The captain received me on his quarter-deck, dressed in reasonably correct American fashion; the chola, transformed, wore a red silk dress with a magnificent collar of pearls collected on the Pomoto islands; I was struck by her good looks and her perfect figure.
We repair together to the room of the formidable iron-barred walls. It is dark and gloomy there; but, through the little deep-set windows, we see the splendour of what look like enchanted things: a sea of a milky blue, and with the polish of a turquoise, a distant island, of a purple iris colour, and a multitude of little orange-tinted clouds floating in a golden green sky.
Afterwards when we turn our eyes from these little open windows, from the contemplation of all this light, the low-pitched cabin seems stranger than before, with its irregular shape and its massive beams, its arsenal of revolvers, of knuckle-dusters, leather thongs and whips.
The dinner consists of tinned foods from San Francisco, exquisite fruits from the Isle of Tonga-Taboo, needle-fish, slim little inhabitants of the warm seas; and we drink French wines, Peruvian pisco and English liqueurs.
The Chinaman who waits upon us wears a silk robe of episcopal violet and slippers with thick paper soles. The chola sings a zamacuéca of Chile, playing, on a diguhela, a sort of accompaniment which sounds like the monotonous little clatter of a trotting mule. The doors of the fortress are wide open. Thanks to the presence of my sixteen armed men, a sense of security reigns, a peaceful intimacy, which are really very touching.
In the bow the men from the Primauguet are drinking and singing with the crew of the whaler. It is a general holiday on board. And, from the distance, I see Yves and Goulven, who, for their part, are not drinking, walking up and down in conversation. Goulven, the taller of the two, has passed his arm round the shoulders of his brother, who holds him, in turn, round the waist. Isolated from the rest they continued their stroll, talking together in a low voice.
The glasses were emptied everywhere in strange toasts. The captain, who at first resembled the impassive statue of a marine or river god, woke up, and began to laugh a powerful laugh which shook his whole body; his mouth opened like that of a cetacean, and he started to talk of strange things in English, forgetting himself so far in his confidences as to tell me things for which he might well have been hanged; his conversation turns into a pretty tale of unmitigated piracy. . . .
The chola retires to her cabin, and a tattooed sailor is brought in and undressed during the dessert. The object of this is to show me the tattooing which represents a fox hunt.
It begins at the neck: horsemen, hounds, in full cry, wind in a spiral round his body.
"You haven't yet seen the fox?" the captain asks me with a boisterous laugh.