Gaspard laughed. Here was a prospect if the treasure hunt turned out fruitless.
“Ma foi,” said he. “I will take your offer righthanded. I have never struck such a place as this, and I never hope to leave it when I return from this voyage—and to think that I should have the luck to meet you all through a snake.”
“My friend,” said M. Seguin, “there is a Martinique proverb that says, ‘He who kills a snake is forgiven seven deadly sins.’ So you have purged yourself of seven sins and made a friend for life—do not let us despise snakes.”
For the first time Gaspard felt the pleasantness of the fact that he had that morning saved a life. Dead Yves appeared before him. Here was a life to balance that life he had taken. Then in a flash appeared before him Anisette, selling drinks at the bar of the Riga. Heavens! was it possible that he had ever loved or thought of that tallow-faced, under-sized creature!
Marie, Marie of Morne Rouge, had slain the evil shade of Anisette in his mind, just as a sunbeam slays a shadow.
Then he said good-bye to M. Seguin, promising to call and see him at the address which the old man gave him upon a card.
He turned down hill to the sea front where on the Place Bertine, amidst the sugar hogsheads, talking to one of the port officials, he saw Sagesse. The owner of La Belle Arlésienne was laughing, gesticulating and, as Gaspard passed to emphasise some remark, he brought his great thumb down on the top of a sugar cask.
Gaspard could not but remember M. Seguin’s words about the unfortunate people under that “horrid thumb.”