"Look, high up."
"High up, Segoffin?"
"Yes, on the side."
"On the side?"
"Yes, don't you see that bluish light playing on it?"
"Bluish light?" repeated the ship owner, squinting up his eyes and arching his hand over them to form a sort of shade.
"Yes, high up, near the top! The deuce take me if it isn't turning red now! Look, will you! Isn't it amazing? But come, M. Verduron, come, let's get a closer look at it," added Segoffin, seizing the ship owner by the arm and trying to drag him away.
"One moment," exclaimed M. Verduron, releasing himself from the head gunner's grasp, "to take a closer look at anything one must first have seen it at a distance, and the devil take me if I can see anything at all. And you, madame?"
"I don't, I am sure, monsieur."
Segoffin would perhaps have attempted to prolong the illusion by endowing the light with all the other colours of the rainbow, but the approach of another and even greater danger extinguished his inventive genius.