Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (597 page)

``There was not a single one of his thousands of blackamoors that could lay a gun properly. But Ali-Kassim made war like a prince. We sailed, a regular fleet, across the gulf, took a town on the coast of Arabia somewhere, and looted it. Then I and the others managed to get hold of an armed dhow, and we fought our way right through the blackamoors’ fleet. Several of us died of thirst later. All the same, it was a great affair. But don’t you talk to me of prisons. A proper man if given a chance to fight can always get himself killed. You understand me?’’

``Yes, I understand you,’’ drawled the lieutenant. ``I think I know you pretty well. I suppose an English prison . . .’’

``That is a horrible subject of conversation,’’ interrupted Peyrol in a loud, emotional tone. ``Naturally, any death is better than a prison. Any death! What is it you have in your mind, lieutenant?’’

``Oh, it isn’t that I want you to die,’’ drawled Ral in an uninterested manner.

Peyrol, his entwined fingers clasping his legs, gazed fixedly at the English sloop floating idly in the Passe while he gave up all his mind to the consideration of these words that had floated out, idly too, into the peace and silence of the morning. Then he asked in a low tone:

``Do you want to frighten me?’’

The lieutenant laughed harshly. Neither by word, gesture nor glance did Peyrol acknowledge the enigmatic and unpleasant sound. But when it ceased the silence grew so oppressive between the two men that they got up by a common impulse. The lieutenant sprang to his feet lightly. The uprising of Peyrol took more time and had more dignity. They stood side by side unable to detach their longing eyes from the enemy ship below their feet.

``I wonder why he put himself into this curious position,’’ said the officer.

``I wonder,’’ growled Peyrol curtly. ``If there had been only a couple of eighteen-pounders placed on the rocky ledge to the left of us, we could have unrigged her in about ten minutes.’’

``Good old gunner,’’ commented Ral ironically. ``And what afterwards? Swim off, you and I, with our cutlasses in our teeth and take her by boarding, what?’’

This sally provoked in Peyrol an austere smile. ``No! No!’’ he protested soberly. ``But why not let Toulon know? Bring out a frigate or two and catch him alive. Many a time have I planned his capture just to ease my heart. Often I have stared at night out of my window upstairs across the bay to where I knew he was lying at anchor, and thinking of a little surprise I could arrange for him if I were not only old Peyrol, the gunner.’’

``Yes. And keeping out of the way at that, with a bad note against his name in the books of the Admiralty in Toulon.’’

``You can’t say I have tried to hide myself from you who are a naval officer,’’ struck in Peyrol quickly. ``I fear no man. I did not run. I simply went away from Toulon. Nobody had given me an order to stay there. And you can’t say I ran very far either.’’

``That was the cleverest move of all. You knew what you were doing.’’

``Here you go again, hinting at something crooked like that fellow with big epaulettes at the Port Office that seemed to be longing to put me under arrest just because I brought a prize from the Indian Ocean, eight thousand miles, dodging clear of every Englishmen that came in my way, which was more perhaps than he could have done. I have my gunner’s warrant signed by Citizen Renaud, a chef d’escadre. It wasn’t given me for twirling my thumbs or hiding in the cable tier when the enemy was about. There were on board our ships some patriots that weren’t above doing that sort of thing, I can tell you. But republic or no republic, that kind wasn’t likely to get a gunner’s warrant.’’

``That’s all right,’’ said Ral, with his eyes fixed on the English ship, the head of which was swung to the northward now. . . . ``Look, she seems to have lost her way at last,’’ he remarked parenthetically to Peyrol, who also glanced that way and nodded. . . . ``That’s all right. But it’s on record that you managed in a very short time to get very thick with a lot of patriots ashore. Section leaders. Terrorists. . . .’’

``Why, yes. I wanted to hear what they had to say. They talked like a drunken crew of scallywags that had stolen a ship. But at any rate it wasn’t such as they that had sold the Port to the English. They were a lot of bloodthirsty landlubbers. I did get out of town as soon as I could. I remembered I was born around here. I knew no other bit of France, and I didn’t care to go any further. Nobody came to look for me.’’

``No, not here. I suppose they thought it was too near. They did look for you, a little, but they gave it up. Perhaps if they had persevered and made an admiral of you we would not have been beaten at Aboukir.’’

At the mention of that name Peyrol shook his fist at the serene Mediterranean sky. ``And yet we were no worse men than the English,’’ he cried, ``and there are no such ships as ours in the world. You see, lieutenant, the republican god of these talkers would never give us seamen a chance of fair play.’’

The lieutenant looked round in surprise. ``What do you know about a republican god?’’ he asked. ``What on earth do you mean?’’

``I have heard of and seen more gods than you could ever dream of in a long night’s sleep, in every corner of the earth, in the very heart of forests, which is an inconceivable thing. Figures, stones, sticks. There must be something in the idea. . . . And what I meant,’’ he continued in a resentful tone, ``is that their republican god, which is neither stick nor stone, but seems to be some kind of lubber, has never given us seamen a chief like that one the soldiers have got ashore.’’

Lieutenant Ral looked at Peyrol with unsmiling attention, then remarked quietly, ``Well, the god of the aristocrats is coming back again and it looks as if he were bringing an emperor along with him. You’ve heard something of that, you people in the farmhouse? Haven’t you?’’

``No,’’ said Peyrol. ``I have heard no talk of an emperor. But what does it matter? Under one name or another a chief can be no more than a chief, and that general whom they have been calling consul is a good chief — -nobody can deny that.’’

After saying those words in a dogmatic tone, Peyrol looked up at the sun and suggested that it was time to go down to the farmhouse ``pour manger la soupe.’’ With a suddenly gloomy face Ral moved off, followed by Peyrol. At the first turn of the path they got the view of the Escampobar buildings with the pigeons still walking on the ridges of the roofs, of the sunny orchards and yards without a living soul in them. Peyrol remarked that everybody no doubt was in the kitchen waiting for his and the lieutenant’s return. He himself was properly hungry. ``And you, lieutenant?’’

The lieutenant was not hungry. Hearing this declaration made in a peevish tone, Peyrol gave a sagacious movement of his head behind the lieutenant’s back. Well, whatever happened, a man had to eat. He, Peyrol, knew what it was to be altogether without food; but even half-rations was a poor show, very poor show for anybody who had to work or to fight. For himself he couldn’t imagine any conjuncture that would prevent him having a meal as long as there was something to eat within reach.

His unwonted garrulity provoked no response, but Peyrol continued to talk in that strain as though his thoughts were concentrated on food, while his eyes roved here and there and his ears were open for the slightest sound. When they arrived in front of the house Peyrol stopped to glance anxiously down the path to the coast, letting the lieutenant enter the caf. The Mediterranean, in that part which could be seen from the door of the caf, was as empty of all sail as a yet undiscovered sea. The dull tinkle of a cracked bell on the neck of some wandering cow was the only sound that reached him, accentuating the Sunday peace of the farm. Two goats were lying down on the western slope of the hill. It all had a very reassuring effect and the anxious expression on Peyrol’s face was passing away when suddenly one of the goats leaped to its feet. The rover gave a start and became rigid in a pose of tense apprehension. A man who is in such a frame of mind that a leaping goat makes him start cannot be happy. However, the other goat remained lying down. There was really no reason for alarm, and Peyrol, composing his features as near as possible to their usual placid expression, followed the lieutenant into the house.

CHAPTER VII

A single cover having been laid at the end of a long table in the salle for the lieutenant, he had his meal there while the others sat down to theirs in the kitchen, the usual strangely assorted company served by the anxious and silent Catherine. Peyrol, thoughtful and hungry, faced Citizen Scevola in his working clothes and very much withdrawn within himself. Scevola’s aspect was more feverish than usual, with the red patches on his cheekbones very marked above the thick beard. From time to time the mistress of the farm would get up from her place by the side of old Peyrol and go out into the salle to attend to the lieutenant. The other three people seemed unconscious of her absences. Towards the end of the meal Peyrol leaned back in his wooden chair and let his gaze rest on the ex-terrorist who had not finished yet, and was still busy over his plate with the air of a man who had done a long morning’s work. The door leading from the kitchen to the salle stood wide open, but no sound of voices ever came from there.

Till lately Peyrol had not concerned himself very much with the mental states of the people with whom he lived. Now, however, he wondered to himself what could be the thoughts of the ex-terrorist patriot, that sanguinary and extremely poor creature occupying the position of master of the Escampobar Farm. But when Citizen Scevola raised his head at last to take a long drink of wine there was nothing new on that face which in its high colour resembled so much a painted mask. Their eyes met.

``Sacrebleu!’’ exclaimed Peyrol at last. ``If you never say anything to anybody like this you will forget how to speak at last.’’

The patriot smiled from the depths of his beard, a smile which Peyrol for some reason, mere prejudice perhaps, always thought resembled the defensive grin of some small wild animal afraid of being cornered.

``What is there to talk about?’’ he retorted. ``You live with us; you haven’t budged from here; I suppose you have counted the bunches of grapes in the enclosure and the figs on the fig-tree on the west wall many times over. . . .’’ He paused to lend an ear to the dead silence in the salle, and then said with a slight rise of tone, ``You and I know everything that is going on here.’’

Peyrol wrinkled the corners of his eyes in a keen, searching glance. Catherine clearing the table bore herself as if she had been completely deaf. Her face, of a walnut colour, with sunken cheeks and lips, might have been a carving in the marvellous immobility of its fine wrinkles. Her carriage was upright and her hands swift in their movements. Peyrol said: ``We don’t want to talk about the farm. Haven’t you heard any news lately?’’

The patriot shook his head violently. Of public news he had a horror. Everything was lost. The country was ruled by perjurers and renegades. All the patriotic virtues were dead. He struck the table with his fist and then remained listening as though the blow could have roused an echo in the silent house. Not the faintest sound came from anywhere. Citizen Scevola sighed. It seemed to him that he was the only patriot left, and even in his retirement his life was not safe.

``I know,’’ said Peyrol. ``I saw the whole affair out of the window. You can run like a hare, citizen.’’

``Was I to allow myself to be sacrificed by those superstitious brutes?’’ argued Citizen Scevola in a high-pitched voice and with genuine indignation which Peyrol watched coldly. He could hardly catch the mutter of ``Perhaps it would have been just as well if I had let those reactionary dogs kill me that time.’’

The old woman washing up at the sink glanced uneasily towards the door of the salle.

``No!’’ shouted the lonely sans-culotte. ``It isn’t possible! There must be plenty of patriots left in France. The sacred fire is not burnt out yet.’’

For a short time he presented the appearance of a man who is sitting with ashes on his head and desolation in his heart. His almond-shaped eyes looked dull, extinguished. But after a moment he gave a sidelong look at Peyrol as if to watch the effect and began declaiming in a low voice and apparently as if rehearsing a speech to himself: ``No, it isn’t possible. Some day tyranny will stumble and then it will be time to pull it down again. We will come out in our thousands and-a ira!’’

Those words, and even the passionate energy of the tone, left Peyrol unmoved. With his head sustained by his thick brown hand he was thinking of something else so obviously as to depress again the feebly struggling spirit of terrorism in the lonely breast of Citizen Scevola. The glow of reflected sunlight in the kitchen became darkened by the body of the fisherman of the lagoon, mumbling a shy greeting to the company from the frame of the doorway. Without altering his position Peyrol turned his eyes on him curiously. Catherine, wiping her hands on her apron, remarked: ``You come late for your dinner, Michel.’’ He stepped in then, took from the old woman’s hand an earthenware pot and a large hunk of bread and carried them out at once into the yard. Peyrol and the sans-culotte got up from the table. The latter, after hesitating like somebody who has lost his way, went brusquely into the passage, while Peyrol, avoiding Catherine’s anxious stare, made for the back-yard. Through the open door of the salle he obtained a glimpse of Arlette sitting upright with her hands in her lap gazing at somebody he could not see, but who could be no other than Lieutenant Ral.

In the blaze and heat of the yard the chickens, broken up into small groups, were having their siesta in patches of shade. But Peyrol cared nothing for the sun. Michel, who was eating his dinner under the pent roof of the cart shed, put the earthenware pot down on the ground and joined his master at the well encircled by a low wall of stones and topped by an arch of wrought iron on which a wild fig-tree had twined a slender offshoot. After his dog’s death the fisherman had abandoned the salt lagoon, leaving his rotting punt exposed on the dismal shore and his miserable nets shut up in the dark hut. He did not care for another dog, and besides, who was there to give him a dog? He was the last of men. Somebody must be last. There was no place for him in the life of the village. So one fine morning he had walked up to the farm in order to see Peyrol. More correctly, perhaps, to let himself be seen by Peyrol. That was exactly Michel’s only hope. He sat down on a stone outside the gate with a small bundle, consisting mainly of an old blanket, and a crooked stick lying on the ground near him, and looking the most lonely, mild and harmless creature on this earth. Peyrol had listened gravely to his confused tale of the dog’s death. He, personally, would not have made a friend of a dog like Michel’s dog, but he understood perfectly the sudden breaking up of the establishment on the shore of the lagoon. So when Michel had concluded with the words, ``I thought I would come up here,’’ Peyrol, without waiting for a plain request, had said: ``Trs bien. You will be my crew,’’ and had pointed down the path leading to the seashore. And as Michel, picking up his bundle and stick, started off, waiting for no further directions, he had shouted after him: ``You will find a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine in a locker aft, to break your fast on.’’