Yves, who heard its hoarse cry, rushed to its assistance, but too late. He came down from the crow's nest carrying the poor thing in his hand, dead, flattened out, having no longer the shape of a bird, a mash of blood and grey feathers, out of which emerged, moving still, one poor curled-up claw.
I could see that Yves was very much upset. But he did no more than show it to me without a word, biting his disdainful underlip. Then he threw it into the sea, and the shark which was following us swallowed it as if it had been an ablet.
[CHAPTER XV]
In Brittany, during the winter of 1876, the Sibylle had been back at Brest for two days—after having completed its voyage round the world—and I was with Yves, one evening in February, in a country diligence which was carrying us towards Plouherzel.
It was an out-of-the-way place, this village where Yves' mother lived. The diligence in which we sat was due to take us in four hours from Guincamp to Paimpol, where we counted on spending the night; and from there we should have a long way to go on foot.
On we went, jolted over a rough little road, plunging deeper and deeper into the silence of the mournful countryside. The winter's night descended on us slowly, and a fine rain obscured things in a grey mist. We passed trees and more trees, showing one after another their dead silhouette. At wide intervals we passed villages also—Breton villages, dark thatched cottages and old churches with slender granite steeples—little groups of homesteads, isolated and melancholy, which quickly disappeared behind us in the night.
"Do you know," said Yves, "I came this way, at night, eleven years ago—I was then fourteen—and I wept bitterly. It was the first time I had left home, and I was travelling alone to Brest to join the navy."
I was accompanying Yves on this journey to Plouherzel partly for want of something to do. The leave granted me was short, and I had not time, on this occasion, to visit my home, so I was going to visit his, and to see this village of his which he loved so well.
And, at the moment, I was rather sorry I had come. Yves, absorbed in the happiness of his return, kept up a conversation with me out of deference, but his thoughts were elsewhere. I felt that I was a stranger in this world for which we were bound, and this Brittany, which I had not yet learned to love, oppressed me with its sadness.
Paimpol! We roll over cobbles, between old dark houses, and the diligence stops. People are waiting there with lanterns. Breton words and French words are interchanged.