Everywhere the sea, but not everywhere fish. During the five days
that they had been on the grounds, a hundred land miles north of
Scotland, the _Bon-Pêcheur_ had spread her nets in vain. She had cast
them to right and left, she had followed up boats which were on the
grounds before her, but in whatever place, at whatever depth they
were stretched, they had caught nothing but the worthless white-nose
herring, who travel in small companies.
It was the black noses that they were after. They are the true
travellers. There are millions in a single school.
The herring often reveals his presence by his peculiar odor, by his
oily trail, and by his peeping and chirping, for he makes a noise like
that of rain falling on water. The _Bon-Pêcheur_ had neither seen nor
heard anything.
Florimond was in despair. He kept the men putting out and taking in
the nets without cessation. On a stretch many thousand feet long they
would take nothing but a hundred white noses; those bony troublers
of the nets who were not worth salting. The men became unreasonable,
and showed their disappointment by their negligence and by their
carelessness at work. They wished to go further north. Perhaps the
fish were belated. It would be better to go to meet them than to wait.
Florimond would not yield. They were in the latitude where the herring
showed themselves every year at this time. They would see them if they
kept a sharp lookout. The men were not convinced, and the longer their
search proved useless, the less hesitation had they in showing their
discontent.
Elise, on the other hand, displayed great zeal in backing Florimond in
this fight against bad luck. She won in this way the ill-will of the
crew, who accused her, without ceasing, of flattering the skipper and
encouraging him in his obstinacy. First and foremost with her was duty.
She would never allow Firmin to hesitate to obey an order. Often when
she found him dilatory, or kicking at the sailors’ taunts, she would
coax him back to obedience and good humor, two things which a sailor
should never lack.
When she had a chance, she looked after Barnabé. At first she had taken
the time from sleep to watch him. When she was not free herself, when
she was on duty, she sent Firmin to see if the wounded man needed drink
or to have his wound dressed.
The lad, less forgetful of injuries, lent himself with a bad grace to
these generous actions. Elise scolded him, and tried to punish him by a
severe look, but she was quickly disarmed before his square face, which
took on a comic pretence of being frightened at her reproof.
In fact, without Elise, Barnabé would have died of neglect. In his
overworked life the sailor cannot take care of his fellows, since
he has all he can do to find time for eating and sleeping. But as
Florimond said, women know how to spin out the time, and for Elise the
moments seemed to stop short, so much care did she give him and so
heartily.
Barnabé knew what it cost her, for thanks to her and his strong
constitution he was nearly well. He had not yet been on deck, but was
about the forecastle, which he filled with his sonorous voice. When
his companions came in be seized on them and called them to witness
the merits of Elise. He praised her with the same violence with which
he had slandered her, never failing to exclaim that she was worth the
whole crew, skipper included. He had heard them tell how she had taken
the helm when they were aground, and he did not hesitate to declare to
every one that without her they would have been biting the sands at the
bottom of the sea.
He said so much and said it so noisily, this brawling Barnabé, that
Florimond became impatient of hearing it, and was offended at seeing
his authority as skipper weighed in the balance against the prestige of
a young girl. They would be saying next that Elise alone had saved the
boat. Child as she was, would she have been able to withstand such a
blow had he not softened the shock by his play of the jigger-sail, at
the risk of being carried away with the canvas?
He would not acknowledge it to himself, but he was jealous at
witnessing this growing reputation of a stranger on his own boat. He
took care that Elise should not be on duty when there was a chance
for her to show her courage or strength. He affected to consider her a
weak and feeble creature, in order to belittle her in her standing as a
sailor. He spoke to her in a tone of fatherly consideration.
“You do not sulk over the work, Lise, but you have not strength for it.
It is not to be expected that you should. It would be unreasonable to
demand as much work from you as from the others.”
“But, Cousin Florimond, do I not work hard enough? I try to let no one
see a difference.”
“I do not say no, but a strong arm cannot be had by wishing. A woman
has never a man’s strength.”
Elise revolted against this undeserved censure. She turned pale and the
tears rushed to her eyes, but she held them back that no one might see
her trouble.
“Do you think I have been a failure through lack of strength, cousin?
What will become of me, if you do not stand my friend?”
Florimond was a better man than appearances made him out. He had the
highest opinion of Elise, but he did not wish it to be seen by the
crew, and, embarrassed at his own injustice, he broke off his talk
abruptly.
“Come, Lise! Talking is not everything, we must work. The nets must be
set, it is the slack of the tide.”
The quarter of an hour of rest which the sea takes at the changing
of the tide comes, in that open sea, two hours after it comes on the
coast. It is the best time for fishing, for there is no movement of
the water, nothing to sweep the fish from the net.
The almanac announced the slack for that morning at nine o’clock. It
was then six. It was high time to begin their preparations.
The soundings showed conditions that the herring fancy; forty fathoms
of water over a bed of gravel. The breeze was favorable. Though very
light, it had kept up fairly fresh since the last squall. The sea was
not quite smooth, and yet had not enough swell to trouble the fish. It
was after the full moon and, according to all signs, the fish ought to
swim high.
Florimond took a sharp look at the weather and, having taken counsel of
his experience, gave out his orders with the full force of his lungs.
“Come then, my lads, all on deck. Get the floats ready.”
These floats are barrels to which the net is fastened when it is set.
Around the middle of each are some ten turns of rope of a fathom’s
length each, and this is let out or taken up according as it is desired
that the net shall lie high or low in the sea to intercept the fish.
Overhauling the floats is the first thing to be done. They are brought
from where they are stored, their ropes are arranged at the proper
length, and they are piled up on deck to be at hand the moment they are
needed.
But one would have said that the skipper had not been heard. Elise
alone stepped forward. All the other hands stayed in the forecastle,
silent and motionless, as if they were obeying a command.
Nevertheless the hatch was half open, and there was nothing to prevent
his voice reaching those for whom it was meant. Florimond repeated his
order in a rough tone. He was not more successful than before. Then
he ran to the hatch, and with a blow of his foot forced it wide open.
Bending over the gaping hole, and making a trumpet of his two hands, he
shouted with all the strength of his lungs:
“Do you hear me, deaf ears? All on deck! Get the floats out!”
His shout resounded menacingly; the boarding of the forecastle
vibrated; but the men did not move.
“Have a care! I am going for a marline-spike; I will warm your legs, if
you are frozen there! Have a care! _Tonnerre!_”
Then there was a movement in the place, a noise of words rapidly
interchanged in a low tone, and of steps coming from all sides. One by
one, silently, mechanically, as if moved by the same thought, the men
climbed the hatchway ladder and massed themselves on the deck, firm,
resolute, all crying at the same time:
“There is no use in fishing here any longer. You are making us lose the
season. We wish to go north.”
Florimond was not the man to allow himself to be intimidated, young
as he was. He was barely twenty-five, but he overawed them all by his
tall figure and his powerful bearing. He had been a sailor since his
earliest youth. He had a trained eye and sound judgment on everything
connected with the sea. He had the reputation of being one of the best
skippers on their coast, and proud of his standing, no threats could
make him flinch before a sailor. The men knew him well, and knew that
he could hold his own alone against a dozen of them. He looked them
over from head to foot, and said haughtily:
“You know the orders; get the floats ready. Two fathoms of rope.”
“No, we will not set the nets, unless further north.”
“_Tonnerre!_ Get the floats, or I will take you back to port. There you
can explain your reasons to the Commissaire of Marines.”
The sailors looked at one another. Chrétien, the most timid, began to
hesitate. The others seized him and forced him back into the ranks.
“We will duck you, if you turn traitor.”
Elise stepped toward him.
“Come, Chrétien. A sailor’s ear should hear the captain’s orders.”
He seemed bewildered. He wavered, and his glance went from his comrades
to Florimond, as if demanding direction or counsel. All at once he
shook his shoulders, stuck out his elbows, and throwing off the hands
that tried to hold him back, ran forward to obey.
For some time Elise had been looking for Firmin. She saw him at last,
sheltered behind a group of big fellows, and divined by his frowning
brow and his fixed glance that he was in sympathy with the mutinous
steps of his companions. With a bound she was at his side. She took
him by the shoulder and drew him away with a movement of maternal
authority, at the same time vigorous and wheedling. But the little man
was intoxicated by the air of insubordination which was about the deck.
He struggled with all the freedom of his obstinate soul, for he did
not wish any one to think him a coward. When a man is one of a crew he
should share with them all that comes, good and bad alike.
Elise saw his frowns. And, though he was so amusing, in his
determination to mutiny, she was troubled. She picked him up in her
arms, and, pressing him to her breast to prevent his striking her,
stemmed his cries, as they came from his mouth, with a kiss. Then she
carried him to the very stern of the boat, where Chrétien was waiting.
“Oh, the traitors!” cried the sailors.
But, disconcerted by these gaps in their ranks, they broke apart and
grumblingly set to work.
Florimond instantly recovered his paternal ways.
“I know that you are more wrinkled outside than in. Your hearts are
good, if your faces are bad. Down with the jib. Furl the jigger-sail.”
At a stroke, in the bows and at the stern, the sails were reefed to
give room for work. The time had come to get the nets in shape.
The nets are great strips of meshes fastened together in such a way as
to extend without end. A thick, strong hawser stretches their whole
length, to which they are tied and by which they are lifted. Thus made
fast they drop into the sea like a great partition, or rather like an
open-work barrier across the way, whose meshes are large or small
according to the fish they are intended to catch. They let him pass
half way through, holding him at the swelling of the belly. If he tries
to back out, his scales hold him fast. Try as he may to free himself,
the fish in the net is a prisoner.
And this wall of netting can be stretched for a league. It is left
in the sea a longer or shorter time, according to the weather. As
the breeze was soft and the sea smooth, the skipper wished to take
advantage of the calm to try every chance. He ordered that all the nets
should be set. It was a fortune which he was trusting to the sea.
“Come, my lads,” he cried, “this time I have an idea that we shall not
pull them up empty.”
The day came out warm. At this season, by this hour in the morning,
the sun is already high. Its rays beat as hardly as at noon. A heavy
atmosphere weighed on men and things. The work seemed particularly
fatiguing to the sailors on the _Bon-Pêcheur_. Setting the nets is,
besides, at all times, a long and fatiguing task, which keeps the men
working breathlessly for two hours. The boat moves at the speed of a
knot and a half, and the nets must be all ready to be thrown over as
she goes.
A part of the crew is stationed at the stern, and each man has his
special task. Three or four of them draw out the nets from where they
are stored, passing them from hand to hand to untangle them, and to
clear, where they occur along their length at short distances, the
cords which fasten them to the hawser. Thus disentangled the nets are
carried to the boatswain, who is the soul of the work.
He has no time to amuse himself--the boatswain. While the nets are
drawn by him on the right, the hawser, unrolled on his left, is drawn
by a cabin boy, and to this he ties the cords as fast as they appear.
He is the centre of action. But this day every one seemed lazy.
Firmin, who handled the hawser, passed it along slowly. Chrétien, who
was boatswain, showed more languor than was natural. He seemed, by the
slowness of his work, to wish to recover the standing which he had lost
among the men, and to please his comrades he assumed their careless
ways.
Florimond had at first tried to arouse their sleeping energy, but
he ran against a wall of inertia, and seeing that a bad feeling was
springing up, avoided any action which would bring it to a head. He had
resigned himself to see the work badly done, and to say nothing.
Elise, on the other hand, was consumed with impatience. She was not
one of the first set of workers, and waited on deck for the time to
change shifts. Amid all this bungling it made her especially wretched
to see Firmin act like the rest. In vain did she whisper in his ear
encouragement, reproaches, prayers. She was depressed to find, in the
lad she loved so well, such an obstinate resistance.
The hawser and the nets were payed out so much more slowly than the
boat sailed, that they were dragged at the risk of tearing them. They,
too, seemed impatient at the men’s slowness.
Nothing could be more painful to see than this lack of accord between
the sloop and the work. Excited and nervous, Elise could not restrain
herself longer. She ran to Chrétien and pushed him aside.
“Go! You have no right to set an example of a bad workman.”
Then she took his place.
“Come, Firmin, hurry, my little man. Quick, the boat will not wait.”
And setting vigorously to work, waking up the sailors, she seized the
cords as they flew past, and tied them to the hawser without stopping
an instant. All her figure was alive and in action, as her hands
worked. And the nets now went overboard in keeping with the boat’s
speed.
Then there was a _furor_ of work on the deck. Everything was forgotten,
the heaviness of the atmosphere, the recent discouragement, the spirit
of insubordination. All were hurrying to and fro in their enthusiasm.
Florimond only had a feeling of bitterness and gloom. He saw that there
was a stronger power than his on the boat. He was now no more than half
skipper.