that night when gaspard was on deck, smoking a pipe before turning in, he heard the sound of laughter coming from away forward.
there was no light on deck but the light of the binnacle lamp and a glimmer from a crack in the deck-house door which was closed, and out of the darkness away forward came this sudden shock of laughter, not loud, but hard, mirthless, and inhuman.
if a fiend had dropped from the sky and stridden the bowsprit, he might have emitted such a laugh at la belle arlésienne, her captain, her crew, and her venture before putting his blight upon the vessel and whooping into the sea.
gaspard glanced at the steersman. he was a big negro, naked to his waist in the hot night, a colossal figure touched by the binnacle light. whether he heard or whether he did not hear it was impossible to say; he shewed neither sign nor movement, with the exception of the movement of the great right hand upon the wheel spoke, now visible, now fleeting into darkness.
“pardieu!” muttered gaspard to himself, “the fellow that made that laugh would not make the pleasantest companion. let us listen—”
he leaned on the bulwark rail.
the hot southeast trade wind coming out of the velvety209 darkness whispered in the shrouds and set the reef points pattering; the warm, windy, starry night had a perfume more than the perfume of the sea; some trace of scent from the gardens and forests of dominica, some hint of the spices of guadaloupe hung on the skirts of the wind.
then, all of a sudden, from forward came again the voice, not laughing this time.
a fort de france, ay ho!
a fort de france, ay ho!
bonjour doudoux, ay ho!
a fort de france.
a fort de france,
ay ho!
the chanty of the negroes when they were breaking the cargo out of la belle arlésienne sung by that single cracked voice. now, the negro sailor, or the white, for the matter of that, never sings a working chanty for the pleasure of the thing. who was this, then, breaking imaginary cargo or tramping at the capstan bars of some visionary vessel?
the deck-house door opened and a burst of light flooded the deck.
sagesse stood for a moment framed in the doorway. he seemed listening to the voice from forward; then he saw gaspard and called him to come into the deck-house.
a case bottle of rum was on the table, two glasses, and a pitcher of water; one of the glasses held some rum in it. sagesse had evidently been drinking by himself. his face had a grey tinge; something had evidently disturbed him.
he shut the door, filled a glass for gaspard, placed a box of cigars on the table, all without a word; then he took210 his seat at the table and began talking of the voyage in the desultory manner of a man who wishes to make conversation.
now and again, as he talked, he ceased, as if to listen. now, there was nothing to be heard but the voice of the ship, the creak of block and stanchion, the hundred small tongues by which the vessel speaks. then, thin and far away, would come the other voice:
a fort de france, ay ho!
thin, weary, the ghost of a sound.
gaspard knew now all at once, from sagesse’s manner, that the singer was pedro, that the man was delirious, probably dying.
but he said nothing. pedro, what he had seen of him, was a hang-dog looking scoundrel; he did not feel very much interested in his fate, though hating the idea that he had been brutally knocked about. what absorbed his attention now was the manner of sagesse.
the captain had filled his glass, finished it, and filled again; he talked incessantly, and the talk seemed to intoxicate him as much as the rum; the more intoxicated he grew the less did he care about the matter which had been on his mind.
then, at length, he rose to his feet and flung the deck-house door open for air. he stood for a moment in the doorway, as if listening; but there was nothing to hear, for the voice had ceased.
