Why on earth those orders had been changed so that the cruiser was to lie off Groix I could not imagine, unless some plot had been discovered in Lorient which had made it advisable to shift the location of the treasures for the third time.
Pondering there at the tent door, amid my heap of musty newspapers, I looked out into the late, gray afternoon and saw the maids of Paradise passing and repassing across the bridge with a clicking of wooden shoes and white head-dresses glimmering in the dusk of the trees.
The town had filled within a day or two; the Paradise coiffe was not the only coiffe to be seen in the square; there was the delicate-winged head-dress of Faöuet, the beautiful coiffes of Rosporden, Sainte-Anne d’Auray, and Pont Aven; there, too, flashed the scarlet skirts of Bannalec and the gorgeous embroidered bodices of the interior; there were the men of Quimperlé in velvet, the men of Penmarch, the men of Faöuet with their dark, Spanish-like faces and their sombreros, and their short yellow jackets and leggings. All in holiday costume, too, for the maids were stiff in silver and lace, and the men wore carved sabots and embroidered gilets.
“Governor,” I called out to Byram, “the town is filling fast. It’s like a Pardon in Morbihan; we’ll pack the old tent to the nigger’s-heaven!”
“It’s a fact,” he said, pushing his glasses up over his forehead and fanning his face with his silk hat. “We’re going to open to a lot of money, Mr. Scarlett, and ... I ain’t goin’ to forgit them that stood by me, neither.”
He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, peered into my face. 270
“Air you sick, m’ friend?” he asked.
“I, governor? Why, no.”
“Ain’t been bit by that there paltry camuel nor nothin’, hev ye?”
“No; do I look ill?”