“My faith! Thank you for your confidences, Luquin,” said Stephanette, with a jealous impatience she could not dissimulate. “If I told you all that the patron Bernard or Master Terzarol said to me, it would take till evening.”
Captain Luquin frowned when he heard the names of his rivals, and exclaimed:
“Thunder of heaven! If I knew that those two rascals dared even to look at your shoes as you pass, I would make a figurehead for my polacre of one, and a weather-cock for my mast of the other! But no! They know that Luquin Trinquetaille is your betrothed, and his name rhymes too well with battle for them to want an issue with me.”
“Well, well, my fine bully!” replied Stephanette, recalling the watchman’s advice, and fearing to excite the jealousy of the inflammable captain; “if Bernard and Terzarol talk to me ever so long, I shall reply that every one knows I am too much in love with the most wicked devil in La Ciotat But wait,—see here what Master Peyrou gave me for you. Read that, and do everything he orders. It is late; the sun is setting, and it is getting cold. Let us go back to Maison-Forte; mademoiselle will be anxious.”
The two lovers hastened on their way, and, as they walked, Trinquetaille read the following instructions given by the watchman:
“Every morning at sunrise the captain will change the charge of his cannon, and will put on the ball one of the red flies affixed to this paper.
“After that, make a double cross on the ball with the thumb of the left hand. From sunrise to sunset, cabin-boys must relieve each other on the watch at the top of the mast; they will always look at the east and the south, and every five minutes repeat ‘St Magnus.’
“Set the swords in order on the stem, three by three, point downward.
“Set the muskets on the right of the deck, three by three.
“On the day of departure, at the rising of the moon, carry on deck a vase filled with oil; throw in it seven grains of salt, saying with each grain ‘St Elmo and St Peter.’