CHAPTER XI CAPTAIN SAGESSE

A lantern shot its light over the port quarter, a voice hailed him from the deck:

“Hi yi ow!” shrill as a bird, and at the cry, like a shaken beehive, the forecastle broke into life; the decks in a moment were a-swarm, chattering like a tree full of monkeys, another lantern shewed over the port bow, and above the lantern a face black as the face of a devil with glittering eyeballs and white teeth grinned down on the boat below.

Next moment something struck Gaspard across the chest, it was a rope; seizing it he held on, and the little boat came up grinding against the great washing wall of the vessel, carried with her on her slow way and right beneath the broad channel of the foremast. He seized the rope’s end to the forward seat, caught up the belt with the pouch of gold and fastened it to his waist; then, reaching up, he caught hold of a channelplate and with the help of another rope flung by the chattering crowd above, swung himself on to the channel. Next moment he was on deck.

The starlight lit the decks dimly fore and aft, he was surrounded with negroes swarming and chattering like monkeys; a man in a panama hat who had helped him over the side, and who, disregarding him, was now shouting directions in shrill French to a black man who had slipped down into the boat, seemed the only white man on board.

62 Having finished his directions he turned, kicked a negro who stood in his way, caught up a lantern, and coming up to Gaspard held the light to him as if he were a work of art he wished to examine.

“French?” said the man in the panama, speaking in that language and fixing Gaspard with a pair of beady unwinking black eyes. His face lit up by the lantern-light was round, good-tempered looking, the face of a bon bourgeois—yet the eyes chilled Gaspard for a moment ere he replied:

“Yes, French, shipwrecked and floating about in that cursed boat till you nearly ran me down.”

“What ship?”

“The Rhone of the Compagnie Transatlantique.”

“The Rhone; I have seen her in Havana harbour, is she lost then?”

“Yes, ripped her bottom out on a reef and gone with all on board.”

“You are the only one saved?”

“Yes.”

“Boufre!” said the other, betraying his provence in the word. “A Moco, too, so was I till I became a man of my own. Well I have saved you, and I take the boat! I am Captain Sagesse, and this is my barque La Belle Arlésienne.”

He seized Gaspard by the coat lapel as he brought the words out with emphasis.

“The boat is mine, you understand.”

“Oh the boat, she is yours and welcome.”

“She is worth five hundred francs, and a brush full of white paint will take the Rhone’s name off her. I found you on a raft—no, on a hencoop—no, on a spar—” he slipped his arm through Gaspard’s and was leading him aft to the deck-house on the poop. “You were floating on a spar.63 Here is the deck-house. Come in.” He opened the deck-house door disclosing a cabin comfortably, yet roughly furnished. A table stood in the middle, over the table hung a swinging lamp. Two doors opening aft gave entrance to the captain and mate’s cabins, tiny holes not much bigger than dog-kennels. The captain flung his panama on the table and Gaspard took a seat, and looked at his companion who was now opening a locker, and fetching out a bottle of rum and some glasses and a basket of ship biscuits. This roundfaced and contented looking personage had, in the first moment of their acquaintance, invented and asked him to assist in a microscopic felony. He placed his hand on the bag of gold at his side as, leaning on the table, he replied:

“But, see here, that boat doesn’t belong to the Rhone at all.”

The man in the panama had placed the things on the table, he turned.

“But you said—”

“Yes, but you have not heard all; I was wrecked from the Rhone right enough, on a spar too, away on an island down there, then the boat came floating along, she has no name on her that I have seen, I got into her and rowed away—that’s all.”

“Outre,” said Sagesse, pouring out two glasses of rum, whilst Gaspard took a biscuit. The little man almost seemed disappointed; one might have fancied that he regretted the lost chance of “doing” the Compagnie Transatlantique out of a boat, then he took a Martinique cigar from his pocket, lit it, and with his elbows on the table began to talk and ask questions.

He asked questions without waiting for an answer, nay, he sometimes answered them himself, as—

64 “The Rhone, I have seen her in Havana harbour, what tonnage was she? Oh, I know, seven thousand; she and the Roxelane were sister ships. The Roxelane called regularly at St. Pierre. Oh, yes, I ought to know her, Martinique bred as I am. Not born, mind you. No, I was born at Arles, but I have spent thirty years in these seas. One can make money in these seas, but one never can forget the old land, and you were born at Montpellier, you say, ’tis the same thing, and all Proven?als are brothers. Think you, if I picked up a Dutchlander or an English, or even a Ponantaise, I would be giving him rum in my cabin—” Then mellowed by the rum and the presence of another Proven?al, he leaned his elbows further on the table and continued talking and asking questions without seeming to hear the answer.