In returning thanks, Archie said modestly:
"I am bewildered by so much praise for so simple a performance. I was probably the only one present who knew how to swim; for any one else would have done as I did. It is claimed that your Indian women throw their infants into the water and let them make the best of their way to shore; this teaches them to swim very early. I am tempted to believe that our mothers in the Scottish Highlands follow the same excellent custom. As long as I can remember I have been a swimmer."
"At your fooling again, Mr. Archie," said the captain. "As for me, I have been a sailor these fifty years, and I have never yet learned how to swim. Not that I have never fallen into the water, but I have always had the good luck to catch hold of something. Failing that, I always kept my feet going, as cats and dogs do. Sooner or later some one always hauled me out; and here I am.
"That reminds me of a little adventure which happened to me when I was a sailor. My ship was anchored by the banks of the Mississippi. It might have been about nine o'clock in the evening, after one of those suffocating days which one can experience only in the tropics. I had made my bed up in the bows of my ship, in order to enjoy the evening breezes. But for the mosquitoes, the sand flies, the black flies, and the infernal noise of the alligators, which had gathered, I think, from the utmost limits of the Father of Streams to give me a good serenading, a monarch of the East might have envied me my bed. I am not naturally timid, but I have an unconquerable horror of all kinds of reptiles, whether they crawl on land or wriggle in the water."
"Captain, you have a refined and aristocratic taste which does you much honor," said Jules.
"Do you dare to speak to me again, you disreputable," cried Marcheterre, shaking his great fist at him. I was about forgetting you, but your turn will come very soon. Meanwhile, I go on with my story. I was feeling very safe and comfortable on my mat, whence I could hear the hungry monsters snapping their jaws. I derided them, saying: 'You would be delighted, my lambs, to make a meal off my carcass, but there's one little difficulty in the way of it; though you should have to fast all your lives through like hermits I would never be the one to break your fasting, for my conscience is too tender.'
"I don't know exactly how the thing happened, but I ended by falling asleep, and when I awoke I was in the midst of these jolly companions. You could never imagine the horror that seized me, in spite of my customary coolness. I did not lose my presence of mind, however. While under water I remembered that there was a rope hanging from the bowsprit. As I came to the surface I had the good fortune to catch it. I was as active as a monkey in those days; but I did not escape without leaving as a keepsake in the throat of a very barbarous alligator one of my boots and a valued portion of the calf of my leg.
"Now for your turn, you imp," continued the captain, turning to Jules. "I must get even with you, sooner or later, for the trick you played me. On my return from Martinique last year, I met monsieur one morning in Quebec Lower Town as he was on the point of crossing the river to return home for his vacation. After a perfect squall of embraces, from which I escaped with difficulty by sheering off to larboard, I commissioned him to tell my family of my arrival, and to say that I could not be at St. Thomas for several days. What did this young saint do? He went to my house at eight o'clock in the evening, shouting, like all possessed: 'Oh, joy! oh, rapture! Three cheers and a tiger!'
"'My husband has come!' exclaimed Madame Marcheterre. 'Father has come!' cried my two daughters.