Chapter III: Then followed a tedious waiting

At first thought, the situation did not appear very serious. If the _Bon-Pêcheur_ could not get off unassisted, she could easily be drawn into deep water by a few turns of the wheels of a tug. By good fortune the bar on which she had stranded was so hard that there was no fear of those shifting sands, which, now washed away, now washed back again, end by piling themselves up about a boat and holding her fast in their clutch.

In still days one could have slept there a year through without running more danger than in one’s bed; but the Southern sky did not promise settled weather. There was a look that betokened the presence of wind, and, if it should rise, it would bring on a heavy swell in a quarter of an hour, and in that case the _Bon-Pêcheur_ would be rolled about like a cask.

Silvere had gone off in his boat, charged to take the necessary steps to summon a tug from the nearest point possible. It was early morning when he left. They had watched him until he had reached the wharf, and then, from the numbers crowded together on the end of the quay, could tell that the alarm had been given. But now night was approaching. Time enough had passed to account for any ordinary delays, and the men of the _Bon-Pêcheur_, standing about on the deck, watched the sea anxiously.

Florimond was the most impatient of all. Climbing on the gunwale he searched the horizon with his glass. Steamers passed and repassed, staining the sky with their train of smoke, but all held an unchanged course, far away from the _Bon-Pêcheur_. Not one of them looked like a tug, with its gray hull and red band.

At the same time the threatened wind from the south began to rise, and with it came a heavy and laboring swell. Florimond could not contain himself longer. He strode from bow to stern, distracted between the coming danger and the belated succor.

Seated at the foot of the mast, Elise abandoned herself to melancholy thoughts. Although in no way responsible for their running aground, she felt after all an indirect responsibility. It was a wretched beginning of a sailor’s life for her.

She had her arm about Firmin and the two, sister and brother, in their attitude of distress, seemed like shipwrecked mariners. When he cast his eye on them in his restless walk about the deck, Florimond, thinking of the sloop perhaps lost, and of the ruin which he laid at their doors, gave them a surly look of disapprobation. And all the crew, sharing the skipper’s feeling, contemptuously left them alone.

Barnabé was triumphant. He went among the men, exciting them against Elise. Why should they not demand at once that this creature of ill-luck be put ashore. Her nets should be kept to make good the injury of which she had been the cause. As he talked, he turned toward Elise with threatening gestures.

Firmin could not keep down his anger. He freed himself from his sister’s arm and advanced, his little fist clenched.

“Have you not had enough, Barnabé? I will give you as much more as you wish.”

But the landsman knew this time that he was backed by the others. He would risk his revenge. With foot and hand he sent the child reeling heavily against the bulwark. There was a hard dull thud as he struck. Elise sprang to her feet, and ran to her brother’s help. It was the signal for an outburst. The men, mad with anxiety, were by this time ready for anything. They came headlong at Barnabé’s cry.

“Let us make an end of this Lison! She eats our bread! She sends her lover to shipwreck us! Overboard with her!”

And losing their heads at his outcries, full of desire for vengeance, without stopping to think, the sailors closed around their victim, each man involuntarily stretching out his arms to seize her. On her knees, bent forward, Elise hid her pale face between her arms, while she covered Firmin with her body. Then she closed her eyes, to escape the sight at least of death. Her fingers dug themselves into her blouse. She felt herself dragged, then lifted up and carried along; she had a feeling of space, a fear of the yawning gulf. Resigned, without hate and without bitterness, she gave way to her distress and murmured:

“Farewell, dear Firmin, I am going to our father!”

Suddenly she felt herself falling. She struck on the boat’s edge, then, half stunned, fell headlong into the sea. Entangled in the folds of her oilskin dress, she struck out blindly like a drowning cat. It seemed to her as if a gulf opened beneath her, and that brutal laughter and jeering outburst from overhead sought her out and followed her, even under the wave. Her ears hummed, her eyes opened despairingly, the water in her throat strangled her. Then, vaguely, came a supreme desire to live; she was in a last revolt at this wrong of destiny, which forced her to die before her time, and splashing unconsciously, she came to the surface again. It was for an instant only, merely time to draw one more breath of air and life. Then, and this time without hope and nearly without consciousness, she sank under her own weight.

* * * * *

What freshness! what peace! Her temples beat less strongly, and her chest rose and fell quietly, as her breath came and went. Who, then, had seized her and snatched her from nothingness? All her senses came to life again. What was this? Oaths and bad language! _Tonnerre!_ School of sharks! Pirates!

She opened her eyes. She was on the deck, and bending over her a young blond sailor, with eyes like the gray of the skies, and with a pleasant voice, watched her with a respectful admiration.

“Mam’selle Elise, it is I, Chrétien; do you recognize me? The rascals would have drowned you, like a fly in a great cup. I was just in time to save you.”

“Sharks! Pirates!” Then Elise saw Florimond, armed with a grapnel, striking right and left among the sailors. Near her, by the side of the unconscious Firmin, she discovered Barnabé stretched senseless, his forehead slashed with blood.

“Firmin, my child!”

At that instant, at a sinister whistling in the rigging, there was a sudden outburst.

“The wind! It is coming to destroy us!”

Elise raised herself. Tottering still, she kept her feet by a strong effort of will. With an uncertain step she reached Firmin, collected all her energies, and, finding her strength come back as she put it to the test, raised the boy in her arms and carried him to the forecastle. There she put him into a bunk, covered him warmly, and tucked him in well. Then, dripping still, without waiting to put on dry clothes, without taking breath even, she hurried back, to be ready for anything in facing this new assault of death.

A great wave was advancing at frightful speed, threatening to engulf the sloop under its mass. Its crest, white with spray, was hardly a hundred fathoms away. The sailors ran to and fro, arms in air like crazy men, except Florimond, who, counting only on the jigger, held himself ready.

“A man to the helm! Keep to starboard!”

Whoever took the tiller would meet all the force of the wave. What of that! Elise ran forward.

“No, not the girl! _Tonnerre!_ She is too weak in the arms.”

But the wave was now not more than twenty fathoms away. There was no time for hesitation. Elise stayed at her post.

“Hold hard! _Tonnerre!_”

The sailors clung desperately to the ropes. The wave broke over them.

“Courage, Lison, port, port! _Tonnerre!_”

With all the strength of her muscles, with all her might and main, Elise threw her weight on the tiller. The sloop careened in a mad plunge, as if she was lying down to die. The masts almost touched the water. Everything rolled about the deck, the flying rigging, the ropes, and the body of Barnabé. The men were up to their waists in water. Elise kept her footing. Then a new uproar! Everything again afloat! The sloop righted, careened, plunged! A blow harder than any yet drove her forward. As she righted, she lay on an even keel. She was afloat. “Hoist all sail!” As if giddy with joy, swept onward in safety by the wind, the _Bon-Pêcheur_ darted forward, forgetting all past dangers.

Proud of her flowing sail she was off, weathering buoys and beacons, coming about according to the currents. She had such a frenzy of speed that she hardly saw the tug, which was soon far astern. It came too late with its gray hull and red band, and see-sawing on its paddles, kept on its course to find the wreck that was a wreck no longer.

And presently, the _Bon-Pêcheur_, having passed all present danger, ran northward before the wind under full sail.

Behind her the Bay of Somme was no more than a white speck. The dunes of St. Quentin and those of Berck melted into a blue line. The heights of Etaples and the cliffs of Boulogne appeared and disappeared in their turn, then the sands of Gris-Nez and then--nothing more, nothing but the sea which, now lighted by the rays of the setting sun, soon grew dark under the shadows of night.

When she saw the Channel behind them and danger at end, Elise left the tiller to return to the forecastle, where she could be with Firmin. The boy had recovered consciousness. He had no wound. The shock of the blow alone had upset him.

If a sailor has a little fever, he is badly off in his close and ill-ventilated quarters under deck. They are but one great room, occupied in common. Eating, drinking, and cooking go on there, and roundabout gape the sleeping bunks. There is no air. Daylight comes only through the opening to the deck. The hatch serves at once as a door and a window. When the weather is bad it must be closed, and nothing can be worse than the air in that confined little place. It is flavored with fish chowder, soiled clothes, grilled onions, and tobacco smoke. Seated about on their chests, some of the sailors manage their potato soup and fish between two whiffs of a pipe, while, in the bunks, those who have the next watch are sleeping two by two.

Ordinarily at this time, one hears nothing but the noise of eating and the snoring of the sleepers. When he is not working the sailor is little of a talker. But on this night, at each roll, a groan broke the half silence. It came from Barnabé, who had been picked up half dead, and put in the last bunk, to get well or die, as his lot might be.

Never be ill on a fishing-boat. A plank without mattress or coverings makes a hard bed. Sailors have kind hearts, but it is a matter of pride with them to appear insensible to suffering of their own or of others. And for the dolorous moans of a wounded man they have no more ears than for the lamentations of an old woman. It is a tradition among them that a man should die without making a noise.

Elise felt otherwise. She was a woman, and, though fate had made her take up a man’s work, she was born, like other women, to nurse and to heal. She was stirred to the bottom of her heart at each wail of the wounded man, whose condition she could imagine. They had slipped the unhappy wretch, without giving him further attention, into a bunk in which ordinarily two men slept together to keep each other warm, and there he rolled about at the caprice of the waves. The blow of the grapnel, which the skipper had dealt him, had laid his forehead open, and the pitching of the sloop kept his wound raw by grinding it against the plank.

Twenty times had Elise wished to run to his help, but Firmin’s hand was in hers, and he held her fast at every attempt.

“You are not kind, Firmin. I will not be gone long. You are molly-coddled. You have only to go to sleep. It is Barnabé’s turn to be helped.”

“No, he has been too hateful to you. Your helping him will not prevent his making you wretched.”

But a rougher blow made the boat shake, and a more heartrending wail came from the last bunk. Elise freed her hand.

“Let me go, Firmin, I do not love you when you are selfish.”

She went directly to the bunk where Barnabé lay groaning. Nothing could be seen in that dark hole. She called for help. It was Chrétien who came--Chrétien, the young blond with the pleasant voice.

“Hurry, Mam’selle Elise. It will be your watch soon, and you have not slept.”

“One should think of the sick before one’s self.”

“If you will let me, I will take your watch. A man runs less risk.”

“Thanks, Chrétien, I am not afraid of the fatigue, but I will change my watch with you from necessity. I can be useful here. Bring a light quickly.”

Chrétien lighted a candle stuck in the neck of a bottle. By its gleam Elise made out the wounded man, who was rolling from side to side, his mouth open, his lips dry.

Without loss of time she set to work, heart and soul. Going to the bunk, she mopped up the blood from the boards, and hurried for her bags and bundles, which she brought to wedge Barnabé in. She improvised compresses, and made a bandage and put it on. Then she took the largest bowl, filled it with warm water and rum, and carefully lifted it to the wounded man’s mouth. At the refreshing odor he opened his eyes, sought the drink with eager lips and, his thirst quenched, fell back, throwing at Elise a long look of recognition.

At the same moment came whistling through the hatch a blast of fresh air, which whirled about the heavy vapors of the place and, passing over the candles, put them out, one after another.

“It is pleasant down here, my lads. On deck a wind to skin the devil.”

And notwithstanding the darkness, Florimond, from old acquaintance with the place, went from bunk to bunk to wake the men of the next watch.

“Come! Time for the relief. It is the others’ turn for the chowder.”

The men shook themselves and stretched their legs. When they had groped about and found their oilskin hats, they made their way among the boxes, and went out through a new inrush of fresh air.

The others came from the deck to take their places. The hatch was shut again, the candles lighted, and Florimond, seeing Elise, clapped her roughly on the shoulder.

“You are a fine sailor! Without the help of us both, the sloop would have wallowed like a dead whale. They did not despise you then, those fellows. It was an ugly moment, all the same.”

And without further words, happy in the assurance of duty done and a dinner earned, Florimond sat himself down on the chest by the side of Elise, the jug of cider between his feet and the foaming bowl on his knees. Soup tastes better when it has been well earned.

Chap. 3.]