Chapter 7 - Page 2

them, fantastic, lighted up, perfectly
empty, and with the driver apparently asleep on his swaying perch above
that amazing racket. I flattened myself against the wall and gasped. It
was a stunning experience. Then after staggering on a few paces in
the shadow of the fort, casting a darkness more intense than that of a
clouded night upon the canal, I saw the tiny light of a lantern standing
on the quay, and became aware of muffled figures making toward it from
various directions. Pilots of the Third Company hastening to embark.
Too sleepy to be talkative, they step on board in silence. But a few low
grunts and an enormous yawn are heard. Somebody even ejaculates: "_Ah!
Coquin de sort!_" and sighs wearily at his hard fate.

The patron of the Third Company (there were five companies of pilots
at that time, I believe) is the brother-in-law of my friend Solary
(Baptistin), a broad-shouldered, deep chested man of forty, with a keen,
frank glance which always seeks your eyes.

He greets me by a low, hearty "_He, l'ami. Comment va_?" With his clipped
mustache and massive open face, energetic and at the same time placid
in expression, he is a fine specimen of the southerner of the calm
type. For there is such a type in which the volatile southern passion
is transmuted into solid force. He is fair, but no one could mistake him
for a man of the north even by the dim gleam of the lantern standing on
the quay. He is worth a dozen of your ordinary Normans or Bretons, but
then, in the whole immense sweep of the Mediterranean shores, you could
not find half a dozen men of his stamp.

Standing by the tiller, he pulls out his watch from under a thick jacket
and bends his head over it in the light cast into the boat. Time's up.
His pleasant voice commands, in a quiet undertone, "_Larguez_." A suddenly
projected arm snatches the lantern off the quay--and, warped along by
a line at first, then with the regular tug of four heavy sweeps in
the bow, the big half-decked boat full of men glides out of the black,
breathless shadow of the fort. The open water of the avant-port glitters
under the moon as if sown over with millions of sequins, and the long
white break water shines like a thick bar of solid silver. With a quick
rattle of blocks and one single silky swish, the sail is filled by a
little breeze keen enough to have come straight down from the frozen
moon, and the boat, after the clatter of the hauled-in sweeps, seems
to stand at rest, surrounded by a mysterious whispering so faint and
unearthly that it may be the rustling of the brilliant, overpowering
moon rays breaking like a rain-shower upon the hard, smooth, shadowless
sea.

I may well remember that last night spent with the