Now and again, as he talked, he ceased, as if to listen. Now, there was nothing to be heard but the voice of the ship, the creak of block and stanchion, the hundred small tongues by which the vessel speaks. Then, thin and far away, would come the other voice:
A Fort de France, Ay ho!
thin, weary, the ghost of a sound.
Gaspard knew now all at once, from Sagesse’s manner, that the singer was Pedro, that the man was delirious, probably dying.
But he said nothing. Pedro, what he had seen of him, was a hang-dog looking scoundrel; he did not feel very much interested in his fate, though hating the idea that he had been brutally knocked about. What absorbed his attention now was the manner of Sagesse.
The Captain had filled his glass, finished it, and filled again; he talked incessantly, and the talk seemed to intoxicate him as much as the rum; the more intoxicated he grew the less did he care about the matter which had been on his mind.
Then, at length, he rose to his feet and flung the deck-house door open for air. He stood for a moment in the doorway, as if listening; but there was nothing to hear, for the voice had ceased.