The two men went forward to the bow. Gaspard followed them. He judged from their manner that something of interest had hove in sight and he was not wrong; leaning against the weather bulwarks a little forward of the foremast, Skinner clapped the glass to his eye and pointed it at Martinique. Stock raised his binoculars. At that moment, there was nothing to be seen, for the clouds on Pelée had fanned out and the bay of St. Pierre was veiled by sheets of sun-dazzled rain, then, against the vanishing clouds, slowly appeared the stem of a broken arch, the foot of a rainbow. It passed with the clouds and the sun struck Martinique.
The sun was high now and it struck the western coast over the shoulders of Pelée and the mountains; not a cloud lingered upon the island, except a cloud, a cone of smoke rising from Pelée, yet to Gaspard as he strained his eyes, it seemed that a thick grey cloud clung to Pelée from apex to base, clung to St. Pierre, veiling the coloured houses utterly from sight, and to the whole arc of the bay, hiding the trees, the triumphant palms, the angelines, the tamarinds.
“My God!” said Skinner. The hand that held the glass was shaking, his face had become bloodless under its bronze. Captain Stock, the binoculars still glued to his eyes, was talking rapidly to himself in an undertone. Gaspard, who could not see as they saw, who could not understand as they understood, could, yet, comprehend dimly the terror before him, sunlit, and facing the gem-like sea.
St. Pierre had vanished utterly, Pelée was no longer the verdant mountain towering triumphantly above the flower-like city; a cone of dismal ashes smoking to the sky, above a land of dismal ashes, that was all there was left of that lovely world. And it was all so still, so peaceful with the peace that hangs over ruins of great antiquity!
Yet, but a few weeks ago, Pelée was youthful with foliage, the canotiers were paddling in the sapphire bay, the city was waving its flags to the sun, mirroring its coloured houses in the water. The children were singing their songs and telling their Tim-Tim in the streets. The market-place was gay with life, the gardens gay with colour, the streets with laughter and over all hung the poetry of eternal summer. And now all that was with Thebes, with Nineveh—a world of ashes, desolation, silence.
Stock, the Yankee skipper, a man whom few things could move, lowered the glasses, pressed his left hand tight over his eyes as if they had been hurt by some painful light and then, leaning over the bulwarks, became violently sick.
Gaspard, who had seized the glasses from his hand, looked. As he looked he swayed from side to side as though the vision before him had grasped him by the shoulders and he was wrestling with it.
Skinner caught him as the glasses fell from his hand. He had fainted and Diego, with the assistance of another sailor carried him below and put him in his bunk.
Captain Stock and the mate followed, they loosed his collar and left him lying whilst they sat down at the saloon table and Diego fetched them rum.
It was British Navy rum, thirty above proof and it gave them the stiffening they required.