Some years ago, at home, I was quarantined with a case of fever, and I recall most vividly my demand for suitable literature, paper bound, something that could be burned up if necessary; and I can yet see the amused expression on my nautical husband’s face as he handed me volume after volume of sea stories. I had no choice in the matter; I read my books and ate my food as it was handed me, and asked no questions. Now, long years after, in the harbour of St. Pierre, with brig and brigantine, and bark and barkentine safely moored to the levee, the charm and fascination of those delightful sea yarns comes stealing over me once again, and I can appreciate how surely the mariners must have counted upon the time when the trade-wind would rise and carry them on their course. Steady and hearty it blows. At ten or eleven o’clock of the morning, the heat of the tropics lifts its hat to the “Doctor” as the natives call the trade-wind. At six o’clock it bids him good night. At eight o’clock, he calls again for the few hours of darkness, so that both day and night are tempered by his salubrious presence.
Our joy would now be complete if we could but see the Southern Cross, for we had felt the rushing hurry and the firm caresses of the Northeast Trades, and despite all our former indifference to the sea, the mariner’s spirit was surely asserting itself.
It was at the close of a long, delicious tropical day that we four stepped from the shore boat to the paved beach of St. Pierre, to the beach where empty the clear streams of mountain water flowing down through the streets of the town above. Had our coming been that of royal guests, our hostess could not have been trimmer or neater. Sister left us at the pretty white lighthouse right on the beach, and ran on ahead to pick up an especially beautiful shell which she could not resist, and we walked on along the street that follows the shore, under the shade of the mangoes, until, when we turned to wait for her, she seemed to have been caught into the very arms of the tower and held there for hostage. To be sure, she was only arranging her shells in the basket, but she was so quiet and the tower beyond was so old, old—so white and so still—that I called to her in a kind of dumb terror at some impending evil: “Sister, come, you must not loiter behind, keep with us!”
It is possible that had our landing in St. Pierre been at noonday it would not have been so ever-memorable. We might have felt industrious, we might have thought we ought to see things and do things. But, ah! we were spared that! It was at the drop of day when men do not work nor women weep; and so we had nothing to do but follow where the people were going, on beyond the little lighthouse tower dozing by the sea.
The bells in the white church under the hill had been ringing as we rowed toward shore, and it was not long before the church emptied itself into the street, nor long before we were part of the happy worshippers who scattered in every direction. St. Pierre arose from the very water’s edge. A row of substantial stone buildings shaded by wide-spreading glossy mangoes stretched as far as I could see in the twilight. The street made a turn away from the beach and the buildings followed after. In the other direction it led to the church and then came to an end.