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 w............