Part 3 In The Shadow Chapter 11

One morning, going on three o'clock, while all were dreaming quietlyunder their winding-sheet of fog, they heard something like a clamourof voices--voices whose tones seemed strange and unfamiliar. Those ondeck looked at each other questioningly.

　　"Who's that talking?"Nobody. Nobody had said anything. For that matter, the sounds hadseemed to come from the outer void. Then the man who had charge of thefog-horn, but had been neglecting his duty since overnight, rushed forit, and inflating his lungs to their utmost, sounded with all hismight the long bellow of alarm. It was enough to make a man of ironstart, in such a silence.

　　As if a spectre had been evoked by that thrilling, though deep-tonedroar, a huge unforeseen gray form suddenly arose very loftily andtowered threateningly right beside them; masts, spars, rigging, alllike a ship that had taken sudden shape in the air instantly, just asa single beam of electric light evokes phantasmagoria on the screen ofa magic lantern.

　　Men appeared, almost close enough to touch them, leaning over thebulwarks, staring at them with eyes distended in the awakening ofsurprise and dread.

　　The /Marie's/ men rushed for oars, spars, boat-hooks, anything theycould lay their hands on for fenders, and held them out to shove offthat grisly thing and its impending visitors. Lo! these others,terrified also, put out large beams to repel them likewise.

　　But there came only a very faint creaking in the topmasts, as bothstanding gears momentarily entangled became disentangled without theleast damage; the shock, very gentle in such a calm had been almostwholly deadened; indeed, it was so feeble that it really seemed as ifthe other ship had no substance, that it was a mere pulp, almostwithout weight.

　　When the fright was over, the men began to laugh; they had recognisedeach other.

　　"/La Marie/, ahoy! how are ye, lads?""Halloa! Gaos, Laumec, Guermeur!"The spectre ship was the /Reine-Berthe/, also of Paimpol, and so thesailors were from neighbouring villages; that thick, tall fellow withthe huge, black beard, showing his teeth when he laughed, wasKerjegou, one of the Ploudaniel boys, the others were from Plounes orPlounerin.

　　"Why didn't you blow your fog-horn, and be blowed to you, you herd ofsavages?" challenged Larvoer of the /Reine-Berthe/.

　　"If it comes to that, why didn't you blow yours, you crew of pirates--you rank mess of toad-fish?""Oh, no! with us, d'ye see, the sea-law differs. /We're forbidden tomake any noise!/"He made this reply with the air of giving a dark hint, and a queersmile, which afterward came back to the memory of the men of the/Marie/, and caused them a great deal of thinking. Then, as if hethought he had said too much, he concluded with a joke:

　　"Our fog-horn, d'ye see, was burst by this rogue here a-blowing toohard into it." He pointed to a sailor with a face like a Triton, a manall bull-neck and chest, extravagantly broad-shouldered, low-set uponhis legs, with something unspeakably grotesque and unpleasant in thedeformity of strength.

　　While they were looking at each other, waiting for breeze orundercurrent to move one vessel faster than the other and separatethem, a general palaver began. Leaning over the side, but holding eachother off at a respectable distance with their long wooden props, likebesieged pikemen repelling an assault, they began to chat about home,the last letters received, and sweethearts and wives.

　　"I say! my old woman," said Kerjegou, "tells me she's had the littleboy we were looking for; that makes half-score-two now!"Another had found himself the father of twins; and a third announcedthe marriage of pretty Jenny Caroff, a girl well known to all theIcelanders, with some rich and infirm old resident of the Commune ofPlourivo. As they were eyeing each other as if through white gauze,this also appeared to alter the sound of the voices, which came as ifmuffled and from far away.

　　Meanwhile Yann could not take his eyes off one of those brotherfishermen, a little grizzled fellow, whom he was quite sure he neverhad seen before, but who had, nevertheless, straightway said to him,"How d'o, long Yann?" with all the familiarity of bosom acquaintance.

　　He wore the provoking ugliness of a monkey, with an apish twinkling ofmischief too in his piercing eyes.

　　"As for me," said Larvoer, of the /Reine-Berthe/, "I've been told ofthe death of the grandson of old Yvonne Moan, of Ploubazlanec--who wasserving his time in the navy, you know, in the Chinese squadron--avery great pity."On hearing this, all the men of /La Marie/ turned towards Yann tolearn if he already knew anything of the sad news.

　　"Ay," he answered in a low voice, but with an indifferent and haughtyair, "it was told me in the last letter my father sent me." They stillkept on looking at him, curious at finding out the secret of hisgrief, and it made him angry.

　　These questions and answers were rapidly exchanged through the pallidmists, so the moments of this peculiar colloquy skipped swiftly by.

　　"My wife wrote me at the same time," continued Larvoer, "that MonsieurMevel's daughter has left the town to live at Ploubazlanec and takecare of her old grand-aunt--Granny Moan. She goes out to needlework bythe day now--to earn her living. Anyhow, I always thought, I did, thatshe was a good, brave girl, in spite of her fine-lady airs and herfurbelows."Then again they all stared at Yann, which made him still more angry; ared flush mounted to his cheeks, under their tawny tan.

　　With Larvoer's expression of opinion about Gaud ended this parley withthe crew of the /Reine-Berthe/, none of whom were ever again to beseen by human eyes. For a moment their faces became more dim, theirvessel being already farther away; and then, all at once, the men ofthe /Marie/ found they had nothing to push against, nothing at the endof their poles--all spars, oars, odds and ends of deck-lumber, weregroping and quivering in emptiness, till they fell heavily, one afterthe other, down into the sea, like their own arms, lopped off andinert.

　　They pulled all the useless defences on board. The /Reine-Berthe/,melting away into the thick fog, had disappeared as suddenly as apainted ship in a dissolving view. They tried to hail her, but theonly response was a sort of mocking clamour--as of many voices--endingin a moan, that made them all stare at each other in surprise.

　　This /Reine-Berthe/ did not come back with the other Icelandicfishers; and as the men of the /Samuel-Azenide/ afterward picked up insome fjord an unmistakable waif (part of her taffrail with a bit ofher keel), all ceased to hope; in the month of October the names ofall her crew were inscribed upon black slabs in the church.

　　From the very time of that apparition--the date of which was wellremembered by the men of the /Marie/--until the time of their return,there had been no really dangerous weather on the Icelandic seas, buta great storm from the west had, three weeks before, swept severalsailors overboard, and swallowed up two vessels. The men rememberedLarvoer's peculiar smile, and putting things together many strangeconjectures were made. In the dead of night, Yann, more than once,dreamed that he again saw the sailor who blinked like an ape, and someof the men of the /Marie/ wondered if, on that remembered morning,they had not been talking with ghosts.