tell me a little of your history. What the devil have you done to those
dogs of lawyers who are there like five bits of a king? It seems that
they are mightily angry with you! It’s strange!”
He shrugged his shoulders, inclining his head (with such a gentle look,
poor fellow!), and said:
“On my soul! captain, nothing much, after all: three verses of a ballad
on the Directory, that’s all.”
“Impossible!!” I said.
“On my soul, yes! The verses weren’t even very good. I was arrested on
the 15th of Fructidor and taken to La Force, tried on the 16th, and
condemned to death at first, then to transportation as a favour.”
“Strange!” I said. “The Directors are very touchy fellows: for that
letter you know of orders me to shoot you.”
He did not answer, and smiled, keeping his countenance pretty well for
a young man of nineteen. He only looked at his wife, and wiped his
brow, from which drops of sweat were falling. I had as much at least on
my face, and drops of another kind in my eyes.