Nothing could be more wonderful than those torrential woods far up above the houses, woods of balisier and palm, tamarind, ceiba, and giant fern; lianas cable thick, air shoots, all climbing in the twilight, and leading the eyes to the slopes of Pelée and the peak, cloud-wreathed and burning in the blue.
Nothing could be more strange or more poetical than the city reaching from these woods to the shadowy sea.
Other vessels were anchored in the harbour, boats were putting out from the shore; now, clear and sharp-cut, through the vague noises of early morning came the note of a bugle from the fort, and from a sailing-ship away to starboard the clank of capstan pawls and the cry of sailors hauling on the halyards.
With and through everything came the perfume of the land, earth and tropic flowers, jasmine and vanilla scents, mixed with the scent of the sea.
Gaspard turned from the city and looked westward. Beyond the shadow of the island the sea lay in the bright daylight, shewing beneath the emerald ring of the horizon the virginal blue of early morning.
As he turned, Sagesse left the deck-house and stood for a moment looking on the land before speaking to his companion.
“Better than the stokehold,” said the Captain, who had put on a clean suit of white drill, and a shore-going and holiday manner; “better than the engine-room, vé! Look, the canotiers are putting off and the port officers will be aboard us before we have finished breakfast.”
Jules appeared, as he spoke, from the caboose, bearing a steaming coffee-pot; they went into the deck-house for the meal, and before it was half through and, as if to bear out the truth of Sagesse’s prediction, the port officers arrived.
They came into the deck-house, where Sagesse served them with vermouth and cigarettes; they seemed to know Sagesse as a friend, and bill of lading or bill of health seemed to trouble them very little as far as Gaspard could judge, who, in the middle of the cigarette smoking and exchange of news, left Sagesse to his friends and came on deck.
He found a new St. Pierre. Colour had stolen over the slopes of Pelée; light had stretched out her hand and torn away the veil of twilight. A burst of blue struck him in the face as he left the dingy deck-house. A sky of blue, a sea of blue, triumphant, crystalline, dazzling, and in the midst of this world of leaping lazulite, St. Pierre standing like a dreamer awakened by the sea.