for a moment he knelt helpless, with idle hands. he knew quite well that though the vessel seemed steering straight for the island, she might pass it a long distance away; a smoke signal could not but attract her attention, yet he was debarred from making it.
the tricky spirit that seemed to haunt the islet seemed still active and at work, filling his pockets with jewels, yet holding back from him the means of escape.
he rose to his feet and stared about him, trying to remember when he had last lit his pipe; then he came back along the pathway to the beach, searching the ground, the sand, casting his eyes hither and thither, the sweat running from every pore. he searched the whole width of the beach for twenty yards from the fallen palm trees towards the coral spur; the gulls were calling and fishing as of old and their voices seemed mocking him, he, who, burning for action, had yet to walk up and down slowly as an old man, with head bent and eyes cast before him after the fashion of a penitent.
there was no sign of the box; it was a small affair, one of those cheap nickel tinder boxes they sell to sailors, a “smoker’s friend” containing a wheel armed with a bit of flint, a spring which rotated the wheel, and a tiny wick which caught the spark.
he was turning from the beach in despair when his284 foot struck against what seemed a pebble half covered by sand. it was the “smoker’s friend.” it had fallen last night from his pocket and the wind had blown the sand over it. he seized it and with it in his hand came running back to the heap of brushwood. he first turned his eyes to the ship. she was larger, nearer, yet seemingly farther from the track of the island; as far as he could judge she might pass it by some three miles. he flung himself on his knees by the heap of brushwood and pressing the spring of the tinder box, struck a spark. it caught on the inflammable wick, the wick smouldered, and then, as he blew at it, broke into flame. it was a very small flame, not nearly as big as that given by a large sized wax match. then he approached the tiny point of light to one of the dead twigs of the brushwood. he was kneeling with his back to the wind so as to protect the flame, but for all his care a breath across his shoulder blew it out.
he cursed. then holding the box close to his body, he re-lit the wick.
the wetting the box had received during the hurricane must have damaged its spirit; yesterday when he had lit his pipe with it he had done so with great difficulty, but the flame was even more feeble to-day; it went out again at the critical moment, and again, and again; the brushwood, perhaps, from the effect of the sea-salt that had dried upon it, was hard to ignite; had he but a piece of paper the task would have been easy, but there was not a scrap on the island.
then he remembered sagesse’s pocket-book, which he had buried in the sand. he was rising to hunt for it when he remembered also the banknote that he had taken from the papers of sagesse and which was in his pocket.
to find the pocket-book might take a long time, for the285 sand had blown smoothly over the place where he had buried it; the banknote was to his hand and would burn bravely. it did.
as it took light, and as its flame took the brushwood, a burst of discordant cries came from the fishing ground of the gulls away to the southeast. they were fighting over some fish, no doubt, or some offal of the sea cast shoreward, yet as the blue smoke curled upwards and as the last of the five hundred franc note burnt gaspard’s fingers, one might have fancied that they were shouting in derision:
“there goes the first of your fortune in smoke—smoke—smoke. hi, you there amidst the bushes, think you to escape us with serpente’s treasure? it is ours—hi! do you hear? it is ours—ours—ours—our voices will follow you wherever it goes, bringing weariness, desolation—death—hi! hi! hi!”
absurdity, of course, yet the voices of the gulls were a part of the fatefulness of that place, with the blinding light and the desolation, they made its personality—after all, was it absurdity or poetry on the part of the castaway to read into all that a menace, to feel serpente’s fist still closed upon his treasure, to hear the voices of his sailors in the voices of the gulls. no man can say who has not heard the spirit of the sea speak on the quays of florida, by the lagoons of the coast, on the islands of the caribbean—who has not seen laropé’s topsails break the horizon, leading into poor reality the hull of some trading ship, or heard the gulls of the lagoons telling the fate of the old buccaneers.
now the bonfire was burning bravely, and gaspard, attacking the bay cedars with his knife, cast younger wood upon the flames; it damped them down, but it gave smoke,286 blankets and spirals of blue-grey smoke, thickening, deepening, and at last rising in a steady column. he ran to the fallen palm trees and hacked away their fronds, half dried and half withered by the sea; they increased the flame and more green brushwood increased the smoke.
it was now magnificent, a pillar of darkness rising in the air, bending to the wind and breaking into fronds of smoke.
he left it, and shading his eyes stared out across the sea. the vessel was almost abreast of the island, about three miles away to northward, scarcely two miles to westward; she was a small vessel, ship rigged; that is to say, with square sails on all her three masts; she would not be more than two hundred and fifty or three hundred tons.
the wind had veered almost into the east, so she had it on her beam.
she seemed indifferent to all things and as divorced from reality as a painted ship in some brilliant picture of the sea. never did it seem possible that she would respond to call or signal.
she was abreast of the island now—and now—gaspard could scarcely believe his eyes—she was altering her course; the wind was spilling from her sails—she was heaving to.
he saw a boat detach itself from her, a tiny speck at first, now larger, now plainly visible; it was making, not for the western side, but for the southern beach, where the landing was good. evidently the vessel knew the island and had landed a boat here before.
