Yes, he would go away, like his brother Goulven, like both his brothers. This time he had made up his mind, irrevocably. The life of those sea-rovers whom he had encountered on the whale-boats of Oceania, or in places of pleasure in the towns of La Plata, that life lived in the hazard of the sea without law and without restraint, had for a long time attracted him. It was in his blood for that matter; it was a thing inherited.
To desert and sail the sea in a trading ship abroad, or to take part in the ocean fishing, that is ever the dream which obsesses sailors, and the best of them especially, in their moments of revolt.
There are good times in America for deserters. He would not be successful, of that, in his bitterness, he felt sure; for he was ordained to toil and misfortune; but, if poverty must be his lot, out there at least he would be free!
His mother! Yes, in his dash for freedom, he would steal as far as Plouherzel, in the night, and embrace her. In this again like his brother Goulven, who had done the same thing many years before. He remembered having seen him arrive one night, like a fugitive; he had remained concealed during the day of farewell which he had spent at his home. Their poor mother had wept bitterly, it is true. But what was there to do? It was fate. And this brother Goulven, how forceful he looked and how manly!
Except his mother, Yves at this moment held all the world in hate. He thought of those years of his life spent in the service, in the confinement of ships of war, under the whip of discipline; he asked himself for whose profit and why. His heart overflowed with the bitterness of despair, with desire for vengeance, with a rage to be free. . . . And, as I was the cause of his re-engaging for five years in the navy, he fumed against me and included me in his resentment against the world in general.
Barrada had left him and the darkness of a December night came on. Through the hatch of the hold the grey light of day was no longer to be seen; only a damp mist now descended, which was icy cold.
A patrol had come and lit a lantern in a wire cage, and the objects in the hold were illumined confusedly. Yves heard above him the evening assembly, the slinging of the hammocks, and then the first cry of the men of the watch marking the half-hours of the night.
Outside the wind was still blowing, and as gradually silence overtook the business of men, the great unconscious voices of things became more perceptible. High up there was a continuous roaring in the rigging; and one heard the sea which lay all about us and which, from time to time, shook everything, as if in impatience. At every shock, it rolled Yves' head on the damp wood, and he put his hands underneath so that he might suffer less.
Even the sea, this night, was angry and vicious; it beat against the sides of the ship with a continuous noise.
At this hour no one, surely, would descend again into the hold. Yves was alone, stretched on the floor, fettered, his foot in the iron ring, and his teeth now were chattering.