He took a packet from his pocket. It contained all the money he had left from the payment he had received at the shipping-office and the dollars Sagesse had paid him for the gold coins. Though he had remembered the prayers for Yves and paid for them, he had quite a respectable sum left, for living at St. Pierre was very cheap, and Marie had saved him from the vices on which foolish shipmen squander their money.
“—and one never knows what may happen. See here; there is some money in this packet. It is for the little one, should anything happen to me. For Marie, she whom you saw with me yesterday.”
“I will keep it,” said Man’m Faly.
She took the packet and he took up his bag. He cast his eyes round the room. It was bare and poorly furnished, but he had been happy there; in all his wandering life he had never known such happiness; the pure, simple, clean happiness of childhood.
A minute later, he was in the street.
The Rue du Morne framed with its houses a glimpse of the sea, and the upper half of a great moon just sinking beyond the sea-line.
He had said good-bye to Marie on the evening before. His heart was heavy in him; it seemed to him now, as he came down the steep street to the harbour side, that he was leaving Paradise and leaving it forever. The coloured city of St. Pierre, the pleasant people, the easy life—where would he find a city like that in the whole wide world?
And Marie—
He was standing now on the quay-side by the steps. This was the steps where he had told the boat to meet him at daybreak. It was almost due, for the moon had sunk now completely, and in a moment Pelée would be drawing his silhouette against the ice-blue sky of dawn. The wind was faint, just a breathing of air. Out there, beyond the shelter of the island, the southeast trades would be blowing, but here there was scarcely wind enough to move a vessel through the water.
As he listened to the wash of the waves against the sea-steps, he heard the steady creaking of oars. It was the boat from La Belle Arlésienne.