When the body of Philip was carried from the Cohue Royale signals were made to the Imperturbable in the tide-way. From all her ships in company forty guns were fired funeral-wise and the flags were struck halfmast.
Slowly the cortege uncoiled itself to one long unbroken line from the steps of the Cohue Royale to the porch of the church. The Jurats in their red robes, the officers, sailors, and marines, added colour to the pageant. The coffin was covered by the flag of Jersey with the arms of William the Conqueror in the canton. Of the crowd some were curious, some stoical; some wept, some essayed philosophy.
“Et ben,” said one, “he was a brave admiral!”
“Bravery was his trade,” answered another: “act like a sheep and you’ll be eaten by the wolf.”
“It was a bad business about her that was Guida Landresse,” remarked a third.
“Every man knows himself, God knows all men,” snuffled the fanatical barber who had once delivered a sermon from the Pompe des Brigands.
“He made things lively while he lived, ba su!” droned the jailer of the Vier Prison. “But he has folded sails now.”
“Ma fe, yes, he sleeps like a porpoise now, and white as a wax he looked up there in the Cohue Royale,” put in a centenier standing by.
A voice came shrilly over the head of the centenier. “As white as you’ll look yellow one day, bat’d’lagoule! Yellow and green, oui-gia—yellow like a bad apple, and cowardly green as a leek.” This was Manon Moignard the witch.
“Man doux d’la vie, where’s the Master of Burials?” babbled the jailer. “The apprentice does the obs’quies to-day.”