He turned a little on his bed of sails under repair, at which the Captain had been plying his needle while the weather remained clear, and glanced over his shoulder toward the ship’s dinghy towing astern. The rope that held it was made fast round the rail a few feet away from him. The boat itself was clumsy, shaped like a walnut, of a preposterous strength and weight. It was fitted with a short, stiff mast and a balance lug-sail. It floated more lightly on the water than the bigger vessel, which was laden with coal and provender and salt for the North Atlantic fishery, and the painter hung loose, while the dinghy, tide-borne, sidled up to stern of its big companion like a kitten following its mother with the uncertain steps of infancy.
The face of the water was glassy and of a yellow green. Although the scud swept in toward the land at a fair speed, there was not enough wind to fill the sails. Moreover, the bounty of Holland seemed inexhaustible. There was more to come. This fog-bank lay on the water halfway across the North Sea, and the brief winter sun having failed to disperse it, was now sinking to the west, cold and pale.
“The water seems shallow,” said Barebone to the Captain. “What would you do if the ship went aground?”
“We should stay there, mon bon monsieur, until some one came to help us at the flood tide. We should shout until they heard us.”
“You might fire a gun,” suggested Barebone.
“We have no gun on board, mon bon monsieur,” replied the Captain, who had long ago explained to his prisoner that there was no ill-feeling.
“It is the fortune of war,” he had explained before the white cliffs of St. Valérie had faded from sight. “I am a poor man who cannot afford to refuse a good offer. It is a Government job, as you no doubt know without my telling you. You would seem to have incurred the displeasure or the distrust of some one high placed in the Government. ‘Treat him well,’ they said to me. ‘Give him your best, and see that he comes to no harm unless he tries to escape. And be careful that he does not return to France before the mackerel fishing begins.’ And when we do return to Fécamp, I have to lie to off Notre Dame de la Garde and signal to the Douane that I have you safe. They want you out of the way. You are a dangerous man, it seems. Salut!”
And the Captain raised his glass to one so distinguished by Government. He laughed as he set his glass down on the little cabin table.
“No ill-feeling on either side,” he added. “C’est entendu.”
He made a half-movement as if to shake hands across the table and thought better of it, remembering, perhaps, that his own palm was not innocent of blood-money. For the rest they had been friendly enough on the voyage. And had the “Petite Jeanne” been in danger, it is probable that Barebone would have warned his jailer, if only in obedience to a seaman’s instinct against throwing away a good ship.