Chapter VI

The _flambart_ which Florimond had seen to leeward of the _Bon-Pêcheur_ was not a coaster. It was a boat from some port of Escaut in search of herring, but it was manned by one of those mongrel crews, who are less anxious to live by their own work than by stealing.

The skipper, an old pirate who had sailed to the four quarters of the world, did not lack boldness nor skill. He had a quick eye, could read the weather better than any one, and managed his boat with singular dexterity. No one knew as well as he how to take up his neighbor’s nets during the night, shake out the sparkling fish into his bins, and return the nets empty to the sea. When he did not find the fish sufficient booty, he did not hesitate to keep nets also, from which he cut off enormous pieces.

Like the porpoise he was most active in bad weather, and to assist his thieving, profited by all the treachery of the sea. As soon as he saw the fog coming, he tacked about in such a fashion that, at the moment of his disappearance in the mist, he should be lying to at the further end of the _Bon-Pêcheur’s_ nets.

At this very moment the small boat came alongside the float next to the last. The four sailors and the boy had finished their work of overhauling, without any suspicion of the danger which was coming down from the north upon them. They had seen the _flambart_ and had kept an eye on it, without suspecting it of evil intentions. But, the moment they were imprisoned in the fog, all five of them alike had an intuition of the truth, and laid their heads together.

They could no longer make out the smallest object, for everything was blotted from sight. Their hollow voices took on a strange resonance in this thick mist, but their eyes and ears became quickly accustomed to its unreality, and their discussion was as much to the point, as animated and as terse, as if in full sunlight.

Was it necessary to remain there on guard against the thief? They would risk being crushed under the bow of the _flambart_. Delay itself in the midst of such a fog would be dangerous. The two big fellows opposed with all their might any such step. They did not own any share in the nets, but had leased theirs for the season. Consequently, they had less interest in defending them.

Chrétien, always good-natured, yielded; but Firmin would not. His nets and those of his sister were there. He would not allow a single mesh to be stolen, if he had to mount guard all alone astride of a float.

The old sailor owned nets, and he, too, held that the boat should remain on guard. The fog would probably lessen. Fogs like this, at the end of June, passed in whiffs, like a puff of tobacco smoke.

All five of them heard the blasts of horns blown to guide them back, but these notes of alarm reached them from the four quarters of the horizon. In which direction should they go? By listening intently they made out in the line of the nets a note far distant and rhythmic; one would have said that it was the name of the _Bon-Pêcheur_ which the fog repeated.

“Turn, Chrétien!” and the big fellows dug their oars into the water.

“No!” and the old sailor and Firmin clung desperately to the cask.

Chrétien hesitated between the two, but the calls of the _Bon-Pêcheur_ became more frequent, more plaintive, more pressing.

“Chrétien, bring the boat around, or we will strike”; and standing up the two big fellows lifted their oars ready for a blow. Chrétien, easily persuaded, shifted the helm. The old sailor let go of the cask, but Firmin clung tightly and the boat, dragged by one party, held back by another, oscillated furiously.

“Let go, boy, do you want to upset us?”

But the angry boy clung fast. “Let go!” To drag him away they gave a long pull on the oars. But they were twitched back so vigorously that the rowers tumbled off their seats. Then, in the confusion, the boat floated loose.

“Stop! Misery and bad luck! we have lost the nets. Steer to starboard! No! Listen! The horn of the _Bon-Pêcheur_ is to larboard. It has a tender sound; one would believe that Lison was blowing it for her boy. What do you say, boy, is it your sister who is blowing? What has become of Firmin? He is gone overboard. _Parbleu!_ It was he who upset us just now. Poor boy! He was too obstinate. He is drowned, for if he had been able to cling to the barrel he would have surely heard us.”

He heard them truly, but he did not answer. It was the caprice of a child, the whim of an obstinate little mule.

Let them go, and good luck to them! So much the better if they are lost. It will punish them for having been cowards. And while the four sailors lost themselves in the fog he floated astride of his cask, as serious as a _gendarme_ on his horse.

They were well advised, those fellows who decided to run away! As if a man ought to abandon his goods to thieves! It took hard enough work to earn them in the first place. Elise would be satisfied with him, and thinking of his sister, Firmin was proud of himself.

All the same, it was hard work to cling astride his barrel. He had the air of a toad who slips along a stone too round for him. But when one makes up one’s mind to do a thing, one can do it. In high spirits he set himself straight in his saddle, bending backward and forward to imitate the gallop of a horse. The barrel dipped and rose softly, as if it were swaying beneath him as it ran.

“Hoop-la, hoop-la! The beast has blood, he answers to the spur!”

Two long hours passed, and, lost in this annihilation of everything, Firmin became weary. He floated dejectedly now with the current, and watched the sun climb the heavens, marking its position by a shaft of wan light through the mist. How slowly he climbed, this pale sun! He was nearly overhead, but his rays had not burned off the thick vapor. The fog would go only with the day.

Nothing could be so gloomy as the silence. It was broken only by blasts of horns at longer and longer intervals, farther and farther away. Once in a while there was a furtive splashing, a rapid swirl of the water; it was a passing porpoise, a porpoise good-natured and full of play. He swam at the very surface of the sea, letting his fin show above it. He stopped long enough to turn his foolish somersaults and to stare, his black eyes twinkling with merriment and mischief. But he could not wait to laugh. He was far away in no time. Not a bird flew near; everything was in mourning under this winding-sheet of fog.

Distress and exhaustion came together. In water up to his knees, and drenched by the mist, Firmin was worn out both in spirit and body. The white night seemed to penetrate his heart. He looked, he listened: but there was nothing except this silent whiteness without form and without limit. His startled eyes looked for dangers which he could not see. He was frightened at noises which he did not hear. Heedless of the fish, which began to move as if to announce the end of the fog, he stared fixedly before him into the silent blank which had swallowed all the energies of his being.

Chap. 6.]

Utterly worn out, his teeth chattering, gasping, he calls Elise, who, alas, cannot hear him. His clenched fingers dig themselves into the staves of the barrel. Elise! Why did she not come to the rescue of her fainting brother? In a convulsion of terror he lost his balance and his barrel overturned, throwing him into the sea. Elise! Elise! the boy you love so much is drowning, he cannot hold on longer, he is sinking!

* * * * *

Where was he? Roused by an unlucky blow and the noise of splintering wood, he came to himself under a pile of nets, half suffocated and nearly drowned beneath the dripping mass. Everything came back to his mind, but indistinctly. He had fallen from his cask, his strength gone, all hope abandoned, when the sound of the nets being raised had given him fresh courage. The hawser had been drawn tight, bringing the nets right under his hands. He clung to it desperately, he kept fast hold in its rapid rise, and when he saw the boat at hand, braced himself with his feet so as not to be crushed or scraped against its side. With the nets he had fallen on the deck, but then all his strength was gone, and he did not know even how he had got there.

Then his brain became clearer. It seemed to him that the fog was less dense. Through the entangling net-work which surrounded him he saw figures, but they were not his own countrymen; their hair was too blond, their eyes too light. Then he remembered the _flambart_ and his suspicion of her. Strange figures passed him with savage gestures, armed with gaffs, with capstan-bars, with oars, with grapnels. Where were they hurrying, and what meant their strange shouts and this unaccountable outcry?

In the midst of this uproar in a strange tongue, Firmin heard the sound of voices which he knew; the sonorous call of Florimond, the hoarse shouts of the sailors. Then came the noise of grapnels clutching the bulwarks.

Then at intervals the clear voice of Elise:

“This way! Alongside! Cousin Florimond, they have perhaps stolen our men with our nets.”

Then a tumult of blows. Under the pile of nets Firmin struggled like a cat who tries to get out of a snare. He was wild to rejoin Elise, to share with her the risks of the fight, because he knew that what he heard was a fight between the sloop and the _flambart_.

* * * * *

Florimond had ended by being afraid of this fog which did not disperse at noon. He knew that sometimes such fogs lasted all day, and that they were followed by wind. Then, bad luck to nets surprised by heavy weather at the approach of night. His anxiety for the small boat had increased also. He supposed it moored to some float, but as it did not come back he planned to anticipate its return by taking up the nets. And on the _Bon-Pêcheur_ the capstan smoked, so rapidly did it work. It turned furiously. The men untied the nets in feverish haste, two taking the place everywhere of one in the impatience which each felt to save his share of the nets from an unknown danger. Suddenly the machine gave a twitch as if the weights which it was raising had doubled. Florimond, supposing at first that he must be lifting the boat which was fast to the float, rushed to the bow to shout an alarm through the fog, but he recoiled in the face of an apparition.

It was a giant craft whose masts, seen through the mist, appeared to touch the sky. It had a strange and fantastic appearance, but its outline soon became clear and distinct to him. The noise of work was heard, the whirling of another machine, the groaning of another capstan, the cries of men in Flemish _patois_. It was the _flambart_ which from the other end was taking up his nets. Pack of pirates!... _Tonnerre!_

They were going to strike bow to bow. With a grinding that made the boat shiver the hawser parted, lashing the water furiously like the blow of a whip. The next instant there was a crash as the boats met. Both bowsprits snapped short off, the bows were staved in, timbers cracked, every joint creaked. Sloop and _flambart_ cried aloud together under the violence of the collision. Then locked together, foot to foot, axe to axe, they fought for the nets.

* * * * *

Firmin worked without stopping to get free from his meshy prison. His fingers were entangled, his legs and arms held fast. The more he struggled the more firmly he was held in this intricate mass.

He heard the fight grow more noisy and more bitter, taunts were hurled back and forth, there was the sounds of blows, the cries of the wounded.

Death and ill-fortune! Why had he not thought of his knife while he was working there vainly like a fly in a spider’s net. He was not long in opening a way, in cutting for himself a door in the thick mass of cordage. He was on his feet. What light was this? The fog had gone of a sudden. He saw the _Bon-Pêcheur_. He darted forward. “Elise! Elise!”

Too late! The two boats had separated. From the bulwarks of the _flambart_ the grapnels, cut off by hatchets, hung like dead claws, and the sailors with the blond faces shoved away with oars and gaffs the sloop which fell off wounded and gasping.

“Elise! Elise!” Firmin had seen his sister, who stretched out her arms to him.

“Jump overboard, child! I will throw a buoy.”

Without hesitation he sprang on the bulwarks, but rough hands struck him back harshly to the deck.

“Elise! Elise!” Too late! The two boats had hoisted their sails and in the now clear air were under way, without pity for the two beings that they were tearing asunder.