"Which would you prefer, to go on with us to America, or go back to France?"
"Back to France, if I can find my way. Oh, I must get to France again if only to have a word with that fool of a gunner."
"Well, we emptied a bucket of water over his linstock and priming, d'ye see, so maybe he did all he could. But there's France, where that thickening is over yonder."
"I see it! I see it! Ah, if my feet were only upon it once more."
"There is a boat beside us, and you may take it."
"My God, what happiness! Corporal Lemoine, the boat! Let us push off at once."
"But you need a few things first. Good Lord, who ever heard of a man pushing off like that! Mr. Tomlinson, just sling a keg of water and a barrel of meat and of biscuit into this boat. Hiram Jefferson, bring two oars aft. It's a long pull with the wind in your teeth, but you'll be there by to-morrow night, and the weather is set fair."
The two Frenchmen were soon provided with all that they were likely to require, and pushed off with a waving of hats and a shouting of bon voyage. The foreyard was swung round again and the Golden Rod turned her bowsprit for the west. For hours a glimpse could be caught of the boat, dwindling away on the wave-tops, until at last it vanished into the haze, and with it vanished the very last link which connected them with the great world which they were leaving behind them.
But whilst these things had been done, the senseless man beneath the mast had twitched his eyelids, had drawn a little gasping breath, and then finally had opened his eyes. His skin was like gray parchment drawn tightly over his bones, and the limbs which thrust out from his clothes were those of a sickly child. Yet, weak as he was, the large black eyes with which he looked about him were full of dignity and power. Old Catinat had come upon deck, and at the sight of the man and of his dress he had run forward, and had raised his head reverently and rested it in his own arms.
"He is one of the faithful," he cried, "he is one of our pastors. Ah, now indeed a blessing will be upon our journey!"