It was five o’clock when Daniel left the court-house; and on the little square before it he found the old surgeon, waiting to carry him off to dinner, and a game of whist in the evening. So, when he undressed at night, he said to himself,—
“After all, the day has not been so very long!”
But to-morrow, and the day after to-morrow, and the next days!
He tried in vain to get rid of the fixed idea which filled his mind,—a mechanical instinct, so to say, which was stronger than his will, and drove him incessantly to the wharf where “The Saint Louis” was lying. Sitting on some bags of rice, he spent hour after hour in watching the cargo as it was put on board. Never had the Annamites and the Chinamen, who in Saigon act as stevedores, appeared to him so lazy, so intolerable. Sometimes he felt as if, seeing or guessing his impatience, they were trying to irritate him by moving the bales with the utmost slowness, and walking with unbearable laziness around with the windlass.
Then, when he could no longer bear the sight, he went to the cafe on the wharf, where the captain of “The Saint Louis” was generally to be found.
“Your men will never finish, captain,” he said. “You will never be ready by Sunday.”
To which the captain invariably replied in his fierce Marseilles accent,—
“Don’t be afraid, lieutenant. ‘The Saint Louis,’ I tell you, beats the Indian mail in punctuality.”
And really, on Saturday, when he saw his passenger come as usual to the cafe, the captain exclaimed,—
“Well, what did I tell you? We are all ready. At five o’clock I get my mail at the post-office; and to-morrow morning we are off. I was just going to send you word that you had better sleep on board.”