“What’s this infernal company?” murmured the latter without even looking at Peyrol.
“All old friends—quoi?” said Peyrol in a homely tone. “We will keep that little affair amongst ourselves. The fewer the men, the greater the glory. Catherine is getting the vegetables ready for the noonday soup and the Englishman is coming down towards the Passe, where he will arrive about noon too, ready to have his eye put out. You know, lieutenant, that will be your job. You may depend on me for sending you off when the moment comes. For what is it to you? You have no friends, you have not even a petite amie. As to expecting an old rover like me—oh no, lieutenant! Of course liberty is sweet, but what do you know of it, you epaulette-wearers? Moreover, I am no good for quarter-deck talks and all that politeness.”
“I wish, Peyrol, you would not talk so much,” said Lieutenant Réal, turning his head slightly. He was struck by the strange expression on the old rover’s face. “And I don’t see what the actual moment matters. I am going to look for the fleet. All you have to do is to hoist the sails for me and then scramble ashore.”
“Very simple,” observed Peyrol through his teeth, and then began to sing:
“Quoique leurs chapeaux sont bien laids
God-dam! Moi, j’aime les Anglais
Ils ont un si bon caractère!”
but interrupted himself suddenly to hail Scevola:
“Hé! Citoyen!” and then remarked confidentially to Réal: “He isn’t asleep, you know, but he isn’t like the English, he has a sacré mauvais caractère. He got into his head,” continued Peyrol, in a loud and innocent tone, “that you locked him up in this cabin last night. Did you notice the venomous glance he gave you just now?”
Both Lieutenant Réal and the innocent Michel appeared surprised at his boisterousness; but all the time Peyrol was thinking: “I wish to goodness I knew how that thunderstorm is getting on and what course it is shaping. I can’t find that out unless I go up to the farm and get a view to the westward. It may be as far as the Rhône Valley; no doubt it is and it will come out of it too, curses on it. One won’t be able to reckon on half an hour of steady wind from any quarter.” He directed a look of ironic gaiety at all the faces in turn. Michel met it with a faithful-dog gaze and innocently open mouth. Scevola kept his chin buried on his chest. Lieutenant Réal was insensible to outward impressions, and his absent stare made nothing of Peyrol. The rover himself presently fell into thought. The last stir of air died out in the little basin, and the sun clearing Porquerolles inundated it with a sudden light, in which Michel blinked like an owl.
“It’s hot early,” he announced aloud, but only because he had formed the habit of talking to himself. He would not have presumed to offer an opinion unless asked by Peyrol.
His voice having recalled Peyrol to himself, he proposed to masthead the yards, and even asked Lieutenant Réal to help in that operation, which was accomplished in silence, except for the faint squeaking of the blocks. The sails, however, were kept hauled up in the gear.