The Toilers of the Sea (21 page)

“The boat is coming to fetch you, and you are waiting for it here. It is just coming: you can hear the sound of oars. It is up to me either to let you go or compel you to stay. But that's enough talking. Throw me the tobacco box.”

Rantaine opened his fob, took out a small box, and threw it to Clubin. It was the iron tobacco box. It rolled to Clubin's feet.

Clubin bent down without lowering his head and picked the box up in his left hand, keeping his two eyes and the six barrels of the revolver trained on Rantaine.

Then he cried: “Turn around.”

Rantaine turned his back.

Sieur Clubin tucked the revolver away under his armpit and pressed the spring to open the box.

It contained four banknotes, three for a thousand pounds and one for ten pounds.

He folded up the three thousand-pound notes, put them back in the tobacco box, closed the box, and put it in his pocket. Then he picked up a pebble, wrapped the ten-pound note around it, and called to Rantaine:

“Turn around again.”

Rantaine turned around. Sieur Clubin went on:

“I told you I would be satisfied with three thousand pounds. You can have the ten pounds back.”

And he threw Rantaine the note wrapped around the pebble.

Rantaine kicked the banknote and the pebble into the sea.

“As you please,” said Clubin. “I see you must be well off. I needn't worry about you.”

The sound of oars, which had become steadily closer during this exchange, now ceased, showing that the boat had reached the foot of the cliff.

“Your cab is waiting for you down there. You may go, Rantaine.”

Rantaine made for the rock staircase and started to go down.

Clubin walked carefully to the edge of the cliff, bent his head, and watched Rantaine's descent.

The boat had stopped near the last step in the cliff face, at the very spot where the coastguardsman had fallen.

As he watched Rantaine going down Clubin muttered:

“Poor No. 619! He thought he was alone. Rantaine thought that there were only two of them. I was the only one who knew that there were three of us.”

He noticed, lying on the grass at his feet, the telescope that had been dropped by the coastguardsman, and picked it up.

The sound of oars was heard again. Rantaine had just jumped into the boat, and it was putting out to sea.

After the first few strokes of the oars, when the boat was beginning to pull away from the cliff, Rantaine suddenly stood up, his face distorted with rage, and shook his fist, shouting:

“Oh, the Devil himself is a rascal!”

A few seconds later Clubin, standing on the cliff top and training the telescope on the boat, distinctly heard these words, shouted in a loud voice above the noise of the sea:

“Sieur Clubin, you are a respectable citizen, but you won't mind if I write to Lethierry to tell him what has happened. There is a sailor from Guernsey in the boat, named Ahier-Tostevin, one of the crew of the
Tamaulipas,
who will be coming back to Saint-Malo on Zuela's next voyage and will bear witness to the fact that I have given you, on Mess Lethierry's behalf, the sum of three thousand pounds sterling.”

It was the voice of Rantaine.

Clubin liked to see things through. Standing motionless as the coastguardsman had stood, and on the same spot, his eye glued to the telescope, he kept his glance firmly fixed on the boat. He watched it growing steadily smaller amid the waves, disappearing and reappearing, drawing near the ship that was lying to and finally coming alongside, and was able to make out the tall figure of Rantaine standing on the deck of the
Tamaulipas.

When the boat had been hauled in and slung up on the davits the
Tamaulipas
got under way. A breeze was blowing up to seaward, and she spread all her sails. Clubin kept his telescope trained on the outline of the ship, which became increasingly indistinct. In half an hour the
Tamaulipas
was no more than a black spot diminishing on the horizon against the pale twilight sky.

IX

USEFUL INFORMATION FOR THOSE EXPECTING, OR FEARING, LETTERS FROM OVERSEAS

That evening Sieur Clubin was again late in returning to his inn.

One of the causes of his lateness was that before returning he had gone to the Porte Dinan, where there were a number of taverns. In one of the taverns where he was not known he had bought a bottle of brandy, which he had put in one of the capacious pockets of his sea jacket as if he wanted to hide it. Then, since the Durande was due to sail the following morning, he had looked around the ship to make sure that everything was in order.

When Sieur Clubin returned to the Auberge Jean there was no one in the lower room but the old oceangoing captain Monsieur Gertrais-Gaboureau, sitting with his tankard and smoking his pipe. He greeted Sieur Clubin between a mouthful of beer and a puff of smoke:

“How d'you do,
¹³⁷
Captain Clubin?”

“Good evening, Captain Gertrais.”

“Well, there's the
Tamaulipas
away.”

“Ah!” said Clubin: “I hadn't noticed.”

Captain Gertrais-Gaboureau spat and went on:

“Zuela's off.”

“When did he go?”

“This evening.”

“Where is he off to?”

“To the Devil.”

“I dare say; but where?”

“Arequipa.”

“I didn't know that,” said Clubin.

He added:

“I'm going to bed.”

He lit his candle, walked to the door, and then came back.

“Have you been to Arequipa, Captain Gertrais?”

“Yes. Years ago.”

“Where do you call in on the way there?”

“In all sorts of places. But the
Tamaulipas
won't be calling in anywhere.”

Monsieur Gertrais-Gaboureau knocked out the ash from his pipe on the edge of a plate and went on:

“You know the lugger
Cheval de Troie
and that fine three-master the Trentemouzin that set off for Cardiff? I didn't think they ought to go because of the weather. When they came back they were in a pretty state. The lugger had a cargo of turpentine. She sprang a leak, and when they started pumping they pumped out all the turpentine along with the water. As for the three-master, she suffered mainly in her topsides. The cutwater, the head rail, the bumkins, and the stock of the port anchor were all broken. The flying jibboom of the outer jib was broken off at the cap. The jib shrouds and the bobstays—what a pretty state they were in! The mizzenmast is all right, but it has had a severe shock. All the iron on the bowsprit has given way, but by a wonder the bowsprit itself was only scraped, though it is completely stripped. There's a hole three feet square in the bow on the port side. That's what happens when you don't take advice.”

Clubin had put his candle down on the table and had begun taking out and replacing a row of pins he had in the collar of his jacket. Then he went on:

“Didn't you say, Captain Gertrais, that the
Tamaulipas
won't be calling in anywhere?”

“No, she won't. She's making straight for Chile.”

“In that case there won't be any word from her until she gets there.”

“No, you're wrong, Captain Clubin. In the first place, she can send mail by any vessels bound for Europe that she meets.”

“I see.”

“And then there is the post box of the sea.”

“What do you mean by the post box of the sea?”

“You don't know what that is, Captain Clubin?”

“No.”

“When you pass the Strait of Magellan—”

“Well?”

“Snow everywhere, always rough weather, vile winds, a foul sea.”

“What then?”

“When you have rounded Cape Monmouth—”

“Then?”

“Then you round Cape Valentine.”

“And then?”

“Then you round Cape Isidore.”

“And then?”

“You round Cape Anna.”

“All right. But what is the post box of the sea you talk about?”

“I'm coming to that. Mountains to right of you, mountains to left of you; penguins everywhere, and stormy petrels. A fearful place!
Mille
saints mille singes!
What a battering you get there! What winds! The squalls don't need any help there! That's where you have to look to the wing transom. That's where you shorten sail. That's where you replace the mainsail by the jib, and the jib by the storm jib. One blast of wind after another! And then sometimes four, five, or six days under bare poles. Often a brand-new suit of sails will be reduced to rags. What a dance it leads you! Gusts that make a three-master hop like a flea. I once saw a little cabin boy on an English brig, the
True Blue,
swept off the jibboom he was working on, and the jibboom with him. You're thrown into the air like butterflies! And I saw the leading hand on the
Revenue,
a pretty little schooner, torn off the fore crosstree and killed on the spot. I have had my sheer rails smashed and my waterway in smithereens. You come out of it with all your sails in ribbons. Fifty-gun frigates take in water like a wicker basket. And what a devilish coast it is! Rugged as they come. Such jagged rocks and reefs! Then you come to Port Famine. There it's worst of all. The heaviest breakers I've seen in my life. It's a hellish place. And there you suddenly see these two words written in red: POST OFFICE.”

“What do you mean, Captain Gertrais?”

“What I mean, Captain Clubin, is that immediately after you have rounded Cape Anna you see on a rock a hundred feet high a tall post with a barrel hanging from it. The barrel is the post box of the sea. The English thought fit to label it Post Office. What business was it of theirs? It is the post office of the ocean; it does not belong to that honorable gentleman the king of England. This post box is common property. It belongs to all who sail the seas, whatever flag they fly. Post Office, indeed! It's as if the Devil himself were offering you a cup of tea. And this is how it works. Every vessel that passes that way sends a boat to the barrel with her mail. Ships coming from the Atlantic post their letters for Europe, and ships coming from the Pacific post their letters for America. The officer in charge of your boat puts your letters into the barrel and takes out those he finds in it. You take these letters; and the boat that comes after you will take yours. As you are sailing in opposite directions the continent you have come from is the one I am going to. I carry your letters, and you carry mine. The barrel is made fast to the post with a chain. And it rains! And it snows! And it hails! And what a dirty sea, with the stormy petrels flying all around you! The
Tamaulipas
will pass that way. The barrel has a good hinged lid, but no lock or padlock. So you see, you can write to your friends, and the letters will be delivered.”

“Curious,” muttered Clubin thoughtfully.

Captain Gertrais-Gaboureau returned to his beer.

“If that rascal Zuela wanted to write to me he would put his scribble in the barrel at Magellan, and I would get it four months later.— Well, Captain Clubin, are you leaving tomorrow?”

Clubin, absorbed in a kind of daydream, did not hear. Captain Gertrais repeated his question.

Clubin woke up.

“Yes, of course, Captain Gertrais. It's my day. I must sail tomorrow morning.”

“If I were you I wouldn't go, Captain Clubin. The hair on dogs' coats smells damp. For the last two nights the seabirds have been wheeling around the lighthouse. It's a bad sign. I have a storm glass that is misbehaving. We are in the moon's second quarter; the month is at its wettest. A little while ago I saw pimpernels closing up their leaves and a field of clover with the stems of the flowers standing up straight. The worms are coming out of the ground, the flies are biting, the bees are staying in their hives, the sparrows are twittering. You can hear church bells a long way off. This evening I heard the Angelus from Saint-Lunaire. And there was a dirty sunset. There will be heavy fog tomorrow. I wouldn't advise you to sail. I'm more afraid of fog than of a hurricane. It's a treacherous thing, fog.”

I

THE DOUVRES

Some five leagues out to sea, to the south of Guernsey, opposite Pleinmont Point and between the Channel Islands and Saint-Malo, is a group of rocks known as the Douvres.
¹³⁸
It is a baneful spot.

There are many reefs and rocks called Douvre, in English Dover. Near the Côtes du Nord is a rock with the name of Douvre on which a lighthouse is at present being built. It is a dangerous reef, but it is not to be confused with the one we are concerned with here.

The nearest point to the Douvres on the French mainland is Cap Bréhant. They are a little farther from the French coast than the nearest of the Channel Islands. Their distance from Jersey is about the same as the distance from the northwest to the southeast of Jersey. If that island were turned on Corbière Point as on a hinge the promontory in St. Catherine's Bay would reach almost exactly to the Douvres. The distance is rather more than four leagues.

In the seas of the civilized world even the wildest rocks are seldom deserted. There are smugglers on Hagot, customs officers on Binic, Celts on Bréhat, oyster cultivators at Cancale, rabbit catchers on Césambre or Caesar's Island, crab gatherers on Brecqhou, trawlermen on the Minquiers, hand-net fishers on Les Écrehou. On the Douvres there is no one. Only seabirds make their home there.

No spot in the ocean is more dreaded. The Casquets, on which the White Ship is said to have been wrecked; the Calvados Bank; the Needles on the Isle of Wight; the Ronesse, which makes the Beaulieu coast so dangerous; the Préel shoals, which restrict the entrance to Merquel and make it necessary to set the red-painted marker buoy twenty fathoms out; the treacherous approaches to Étables and Plouha; the two granite Druids off the south coast of Guernsey, Old Anderlo and Little Anderlo; Corbière Point; the Hanois; the Île des Ras, whose terrors are expressed in the saying,

Si jamais tu passes le Ras,
si tu ne meurs, tu trembleras;

Should ever you pass by the Ras,
if you do not die, you will tremble;

the Mortes-Femmes, the passage between the Boue and the Frouquie; the Déroute between Guernsey and Jersey; the Hardent between the Minquiers and Chousey; the Mauvais Cheval between Boulay Bay and Barneville—none of these has such a sinister reputation as the Douvres. A seaman would rather face all these rocks, one after the other, than the Douvres once.

In all this perilous sea that is the Channel—the Aegean of the west—there is nothing to equal the terrors of the Douvres apart from the Paternoster reef between Guernsey and Sark. And even from the Paternoster you can signal for help: it is within sight of Icart Point to the north and Gros-Nez to the south. From the Douvres you can see nothing.

There is nothing here but squalls, water, clouds, limitless horizons, emptiness. No one sails this way unless he has lost his bearings. The granite rocks are huge and hideous. Cliffs everywhere. The harsh inhospitability of the abyss.

This is the open sea. The water here is very deep. A completely isolated rock like the Douvres attracts and provides a home for creatures that shun the haunts of men. It is like a huge madrepore, a submarine bank of coral. It is a labyrinth engulfed by the sea. Here, at a depth that divers can barely reach, are hidden caves and caverns and dens, a network of dark passageways in which monstrous creatures pullulate. They devour each other: the crabs eat the fish and are themselves eaten. In this dark world roam fearful living shapes, created to be unseen by the human eye. Vague forms of mouths, antennae, tentacles, gaping jaws, scales, claws, and pincers float and quiver in the water, grow larger, decompose, and disappear in the sinister transparency. Fearful swarms of sea creatures swim to and fro, prowling, doing what they have to do. It is a hive of hydras.

This is horror in its ideal form.

Imagine, if you can, a teeming mass of holothurians.

To see the inmost depths of the sea is to see the imagination of the Unknown, and to see it from its most terrible side. This abyss has a likeness to night. Here, too, there is a form of sleep, of apparent sleep at least: the sleep of the consciousness of created things. Here are committed, with no fear of retribution, the crimes of the irresponsible. Here, in a fearful peace, rude forms of life—almost phantoms, but wholly demons—go about the dread business of this dark world.

Forty years ago two rocks of extraordinary form marked out the Douvres from afar to any who passed that way: two slender pillars curving toward each other and almost touching at the top. They looked like the tusks of an elephant that had been swallowed up by the sea; only, tall as towers, they were the tusks of an elephant the size of a mountain. Between these two natural towers guarding the dark city of monsters there was only a narrow passage through which the waves surged. This twisting passage, with a series of sharp bends, was like a narrow street between enclosing walls. These twin rocks were called the two Douvres, the Great Douvre and the Little Douvre; one was sixty feet high, the other forty. The constant to-and-fro movement of the waves had acted like a saw at the base of these towers, and on October 26, 1859, a violent equinoctial gale overthrew one of them. The remaining tower, the smaller one, is battered and truncated.

One of the strangest rocks in the Douvres group is known as the Homme or Man. It still stands. Last century some fishermen who had been blown off their course onto this rocky shore found the body of a man on top of this rock. Beside the body were numbers of empty seashells. The man had been shipwrecked here and had taken refuge on the rock, had lived for some time on shellfish, and then had died. Hence the name of the rock.

The solitudes of the ocean are melancholy: tumult and silence combined. What happens there no longer concerns the human race. Its use or value is unknown. Such a place is the Douvres. All around, as far as the eye can see, is nothing but the immense turbulence of the waves.

II

AN UNEXPECTED BOTTLE OF BRANDY

On Friday morning, the day after the departure of the
Tamaulipas,
the Durande sailed for Guernsey. She left Saint-Malo at nine.

The weather was fine; there was no mist. It looked as if old Captain Gertrais-Gaboureau had been maundering.

Sieur Clubin's other activities had evidently cost him most of his cargo. He had loaded only a few packages of fancy goods for shops in St. Peter Port and three crates for the Guernsey hospital, one of yellow soap, another of candles, and a third of French sole leather and fine Cordovan leather. From his previous cargo he was bringing back a case of crushed sugar and three cases of Congou tea to which the French customs had refused entry. He had embarked very little livestock; only a few bullocks, which were rather loosely stowed in the hold.

There were six passengers: a Guernsey man; two Saint-Malo cattle dealers; a “tourist” (a term that was already coming into use at that period); a Parisian of the lower middle class who was probably a commercial traveler; and an American, traveling to distribute Bibles.

The Durande had a crew of seven in addition to the captain, Sieur Clubin: a helmsman, a chief engineer, a carpenter, a cook (who could also work as a seaman if need be), two stokers, and a cabin boy. One of the stokers was also an engineer. This stoker-cum-engineer, a very brave and very intelligent Dutch Negro who had escaped from the sugar refineries of Surinam, was called Imbrancam. He understood the ship's engines and looked after them admirably. In the ship's early days his jet-black face emerging from the engine room had helped to give the Durande her diabolical reputation.

The helmsman, a Jersey man by birth but of Cotentin stock, was called Tangrouille, of a family of the higher nobility.

This was literally true. The Channel Islands, like England, are a hierarchical country. There are still castes in the islands. The castes have their own ideas, which are their defenses. The ideas of castes are the same everywhere, in India as in Germany. Nobility is won by the sword, and is lost by working. It is preserved by idleness. To do nothing is to live nobly; those who do no work are honored. To have a trade brings you down in the world.

Formerly in France an exception was made only for glass manufacturers: emptying bottles being one of the glories of a nobleman, making them did not bring dishonor. In the archipelago of the Channel, as in Great Britain, those who want to remain noble must remain rich. A workman cannot be a gentleman. Even if he has been a gentleman he is one no longer. Many a seaman is descended from knights bannerets but is now only a seaman. Thirty years ago on Alderney there was a lineal descendant of the Gorges family who would have had a claim to the seigneurie of Gorges, confiscated by King Philippe Auguste; he walked barefoot along the beaches, gathering seaweed. A Carteret is a carter on Sark. There are a draper on Jersey and a shoemaker on Guernsey named Gruchy who claim to be members of the Grouchy family and cousins of the French marshal of that name who fought at Waterloo. The old records of the diocese of Coutances mention a seigneurie of Tangroville, evidently related to Tancarville on the lower Seine, which belonged to the Montmorency family. In the fifteenth century Johan de Héroudeville, an archer and squire in the service of the seigneur of Tangroville, carried “his corslet and other equipment.” In May 1371, as Bertrand du Guesclin tells us, “Monsieur de Tangroville did his devoir as knight bachelor” at Pontorson. But in the Channel Islands, if you fall into poverty, you are quickly eliminated from the nobility. It takes only a change of pronunciation. Tangroville becomes Tangrouille, and that is the end of the matter.

This had been the fate of the helmsman of the Durande.

In St. Peter Port, on the Bordage, is a scrap metal merchant named Ingrouille who is probably an Ingroville. In the reign of Louis the Fat the Ingroville family owned three parishes in the electorate of Valognes. A certain Abbé Trigan wrote the
Ecclesiastical History of Normandy.
He was priest in the seigneurie of Digoville. If the seigneur of Digoville had become a commoner he would have been called Digouille.

Tangrouille, probably a Tancarville and possibly a Montmorency, had the time-honored characteristic of a nobleman, but a grave fault for a helmsman: he drank.

Sieur Clubin had insisted on keeping him on, and had answered for his decision to Mess Lethierry.

Helmsman Tangrouille never left the ship, and slept on board.

On the day before the ship sailed, when Sieur Clubin came fairly late in the evening to look over the ship, Tangrouille was asleep in his hammock.

During the night Tangrouille woke up, according to his usual habit. Every drunkard who is not his own master has his private hiding place. Tangrouille had his, which he called his glory hole. It was in the hold. He had chosen this place as the unlikeliest he could think of, and felt sure that no one but himself knew about it. Captain Clubin, a sober man himself, was a stern disciplinarian. The small quantities of rum and gin that the helmsman could conceal from the captain's vigilant eye were stowed away in this mysterious corner of the hold, behind a sounding bucket, and almost every night he had a rendezvous with his store. The captain's surveillance was strict, so that there was little chance of any great orgy, and as a rule Tangrouille's nocturnal excesses were confined to two or three furtive mouthfuls.

Sometimes, indeed, there was nothing at all in the store. On that particular night Tangrouille had found an unexpected bottle of brandy there. His joy had been great, his astonishment greater still. From what seventh heaven had this bottle fallen? He could not recall when or how he had brought it on board. He had drunk it immediately—partly out of prudence, lest the bottle should be discovered and confiscated—and had thrown the empty bottle into the sea. When he went to the helm on the following morning he was unsteady on his feet, but he was able to steer much in his usual way.

Clubin, as we know, had returned to the Auberge Jean to sleep.

He always wore under his shirt a leather traveling belt containing a reserve of some twenty guineas, which he took off only at night. On the inside of the belt he had written his name in thick lithographic ink, which is indelible.

Before leaving the inn on the following morning he had put in his belt the iron box containing the banknotes for seventy-five thousand francs and had then, as usual, buckled it around his waist.

III

INTERRUPTED CONVERSATIONS

The Durande made a jaunty departure. The passengers, after stowing their cases and trunks on and under the benches, proceeded to inspect the ship, as passengers always do—a practice so habitual as to seem obligatory. Two of them, the tourist and the man from Paris, had never seen a steamship before, and when the paddle wheels began to turn admired the foam they produced. Then they admired the smoke. They examined, item by item and in the most minute detail, all the nautical apparatus on the deck and lower deck—the rings, the grapnels, the hooks, the bolts, which with their precision of form and carefully contrived disposition have the quality of colossal pieces of jewelry: iron jewelry gilded with rust by the tempest. They examined the little signal-gun moored on the deck: “chained like a watchdog,” said the tourist; “and with a tarpaulin overall to keep it from catching cold,” added the man from Paris. As the ship drew away from the land the passengers exchanged the usual comments on the view of Saint-Malo. One of them opined that views from the sea are deceptive and that at a league from the coast Ostend and Dunkirk are as like as two peas. The mention of Dunkirk was followed by the observation that the two red-painted lightships were called respectively the
Ruytingen
and the
Mardyck.

Saint-Malo grew steadily smaller and finally disappeared.

The aspect of the sea was a vast calm. The wake behind the ship was like a long street fringed by foam that continued almost without a twist or turn until it was lost to view.

Guernsey lies on an imaginary straight line drawn between Saint-Malo in France and Exeter in England. At sea a straight line is not always the logical line to take; but steamships have, to some extent, an ability to follow a straight line that is denied to sailing ships.

The sea, in conjunction with the wind, is a composite of forces. A ship is a composite of mechanisms. The sea's forces are mechanisms of infinite power; the ship's mechanisms are forces of limited power. Between these two organisms, one inexhaustible, the other intelligent, takes place the combat that is called navigation.

Human will contained in a mechanism confronts the infinite. The infinite, too, contains a mechanism. The elements know what they are doing and where they are going. None of these forces is blind. Man must keep a watch on them and seek to discover their route.

Until the law governing these forces is discovered the struggle continues; and in this struggle steam navigation is a kind of perpetual victory of man's genius, every hour of the day, over all the forces of the sea. It also has the virtue of disciplining the ship: it reduces her obedience to the wind and increases her obedience to man.

The Durande had never sailed better than on this day. She behaved marvelously. About eleven o'clock, with a fresh north-northwesterly breeze, the Durande was off the Minquiers, under low steam, steering west on the starboard tack and keeping close to the wind. The weather was still clear and fine. But for all that the trawlers were making for home.

Gradually, as if everyone was thinking of getting back to harbor, the sea was being cleared of shipping.

It could not be said that the Durande was following her usual route. The crew were not concerned by this, having absolute confidence in the captain; nevertheless—perhaps because of a mistake by the helmsman—there was some deviation from her normal course. She seemed to be heading for Jersey rather than Guernsey. Just after eleven o'clock the captain corrected her course and turned her head toward Guernsey. Only a little time had been lost, but when the days are short it is unfortunate to lose any time. There was a fine February sun. Tangrouille, in the state he was in, had neither a firm footing nor a steady hand. As a result he frequently yawed, and this slowed down the ship's progress.

The wind had now almost died away.

The passenger from Guernsey, who had a telescope, trained it from time to time on a small patch of grayish mist that was lightly floating in the wind on the horizon to the west. It looked like a lump of cotton wool powdered with dust.

Captain Clubin had his usual austere and puritanical air. He seemed to be watching even more intently.

The atmosphere on board was tranquil and almost merry as the passengers talked together. If you close your eyes during a sea passage you can judge the state of the sea from the tremolo of conversations on board. Perfect freedom of conversation between passengers shows that the sea is absolutely calm.

For example, a conversation such as this could only take place on a very calm sea:

“Just look at that pretty green and red fly, sir.”

“It must have lost its way over the sea and is having a rest on the ship.”

“A fly doesn't usually get tired.”

“No, they are very light. The wind carries them along.”

“Do you know, sir, they once weighed an ounce of flies, and then they counted them and found that there were six thousand two hundred and sixty-eight of them?”

The Guernsey man with the telescope had joined the two cattle dealers from Saint-Malo, and their conversation went something like this:

“An Aubrac ox has a round thickset body, short legs, and a tawny hide. He is a slow worker because of the shortness of his legs.”

“In that respect the Salers breed is better than the Aubrac.”

“I've seen two magnificent oxen in my life, sir. The first had short legs, solid forequarters, full hindquarters, broad haunches, good length from the neck to the rump, good height to the withers, good fat, and a hide that was easy to take off. The other showed all the signs of having been properly fattened—a sturdy body, a strong neck, light legs, a white-and-red hide, sloping hindquarters.”

“That's the Cotentin breed.”

“Yes, but with something of the Angus or the Suffolk bull.”

“You'll hardly believe this, sir, but in the south of France they have donkey shows.”

“Donkey shows?”

“Yes, I assure you. The ugly ones are regarded as the best.”

“Then it's the same as with mules: the ugliest are the best.”

“Just so. Like the Poitevin mare: big belly, thick legs.”

“The best type of mule is like a barrel on four posts.”

“The standard of beauty for animals is not the same as for men.”

“And certainly not the same as for women.”

“That's true.”

“I like a woman to be pretty.”

“I like her to be well dressed.”

“Yes: neat, tidy, well turned out, smart.”

“Looking brand-new. A young girl should always look as if she had just come out of a bandbox.”

“But about these two oxen I was talking about. I saw them being sold in the market at Thouars.”

“Yes, I know the Thouars market. The Bonneaus of La Rochelle and the Babus, the grain merchants of Marans—I don't know if you have heard of them—must have been at that market.”

The tourist and the man from Paris were talking to the American with the Bibles. There, too, the conversation was going well.

“Sir,” said the tourist, “I will tell you the tonnage of shipping in the civilized world: France, seven hundred and sixteen thousand tons; Germany, a million; the United States, five million; England, five million five hundred thousand. Add to this the tonnage of the smaller countries, and you get a total of twelve million nine hundred and four thousand tons, distributed in a hundred and forty-five thousand ships scattered over the oceans of the globe.”

The American interrupted:

“Sir, it is the United States that have five million five hundred thousand.”

“I will accept that,” said the tourist. “You are an American?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I accept that, too.”

There was a silence. The American was wondering whether to offer the man a Bible.

The tourist went on:

“Is it the case, sir, that you are fond of using nicknames in America, so much so that you apply them to all your famous people, and call your celebrated Missouri banker Thomas Benton ‘Old Bullion'?”

“Yes, sir—just as we call Zachary Taylor ‘Old Rough and Ready.' ”

“And General Harrison ‘Old Tip'—isn't that so?—and General Jackson ‘Old Hickory'?”

“Because Jackson is as tough as hickory wood, and because Harrison beat the redskins at Tippecanoe.”

“It's a very odd fashion.”

“It's just our way. We call Van Buren the ‘Little Magician'; Seward is called ‘Little Billy' because he introduced small dollar bills; and Douglas, the Democratic senator for Illinois, who is four feet tall but a great orator, is the ‘Little Giant.' You can go from Texas to Maine, but you will never find anyone using the name Cass: it is always the ‘big man from Michigan.' And Clay is known as the ‘Mill-Boy of the Slashes': his father was a miller.”

“I would rather say Clay or Cass,” said the man from Paris. “It's shorter.”

“You would show you didn't know what was what. Corwin, who is secretary of the Treasury, is the ‘Wagon Boy.' Daniel Webster is ‘Black Dan.' And Winfield Scott, whose first thought after beating the English at Chippeway was to call for a plate of soup, is called ‘Marshal Tureen.' ”

The patch of mist that had been seen in the distance had grown in size, and now occupied a segment of about fifteen degrees on the horizon. It was like a cloud hanging low over the water for lack of wind. There was now hardly a breath of air. The sea was as smooth as a millpond. Although it was not yet noon the sun was growing pale. It gave light but not heat.

“I think the weather's going to change,” said the tourist.

“We'll perhaps have rain,” said the man from Paris.

“Or fog,” said the American.

“The rainiest place in Italy, sir,” said the tourist, “is Tolmezzo, and Molfetta has the least rain.”

At midday, in accordance with custom in the archipelago, the bell rang for dinner. Those who wanted dinner went below. Some passengers who had brought food with them ate it cheerfully on deck. Clubin ate nothing.

While the passengers were having their meal the conversations continued.

The Guernsey man, feeling an interest in his Bibles, joined the American, who asked him:

“You know these waters?”

“Yes; I belong to these parts.”

“And so do I,” said one of the men from Saint-Malo.

The Guernsey man acknowledged this with a bow, and went on:

“Here we are in the open sea, but I would not have liked having fog when we were off the Minquiers.”

The American, addressing the man from Saint-Malo, said:

“Islanders are more men of the sea than those who live on the coast.”

“That's true. We coast people are only half in the water.”

“What are the Minquiers?” continued the American.

“They're very nasty rocks,” replied the man from Saint-Malo.

“There are also the Grelets,” said the Guernsey man.

“That's true, too,” said the man from Saint-Malo.

“And the Chouas,” added the Guernsey man.

The man from Saint-Malo laughed. “Well, if it comes to that, there are also the Sauvages,” he said.

“And the Moines,”
¹³⁹
said the Guernsey man.

“And the Canard,”
¹⁴⁰
riposted the man from Saint-Malo.

“Sir,” said the Guernsey man politely, “you can always give tit for tat.”

“There are no flies on us Malouins,”
¹⁴¹
said the man from Saint-Malo, with a wink.

“Have we got to make our way through all these rocks?” asked the tourist.

“No. We left them to the south-southeast. They're behind us now.”

And the Guernsey man went on:

“Counting both the big ones and the little ones, there are altogether fifty-seven rocks in the Grelets.”

“And forty-eight in the Minquiers,” said the man from Saint-Malo.

The conversation now continued between the man from Saint-Malo and the Guernsey man.

“I think, sir,” said the Guernsey man, “that there are three rocks you haven't counted.”

“I've counted them all.”

“From the Dérée to the Maître-Île?”

“Yes.”

“And the Maisons?”
¹⁴²

“Yes. They are seven rocks in the middle of the Minquiers.”

“I see that you know your rocks.”

“If I didn't I wouldn't be a Saint-Malo man.”

“It is always a pleasure to hear what a Frenchman thinks.”

It was now the Saint-Malo man's turn to bow in acknowledgment. He went on:

“Then there are the Sauvages—three rocks.”

“And the Moines—two.”

“And the Canard—one.”

“Its name shows that there is only one.”

“That isn't always so, for the Suarde is four rocks.”

“What do you call the Suarde?” asked the Guernsey man.

“We call the Suarde what you call the Chouas.”

“It's not an easy passage between the Chouas and the Canard.”

“Only birds can get through.”

“And fish.”

“It's difficult even for them. In rough weather they knock against the walls.”

“There is sand in the Minquiers.”

“And around the Maisons.”

“These are eight rocks you can see from Jersey.”

“That's true: from the beach at Azette. Not eight, though—seven.”

“At low tide you can walk between the Minquiers.”

“Yes, of course: the sand is uncovered.”

“And what about the Dirouilles?”

“The Dirouilles are very different from the Minquiers.”

“It's dangerous there, too.”

“They are over Granville way.”

“It's easy to see that you Saint-Malo people are just like us: you like sailing.”

“Yes,” said the man from Saint-Malo, “but the difference is that we say we are accustomed to sailing, while you say you like it.”