The Ship of Coral

by H. De Vere Stacpoole

Had there been the slightest chance of outwitting Sagesse, of regaining his hold upon the treasure, the fever for revenge and gold would have held his mind from all else; but he recognized that the game was lost, and in his desolation he turned to his only thought of comfort. And here again the game was lost. Love had tricked him just as fortune had tricked him, and just as cruelly.

To find Marie again he must first find Martinique. Suppose, even, that a ship were to rescue him; that ship might be bound for any port in the world but Martinique. He had no money, no trade. To gain enough to return to St. Pierre he would have to go back to the stokehold, he would have to work ships across and across the world before his wretched pay, saved and scraped together, would give him money sufficient to return with. He might write to M. Seguin, but where in his wandering life would he get the reply?

It might be months before a ship rescued him; it might be months before that ship landed him at a port where he could get work; it might be years before he reached Martinique—and meanwhile, what of Marie? Ah! the want of money, just a little of that money which the rich find so burdensome, that want is the curse of the poor, that want is the essence of the true tragedy of life.

The hunger which poverty imposes on man is nothing to the loneliness and the separation, the heart-break and the starvation for want of love.

He loved Marie now, with the love that comes after marriage, the love that has nothing to do with passion. Across separation and disaster he saw her as she really was, beautiful, single-hearted, loving, and faithful—and he might never meet her again. To reach her he would have to journey to all parts of the world, working as a slave in a stokehold with that ache in his heart, earning sou by sou, the money that would bring him to her—and every moment of separation seemed a year.

Stung suddenly to madness, with the tears upon his face, he left the tent and sought the beach outside, walking up and down it like a frenzied creature, cursing, calling out, wild with the petty things that had him in their grip, the little Fates that had bound him to this islet as the Lilliputians bound Gulliver. He saw nothing of his own handiwork in this fate which he cursed; he saw nothing of the grave faults of mind, the weaknesses, the impetuosities that had flawed his life, killing Yves, and binding him to the will of Sagesse; he only saw his Fate and that it was horrid—and he cursed it.

After awhile he paused. A wind had risen and was blowing from the north across the islet. He recognised that the day had grown suddenly darker and as he stood wiping the sweat from his brow, confused, and exhausted with the conflict of thought through which he had passed, he heard a noise, faint, far away, and indeterminate. It came from the north with the wind that was now increasing in force. He glanced round at the sky. All the northern sky was dusky, like hot bronze; it had a solid look, and even as he gazed some wind of the higher atmosphere set to work compacting the upper part of this dark zone, ruling it level in one infinite line. Added to the darkness of the coming storm was the dusk of evening. The drug must have held him in its spell much longer than he had thought.

Next moment Gaspard was making across the islet to the northern beach; when he reached it he stopped, shaded his eyes with both hands, and looked.

La Belle Arlésienne had got the wind at last. She shewed as if sketched in grey chalk against the great black wall that the coming storm had built across the world. Heavens! what a sight was that wall! It seemed built by plumb-line and square, titanic, immeasurable.

And from behind it came that sound, growing momently more definite, as though all the hosts of darkness were murmuring together, wild to break through some hidden door and burst upon the world.