“Sixty dollars, then,” said Sagesse, after they had been haggling for half an hour or more. “You agree, good, of course I will make my profit on them, but what would you have? I am a trader, vé—, and I will give you more than sixty dollars; I will give you advice.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t go back to the stokehold. With sixty dollars in Martinique you may start a little business. Go shares in a fishing boat, deal in fruit—you are young and active, and in Martinique sixty dollars are equal to six hundred at Havre or in Paris. I will shew you the ropes, as the English say. Do you know, monsieur, that I, Pierre Sagesse, have started by my advice and help a dozen people in Martinique who are now prospering?”
He had risen, and all the time he was talking he was searching in the locker where he kept his charts. At last he drew forth a little chamois bag and, opening it, shot out on the table the money it contained. The little bag held exactly sixty dollars in gold coin and some silver.
“Ma foi, the exact sum; that is odd and ought to be a sign of luck. There is your money, and I will not take the belt and pouch; you can keep them.”
Gaspard pocketed the money. It was more than odd that the little chamois leather bag held the exact sum in question. He felt certain that Sagesse, days before, had worked out the problem of what he should pay for the coins, and had placed this sum in readiness.
The character of the man lay revealed in that act, as also in the way he had kept dumb about Yves till the moment of his purpose.
Gaspard felt certain that had it suited his interests Sagesse would have betrayed him to the authorities. He left the deck-house, and leaning against the starboard bulwarks, looked over the starlit sea.
Though he had left the island blue leagues behind, it still pursued him, and, in the form of Sagesse, still had a hold upon him, the island and the deed committed there.
He could see it still, just as he saw it when making his escape. The sun-stricken palms, the white beach, the white surf breaking on the beach, the white gulls—he could hear their voices calling to him.