The mist was deformed by all sorts of inequalities, bulging out at onceon every point of the horizon, as if invisible mouths were busy puffingout the bags of wind. The formation of the clouds was becoming ominous.In the west, as in the east, the sky's depths were now invaded by theblue cloud: it advanced in the teeth of the wind. These contradictionsare part of the wind's vagaries.
The sea, which a moment before wore scales, now wore a skin--such is thenature of that dragon. It was no longer a crocodile: it was a boa. Theskin, lead-coloured and dirty, looked thick, and was crossed by heavywrinkles. Here and there, on its surface, bubbles of surge, likepustules, gathered and then burst. The foam was like a leprosy. It wasat this moment that the hooker, still seen from afar by the child,lighted her signal.
A quarter of an hour elapsed.
The skipper looked for the doctor: he was no longer on deck. Directlythe skipper had left him, the doctor had stooped his somewhat ungainlyform under the hood, and had entered the cabin; there he had sat downnear the stove, on a block. He had taken a shagreen ink-bottle and acordwain pocket-book from his pocket; he had extracted from hispocket-book a parchment folded four times, old, stained, and yellow; hehad opened the sheet, taken a pen out of his ink-case, placed thepocket-book flat on his knee, and the parchment on the pocket-book; andby the rays of the lantern, which was lighting the cook, he set towriting on the back of the parchment. The roll of the wavesinconvenienced him. He wrote thus for some time.
As he wrote, the doctor remarked the gourd of aguardiente, which theProvencal tasted every time he added a grain of pimento to the puchero,as if he were consulting it in reference to the seasoning. The doctornoticed the gourd, not because it was a bottle of brandy, but because ofa name which was plaited in the wickerwork with red rushes on abackground of white. There was light enough in the cabin to permit ofhis reading the name.
The doctor paused, and spelled it in a low voice,--
"Hardquanonne."
Then he addressed the cook.
"I had not observed that gourd before; did it belong to Hardquanonne?"
"Yes," the cook answered; "to our poor comrade, Hardquanonne."
The doctor went on,--
"To Hardquanonne, the Fleming of Flanders?"
"Yes."
"Who is in prison?"
"Yes."
"In the dungeon at Chatham?"
"It is his gourd," replied the cook; "and he was my friend. I keep it inremembrance of him. When shall we see him again? It is the bottle heused to wear slung over his hip."
The doctor took up his pen again, and continued laboriously tracingsomewhat straggling lines on the parchment. He was evidently anxiousthat his handwriting should be very legible; and at length,notwithstanding the tremulousness of the vessel and the tremulousness ofage, he finished what he wanted to write.
It was time, for suddenly a sea struck the craft, a mighty rush ofwaters besieged the hooker, and they felt her break into that fearfuldance in which ships lead off with the tempest.
The doctor arose and approached the stove, meeting the ship's motionwith his knees dexterously bent, dried as best he could, at the stovewhere the pot was boiling, the lines he had written, refolded theparchment in the pocket-book, and replaced the pocket-book and theinkhorn in his pocket.
The stove was not the least ingenious piece of interior economy in thehooker. It was judiciously isolated. Meanwhile the pot heaved--theProvencal was watching it.
"Fish broth," said he.
"For the fishes," replied the doctor. Then he went on deck again.