Varlet brings letters and parcels. Our joy knows no bounds. Reymond, tricked out in a sky-blue cap, repeatedly mounts on to the deck.
"Are you on the watch?" asks the corporal.
"Yes. Fine breeze north-north-west. In twenty days we shall reach the Cape of Good Hope."
With a stubby little pipe in his mouth, his shaggy beard, and his manner of walking with legs apart as though the boat were rolling, he looks exactly like a seasoned old salt.
There are fourteen of us in the boat, and we are all covered with vermin. The corporal, neck and breast bare, is engaged in minutely picking his shirt; he burns his fleas in the stove, and at each immolation gives an exclamation of wild satisfaction.
The capotes are hardened with mud, and the bayonets, which usually serve as candlesticks, are covered with wax drippings. As for our rusty, stopped-up rifles, they will only be fit for service after a thorough cleaning.
I feel somewhat feverish, and sit down apart from the rest. A formidable slap on my back: Charensac's way of showing his affection. Heart-broken to see me ill, he shouts confidentially into my ear—
"What's the use of fretting, old fellow?"
"Just leave him alone for the present," advises the corporal.
Charensac brightens up more and more as he eats. He is just as happy and pleased in a pinnace as he would be anywhere else.