“Already in China?” asked Sylvestre, at
the sight of those grotesque figures in pigtails.
“Bless you, no, not yet,” they told him;
“have a little more patience.”
It was only Singapore. He went up into his mast-top
again, to avoid the black dust tossed about by the
breeze, while the coal was feverishly heaped up in
the bunkers from little baskets.
One day, at length, they arrived off a land called
Tourane, where the Circe was anchored, to blockade
the port. This was the ship to which Sylvestre
had been long ago assigned, and he was left there with
his bag.
On board he met with two mates from home, Icelanders,
who were captains of guns for the time being.
Through the long, hot, still evenings, when there
was no work to be done, they clustered on deck apart
from the others, to form together a little Brittany
of remembrances.
Five months he passed there in inaction and exile,
locked up in the cheerless bay, with the feverish
desire to go out and fight and slay, for change’s
sake.
In Paimpol again, on the last day of February, before
the setting-out for Iceland. Gaud was standing
up against her room door, pale and still. For
Yann was below, chatting to her father. She had
seen him come in, and indistinctly heard his voice.
All through the winter they never had met, as if some
invincible fate always had kept them apart.
After the failure to find him in her walk to Pors-Even,
she had placed some hope on the Pardon des Islandais
where there would be many chances for them to see
and talk to one another, in the market-place at dusk,
among the crowd.
But on the very morning of the holiday, though the
streets were already draped in white and strewn with
green garlands, a hard rain had fallen in torrents,
brought from the west by a soughing wind; never had
so black a sky shadowed Paimpol. “What
a pity! the boys won’t come over from Ploubazlanec
now,” had moaned the lasses, whose sweethearts
dwelt there. And they did not come, or else had
gone straight into the taverns to drink together.
There had been no processions or strolls, and she,
with her heart aching more than ever, had remained
at her window the whole evening listening to the water
streaming over the roofs, and the fishers’ noisy
songs rising and falling out of the depths of the
taverns.
For the last few days she had been expecting this
visit, surmising truly that old Gaos would send his
son to terminate the business concerning the sale
of the boat, as he did not care to come into Paimpol
himself. She determined then that she would go
straight to him, and, unlike other girls, speak out
frankly, to have her conscience clear on the subject.
She would reproach him with having sought her out and
having abandoned her like a man without honour.
If it were only stubbornness, timidity, his great
