第46章

I may well remember that last night spent with the pilots of the Third Company.I have known the spell of moonlight since,on various seas and coasts--coasts of forests,of rocks,of sand dunes--but no magic so perfect in its revelation of unsuspected character,as though one were allowed to look upon the mystic nature of material things.For hours I suppose no word was spoken in that boat.The pilots,seated in two rows facing each other,dozed,with their arms folded and their chins resting upon their breasts.They displayed a great variety of caps:cloth,wool,leather,peaks,ear-flaps,tassels,with a picturesque round beret or two pulled down over the brows;and one grandfather,with a shaved,bony face and a great beak of a nose,had a cloak with a hood which made him look in our midst like a cowled monk being carried off goodness knows where by that silent company of seamen--quiet enough to be dead.

My fingers itched for the tiller,and in due course my friend,the patron,surrendered it to me in the same spirit in which the family coachman lets a boy hold the reins on an easy bit of road.

There was a great solitude around us;the islets ahead,Monte Cristo and the Chateau daft in full light,seemed to float toward us--so steady,so imperceptible was the progress of our boat.

"Keep her in the furrow of the moon,"the patron directed me,in a quiet murmur,sitting down ponderously in the stern-sheets and reaching for his pipe.

The pilot station in weather like this was only a mile or two to the westward of the islets;and presently,as we approached the spot,the boat we were going to relieve swam into our view suddenly,on her way home,cutting black and sinister into the wake of the moon under a sable wing,while to them our sail must have been a vision of white and dazzling radiance.Without altering the course a hair's breadth we slipped by each other within an oar's length.A drawling,sardonic hail came out of her.Instantly,as if by magic,our dozing pilots got on their feet in a body.An incredible babel of bantering shouts burst out,a jocular,passionate,voluble chatter,which lasted till the boats were stern to stern,theirs all bright now,and,with a shining sail to our eyes,we turned all black to their vision,and drew away from them under a sable wing.That extraordinary uproar died away almost as suddenly as it had begun;first one had enough of it and sat down,then another,then three or four together;and when all had left off with mutters and growling half-laughs the sound of hearty chuckling became audible,persistent,unnoticed.The cowled grandfather was very much entertained somewhere within his hood.

He had not joined in the shouting of jokes,neither had he moved the least bit.He had remained quietly in his place against the foot of the mast.I had been given to understand long before that he had the rating of a second-class able seaman (matelot leger)in the fleet which sailed from Toulon for the conquest of Algeria in the year of grace 1830.And,indeed,I had seen and examined one of the buttons of his old brown,patched coat,the only brass button of the miscellaneous lot,flat and thin,with the words Equipages de ligne engraved on it.That sort of button,I believe,went out with the last of the French Bourbons.

"I preserved it from the time of my navy service,"he explained,nodding rapidly his frail,vulture-like head.It was not very likely that he had picked up that relic in the street.He looked certainly old enough to have fought at Trafalgar--or,at any rate,to have played his little part there as a powder monkey.

Shortly after we had been introduced he had informed me in a Franco-Provencal jargon,mumbling tremulously with his toothless jaws,that when he was a "shaver no higher than that"he had seen the Emperor Napoleon returning from Elba.It was at night,he narrated vaguely,without animation,at a spot between Frejus and Antibes,in the open country.A big fire had been lit at the side of the cross-roads.The population from several villages had collected there,old and young--down to the very children in arms,because the women had refused to stay at home.Tall soldiers wearing high,hairy caps stood in a circle,facing the people silently,and their stern eyes and big mustaches were enough to make everybody keep at a distance.He,"being an impudent little shaver,"wriggled out of the crowd,creeping on his hands and knees as near as he dared to the grenadiers'legs,and peeping through discovered,standing perfectly still in the light of the fire,"a little fat fellow in a three-cornered hat,buttoned up in a long straight coat,with a big,pale face inclined on one shoulder,looking something like a priest.His hands were clasped behind his back.It appears that this was the Emperor,"the ancient commented,with a faint sigh.He was staring from the ground with all his might,when "my poor father,"who had been searching for his boy frantically every where,pounced upon him and hauled him away by the ear.