The gale was apparently at its height—that is to say, it was blowing harder than it had blown all through the night. But those whose business is on the great waters know that a gale usually finishes its wrath in a few wild squalls. “'Tis getting puffy,” the sailors say; “'tis nearly over.”
A man hurrying through the narrow main street of Yport was thrown against the shutters of the little baker's shop on the left-hand side, and stood there gasping for breath.
“Mon Dieu!” he muttered. “It's a dog's night.”
And he wiped the rain from his face. The wind, which blew from a wild north-west, roared against the towering cliffs, and from east and west concentrated itself funnel-wise on the gap where Yport lies. Out seaward there was a queer, ghostly light lying on the face of the waters—the storm-light—and landsmen rarely see it. For the sea was beaten into unbroken foam. The man, who was clad in oilskins, was in the neck of the funnel. Overhead, he heard the wind roaring through the pines far up on the slope of the narrow valley—close at hand, a continuous whistle told of its passage across the housetops. The man steadied himself with his left hand. He had but one, and he cursed the empty sleeve which flapped across his face.
“Provided,” he muttered, “that I can waken that cure.”
He crept on, while the gale paused to take breath, and a moment later cowered in the porch of a little yellow house. He kicked the door with his heel and then waited, with his ear to the great keyhole. Surely the cure must have been a good man to sleep in such a night. The street had naturally been deserted, for it was nearly three o'clock in the morning, and dawn could not be far off.
“A one-armed man and a priest!” said the man to himself, with an expressive jerk of the head. And, indeed, all the men of Yport had sailed for the Northern fisheries, leaving the village to the women and children, and the maimed.
Within the house there were sounds of some one astir.
“One comes!” cried a cheery voice belonging assuredly to some one who was brave, for none expects to be called from his bed to hear good news. A single bolt was drawn and the door thrown open. The cure—a little man—stood back, shading the candle with his hand.
“Ah, Jean Belfort! it is you.”