CHAPTER XVI RUE VICTOR HUGO

White umbrellas, striped verandahs, black shadows, laughter, motion, colour, coloured people, coloured clothes, lemon-tinted houses, flower-blue sky, a street of light beneath a roof of azure, the Rue Victor Hugo lay before Gaspard.

Looking straight before one, the scene recalled Naples, Marseilles, Alexandria, with an extra touch as though a gleam, a perfume, a voice, had stolen from some vanished coloured city of the remote past; as though Pompeii had sent an idler, Carthage a trader, Tunis a coloured child, to lose themselves in the crowd and lend it, scarcely seen, a heart-catching subtlety.
* * * * *

There is no sound of feet; everyone is shoeless; they walk in a whisper under the wonderful blue light of the sky, these people, these men and women of all shades of yellow, graceful, dignified, gracious, who might seem the inhabitants of a dream city but for the sounds of everyday life, cries of cigar vendors, and pastry vendors, and fruit sellers, children’s voices, laughter; now comes from far away the music of a mirliton; it is playing in a street below—Pouf! up a steep side street comes the sound, louder, and carried on a breath of hot sea wind, and there below the blue face of the harbour laughs up at you so high above it. You pass on; the shops surround you90 again, and the crowd and the voices; you reach a little square, a cube of colour; in its centre like a diamond flower forever in motion, the jet of a fountain plays in the sun, plays and sings to itself like the spirit of a happy child; and here where human voices are less loud you hear the sound of other fountains, the sound of rivulets, runnels racing by the side walks, pipes that empty into moss-grown channels all drawing their water from Mont Pelée, fatherly, and seated far above the great torrential woods, sky-throned, and turbaned with cloud.

You go on; the endless street bends and dips and rises again, never quite level; houses and blue bursts of sea alternating on the right, on the left, high above you, houses that break with their sun-stricken yellow the green foliage of the high woods. The torrent of yellow houses up above seems tumbling to the sea, or, if you like it better, the houses seem climbing to attack the woods. You can hear from up there wood sounds, the piping of the siffleur de montagne, the wash of moving foliage, just as you can hear from below the sounds of the sea, the songs of the fishermen, and the wash of the water on the beach.

As a curious and beautiful poem leads you to read on, so the coloured and sunlit street leads you to follow it; it brings you by a bridge across the Rivière Roxelane, where the washerwomen work from dawn till dark, and the boulders are snowed with linen, and so to the market-place, where the strangest things from sea and land are sold.

Beyond lie the mornes, green to the water’s edge; the sea, the sky; great blue wastes of sun and silence.
* * * * *

From a flower-seller as they entered the Rue Victor Hugo, Sagesse had bought a gaudy blossom which he put in his coat.

91 He was en fête and his good humour was infectious; linking his arm in that of Gaspard, he had led him into a café, a cool, spacious shop set out with marble-topped tables. On every table there was a little bowl filled with bright-coloured blossoms; men were seated about, men in cool white clothes and broad panama hats. As Gaspard followed his companion between the tables he noticed that all these men gave Sagesse good-day as though he were an old acquaintance, but without enthusiasm, and with a certain constraint.

Then, choosing a table in a corner, they sat down, and Sagesse beckoned to the bartender. He came running.

He had been piling some glasses on a tray and had not caught sight of the newcomers until just before Sagesse beckoned to him; instantly, and almost upsetting the tray in his haste, he came, and now he stood, a middle-aged quadroon, mild-eyed, subdued-looking, standing before Sagesse as a slave might stand before his master.

“Bonjour, Jules.”

“Bonjour, missie.”

“How has trade been since I left?”

“Good, missie—Jules has been busy, very busy, for most a month—before that not so good.” He spoke in the Creole patois, soft, fluent, a language that seems made for the lips of children.

Sagesse ordered drinks. When they were on the table he lit a cigar, handed Gaspard another, and then, crossing his legs and suddenly changing his manner:

“Let us talk business,” said he.

“Business?”

“Ma foi, yes; that’s what they call it—business. See here. I want the true story of the gold in that belt. I want to know more about that island, and I want to know something about that treasure-ship.”

92 When you encounter a tropical centipede the thing that astonishes you most is the way in which it changes form, now effacing itself altogether in some coign of shadow, now drawn out, swollen, vicious, and ready to attack you, now shrunken, drawn together, a mere nothing that, next moment to a touch becomes distended and viciously alive.

The mind of Captain Sagesse seemed to possess this centipede attribute.

Gaspard had imagined the affair of the island done with; he had imagined that with the conclusion of the bargain over the gold pieces Sagesse had passed the matter behind him. He had said nothing about a treasure-ship. The ship of coral in the lagoon had been always present in his mind as a ship that might contain treasure, but he had said nothing about it. How, then, had Sagesse read his thoughts, and why had he not spoken of it before?

He stared at the Captain for a moment without speaking. “But that’s all done with,” said he at last. “I’ve told you my story; you’ve had your share in the stuff—Don’t you believe me? And see here, what do you mean about a treasure ship? I never said a word about such a thing.”

“My friend,” said Sagesse, “between the captain and the mate’s cabin on my vessel there is only a plank, and when the man sleeping in the mate’s cabin shouts out in his sleep ‘Hullo there, Yves, look, I can see through her hatch; she’s full of gold; we’ll fetch it out—share and share alike,’ the captain sets himself to think. He says to himself, ‘this man talks of a ship full of gold in his sleep; he came on board my ship from an island over there; he had in his possession a number of old coins, old Spanish pieces; he confesses in drink that he has killed Monsieur93 Yves, the gentleman to whom in his dreams he talks of a ship full of treasure; well, don’t you see?”

“What?”

“The conclusion—come, confess, you have a secret; give me the full story of that affair, or by my soul and on my honour I will call the authorities right in here and tell them a lot of things I know.”

Sagesse, as he said the last words, changed completely, and in a moment, the bon bourgeois vanished, his upper lip raised slightly, disclosing the teeth. Just in that moment he shewed himself what he was, not a villain of romance, but that much more terrible individual, the petty trader, heartless, careful, calculating. The squid of society that, living on crabs and shell-fish, will, when opportunity offers, seize and devour a man.

What numbed the mind of Gaspard was not fear of the authorities, but fear of Sagesse and astonishment at his methods.

He felt as though in the grip of some gelatinous thing, this dusky mind had gripped him on board the Belle Arlésienne and had seemed to let him go; its tentacles had fallen from his arms, and now they were around his feet. It was useless to fight with Sagesse; he was at the man’s mercy; betrayed by drink, he had put himself in the grasp of the cuttlefish.

“Look here,” said he at last, “before I tell you anything, tell me this: Why did you not spring this on me before? Why did you trade with me for those coins? Why did you pretend to be my friend?”

“Why did I trade with you, ma foi? I traded with you because I wanted those coins at a fair price; I brought you here because I wanted to trade with you for94 your secret at a fair price with the law at my elbow. I did not wish to conclude the bargain on board my own ship; it gives a ship a bad name when men are brought off her in chains by the police. I wanted no police on board La Belle Arlésienne. And as to pretending to be your friend, ma foi, I am your friend, and you shall have your share of the profits of your secret. But the truth I must have, come—”

“Dieu!” cried Gaspard with a burst of irritation. “I was hiding nothing from you. There was a wreck on the island; I did think there was treasure on her, but I had put it from my mind. I talked of it in my sleep, did I? Well, it must have been there in my mind. You shall have the story.”

Then, with his elbows on the table, he told how Yves had discovered the ship in the lagoon; he described her. Sagesse, also with his elbows on the table, listening intently, putting in a question now and then.

“That’s all,” finished Gaspard, “she may be up to the hatches with gold for all I know—and for the matter of that—for all I care.”

Sagesse sat, now that the tale was told, musing in his chair, and pulling at his heavy moustache.

“And you were on that island,” said he at last, “you saw that wreck, you found gold and the dead bones of a man, you fancied there might be more stuff there, yet, if I had not got the tale from you you would have said nothing to anyone about it; you would have perhaps gone back to the stokehold. Pah! I believe you, for that’s the kind of thing that fills stokeholds with fools who are good for nothing but stoking—well, you will be fortunate despite yourself. I take the speculation up.”

“You intend—”

95 “I intend to dynamite her open and see what she contains. When La Belle Arlésienne has discharged her cargo, I will put her in ballast, take some diving apparatus and what else is needful, and return to that island; you will go with me.”

“I?”

“Yes, you; do you think I want the whole of St. Pierre in the business? I will take only my coloured crew; several of them are good divers, but I must have another white man on a job like this. You will have your share of the profits, fifteen per cent. That may be much, or it may be nothing, but you will have to work for it, for it will be horse work getting the stuff off her if she lies as you tell me. I take it she has been lying in that lagoon all of a hundred years; if she is a Spaniard there may be a lot of stuff—” Then, after a moment’s pause, “There is stuff on that island; I smell it.”

He fell into a moment’s reverie, then, as if talking to himself, “the fellow those bones belonged to had something to do with her; he was one of her crew, or he was there hunting for treasure. He may have died of starvation or accident, or he may have discovered the stuff and been killed by his companions; if that was so they would not have left that belt and money behind them.”

Gaspard sat watching Sagesse; the man’s mind seemed ferreting about the business like a hound; he seemed actually to smell money in the thing. Perhaps he did. There are men who in some uncanny way have the power of scenting fortune; their speculations rarely fail; they know what will appreciate in value, whether in land or stocks, and they will throw up the most likely venture just because their genius has discovered in it some hidden and fatal flaw unperceived by other men.

96 As Gaspard sat watching Sagesse a faint glow of enthusiasm began to warm his breast. What man is there to whom the thought of hidden treasure does not appeal? The idea of returning to the island would have been hateful to him half an hour a go, but already his heart was stirring to the venture.

He would not be alone.

Already he had divined the main points of Sagesse’s character—or fancied he had—. He felt him to be cold-blooded, heartless, calculating, yet he fancied that if Sagesse offered him fifteen francs out of every hundred he made on the business he would keep his word. With such a small percentage in view it would be easier to keep his word than break it and make trouble. Sagesse came out of his reverie.

“Well,” said he, relighting his cigar, which had gone out, “there’s an end of the matter. I take the thing up; I put my money in it; I offer you your fifteen per cent.; I put you in the way, perhaps, of a small fortune. I make you, in fact, a small partner in what may be a big concern. Half an hour ago you were a Moco, and your end was the drinking bar and the stokehold; you had stuff in your head that was valuable to me and I had to blast it out of your skull by threats of the law, just as I will blast the stuff out of that hooker with dynamite. Well, what do you think of Pierre Sagesse? Is he a man who knows his way about? Is he a man worth following? I’m frank as day when I choose to be frank, and I tell you now, you may take the offer or leave it; come with me, well and good; refuse it, and I will get another man. Only, remember this, if you refuse you get nothing.”

“What you offer is perhaps fair enough,” said Gaspard,97 “but this I will say, straight out, you treated me as a friend this morning; you took my arm, you brought me in here, you stood for drinks, and then you threatened me with that affair. I don’t like that, and be you who you may, I say so.”

Sagesse took a puff at his cigar and then patiently, as though explaining things to a child:

“You, this morning, were going about like a man with a jewel in his empty skull; I operated like a surgeon, and took it out; it was unpleasant, but there is the jewel, and instead of charging you a fee I offer you a percentage on the value. If I had not threatened, you would not have told. Well? What do you say?”

“I don’t say I won’t come—on one condition—that you never name that affair again or threaten me with it.”

Sagesse laughed. “Threaten you, why should I? I have used the instrument, I fling it away. I have got all I want out of you, and now it is your turn to profit a bit. You will be very useful, and I don’t want a stranger in the business.”

“Look here,” said Gaspard, true Proven?al that he was, “fifteen per cent.—make it twenty—”

“Not a cent more than fifteen, not a cent, not a centime. I never go back on an offer of that sort.”

“When do you start?”

“It will take me a week to clear the cargo and get ready; meanwhile you have your pocket full of dollars, and you can amuse yourself.”

“I will come.”

“Your word on that.”

“I give you my word.”

You will perhaps have divined that in the character of Gaspard, a character primitive enough, childlike in some98 ways, and swayed by elemental passions, there lay a streak of straightness. To this man, who would not have known the meaning of “ethics,” straight-dealing came as a natural gift. Sagesse had divined this fact and valued it, for, speaking generally, there is no man in the world who values honour in another more than your rogue.

“Come,” said the Captain, rising from his seat. “I have business to do, and so have you. The Compagnie Transatlantique office is close here; go and report yourself; the port authorities will have you up before them too; you will most likely find their man at the shipping office, for I said you would be there, and, see here, you will want a suit or two of white drill; those clothes you have are too heavy for Martinique. Then you’ll want a room; there are sailors’ boarding-houses by the harbour, steer clear of them.”

He took a little notebook from his pocket and wrote a name and address on a sheet of paper, tore it out and handed it to his companion.

“Go there. Manman Faly, Rue du Morne, No. 3. She’ll put you up and find you a place. It’s off the Grande Rue. You’ll easily find it; come.”

He turned to leave.

“We haven’t paid for the drinks,” said Gaspard, putting his hand in his pocket.

Sagesse laughed. “I never pay here; the place is mine; Jules there manages it for me; he’s one of my people.”

Gaspard was soon to learn how many unfortunates in St. Pierre came under that designation, “One of my people.”

They passed out into the blinding street, under the flower-blue sky. Only twenty yards or so down lay the shop where clothes could be bought. Here Gaspard for99 twenty-two francs bought two suits of white drill, a pair of white canvas shoes, and an imitation panama. He put on one of the suits, and ordering the other to be sent to the address in the Rue du Morne, walked out again feeling a new man.

In all his past, a shore landing had meant a landing in grimy clothes, smoking and drinking in grimy bars, the foetor of the dock-side. Never before had he found himself walking in a clean, bright city, in clean, new clothes. It was delightful, new, absolutely new, and filled with the freshness of surprise.

A pretty capresse girl glanced at him, and that was the last touch to his vanity; he entered the office of the Compagnie Transatlantique, where Sagesse left him, walking with an assured step, made his deposition before the manager and one of the port authorities who was present, signed it, and then, quite sure of himself and disregarding Sagesse’s advice, demanded an indemnity for his lost kit and his wages up to date.

For once the wise Sagesse had given the wrong advice, for the manager, on his own responsibility, and partly, perhaps, as a tribute to the cleanest and most self-respecting stoker he had ever fallen in with, made out an order for the money demanded, cashed it, and Gaspard left the office richer by a hundred francs.

The tide of luck was in full flood that morning, and he did nothing to spoil it; as he passed along with the moving crowd, cafés called out to him to come in and celebrate the occasion, but he passed them by; he had no need of the help of alcohol; the bright light, the colours, the movement around him, and the light-hearted, yet languorous atmosphere of the gay city set all his southern nature aglow; just as blue eyes are made bluer by blue attire,100 so the opal of the south in his mind took brighter colours from the bright colours around it.

The insect had found a leaf similar to the leaf on which it was born.

Unconscious of the fact that he was marching straight upon his fate, he passed along looking into the shops, strange shops without glass fronts or names, black shadows under arched doorways, shadows shewing merchandise and coloured people, shadows casting perfumes of flowers and fruit, garlic scents.

He was crossing the little square where the diamond fountain jet was dancing and singing in the sun, when he saw before him the figure of a girl. She was coming along in the full blaze of light, a girl of scarcely sixteen, tall, swift moving, and graceful as Atalanta, a porteuse, bearing on her head a tray of some merchandise covered over with a wasp-coloured scarf.

The load would have taxed a man, yet she bore it as easily as a feather; she wore no shoes, and her striped robe was caught up at the waist to give her limbs free play, shewing her leg almost to the knee.

She was of that strange race, whose blood has been mixed with the blood of the Caribs, coloured like that Grecian statuary to which during a thousand years the sun has lent some trace of his gold, till one can imagine the sunlight lingering in the honey tints of the marble.

The blue black of her hair just shewed, covered with the turban of striped material on which rested the tray.

As she came, walking erect and without a motion of the head, her dark eyes glanced from side to side, and as she reached Gaspard her eyes met his full, nor did they lower nor turn away till she had passed him.

He felt blinded as if by a flame. He turned. She101 was vanishing amidst the crowd in the Rue Victor Hugo. He made a step as if to follow her, then he stopped dead as though before a barrier.

The glance had only lasted a moment, yet in that moment, in a flash, they had spoken one to the other. It was as though they had recognized one another.

He could read a mysterious something in her glance, and it was as though she had said, “Ah, there you are, from away beyond the beginning of time!”

The fountain was playing in the sun and a hundred men and women were meeting and passing each other in the little Place, but it was the meeting and passing of coloured phantoms.

A man and a woman had just met and passed one another.

A miracle of life had taken place, the old, strange miracle forever fresh, forever new. Yet nothing told of it, till, as he watched the moving crowd into which she had vanished, suddenly, as if some belfry in the sky had swung to life, came the clash and ripple of bells.

It was the carillon of the cathedral that rang thrice daily. Golden, joyous, sonorous; tenor and alto; beating the echoes to silver, waking ghostly voices in the mornes and high woods, floating out over the blue sea.