Having finished his directions he turned, kicked a negro who stood in his way, caught up a lantern, and coming up to Gaspard held the light to him as if he were a work of art he wished to examine.
“French?” said the man in the panama, speaking in that language and fixing Gaspard with a pair of beady unwinking black eyes. His face lit up by the lantern-light was round, good-tempered looking, the face of a bon bourgeois—yet the eyes chilled Gaspard for a moment ere he replied:
“Yes, French, shipwrecked and floating about in that cursed boat till you nearly ran me down.”
“What ship?”
“The Rhone of the Compagnie Transatlantique.”
“The Rhone; I have seen her in Havana harbour, is she lost then?”
“Yes, ripped her bottom out on a reef and gone with all on board.”
“You are the only one saved?”
“Yes.”
“Boufre!” said the other, betraying his provence in the word. “A Moco, too, so was I till I became a man of my own. Well I have saved you, and I take the boat! I am Captain Sagesse, and this is my barque La Belle Arlésienne.”