The good fortune that had followed him pursued also the Anne Martin, the wind held steady, the sky clear; flying, fresh weather and a sparkling sea brought her into the Caribbean; they sighted ships but always at a distance, sails that flecked the far off horizon and vanished, long wreaths of steamer smoke, phantoms speaking as vaguely of the world of men as the strips of fucus floating past on the swell.

Not only had they good weather but good temper reigned on board.

Stock, a “hard case” in the language of sailors, had taken in, with the news of Sagesse’s death, a cargo of good humour that promised to last him till they fetched Martinique.

Gaspard had his meals in the cabin, with the few words of English that he knew and a few more that he picked up daily, he could make his wants understood without the assistance of Diego; as for conversation, he did just as well with his half dozen words as with a thousand, for conversation there was none amidst the after guard of the Anne Martin.

As day followed day and Martinique crept closer to them, so did the idea of Marie grow in Gaspard’s mind, ousting the idea of Fortune and all other ideas and preoccupations. Just as, on the approach to Skeleton Island,294 the vision of treasure drove her image from his mind, now on his approach to Martinique, so did her image cast out the vision of treasure. If he thought of his wealth at all, it was only connection with her.

One night, under a sky blazing with stars, he was standing on deck watching the phosporescent gleams in the water. Captain Stock, who had just emerged from the cabin companion-way came towards him, leaned over the bulwark, took his cigar from his mouth and expectorated into the sea.

“To-morrow,” said the Captain, pointing right ahead.

Gaspard started.

“Martinique?”

“Yes.”

Then the Captain went forward, leaving Gaspard alone.

He knew they were close to the island, but he had not reckoned that they were so near as that.

To-morrow, he would see Marie to-morrow. To-morrow, he would be walking the pleasant sunlit streets of St. Pierre, he remembered the shops of the Rue Victor Hugo. O, what would he not buy her! He would take her and say, “All St. Pierre is yours—take what you please.”

Then he cast his thoughts abroad, all through St. Pierre, wandering hither and thither, and touching this person, and that, with a loving hand. Man’m Faly, Pierre-Alphonse, the girls who were Marie’s friends. Finotte, Honorine, Lys, they would all share in his jubilee, and there was something grim in the idea that the pleasantest thing he was bringing with him, the thing that would make him most welcome in the coloured city, was the news of Pierre Sagesse’s death.

He went below and turned in, and fell asleep with his mind full of these pleasant imaginings.

295 This was the season of the most heavy rains and he had been asleep scarcely an hour when the Anne Martin sailed into a rain squall, and the thunder of rain on the deck reached him in dreamland.

The scenery of his dreams at once took the form of the little Place de la Fontaine, where he had first met Marie. He was walking there with her and the sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue. Then, all at once, he lost her. She had vanished amidst the crowd of dream people who were strolling through the Place.

Then, just as on the day he first met her “clash—ripple—clash” came the carillon of the cathedral bells, but they did not bring him to Marie, clouds darkened the sky and the thunder of rain filled the air, and through it all the bells ringing on joyous, triumphant, golden, like the voice of the love that lives beyond disaster and death—Then he awoke.

It was pitch dark and the thunder of the rain on deck was ceasing.

He lay awake for an hour and then he slept again, only to repeat the dream.

A little after dawn he awoke with the bells sounding so loudly in his ears that he could have sworn they were anchored in the bay and that the cathedral was greeting them with a peal, but he knew by the movement of the ship that this was not so.

He put his hand into the upper bunk, and taking the treasure bundle from beneath the mattress, put it in his pocket. Then he came on deck.

The sun had already shewed himself just above the horizon, but the sky was clouded to southward and rain squalls dimmed the horizon.

S. S. E. and perhaps not more than ten miles away lay296 Martinique with Pelée wrapped in ragged and dirty-coloured clouds. He looked like a king whose robes had gone to tatters till the sun r............