style="font-size:15px;"> "And the lady is his wife?"
"Yes, Sir. Mr. and Mrs. Walter H. Carmac. Look out, Sir! You must ha forgotten you were leaning against the tiller."
The sailor acted promptly in bringing the Hirondelle back on her course; but, owing to her quickness in answering the helm, she had swung round a couple of points when an involuntary movement, a sort of flinching on Ingersoll's part, caused her to change direction.
Peridot came aft, smiling and debonair. "We're all a bit shaken, Monsieur," he said, noting the increased pallor of Ingersoll's ordinarily rather delicate-looking face. "A tot of cognac, eh? That's what we want. What do you say, Monsieur?"
The bluff English skipper had caught the key word of the sentence, and the Breton's merry eye supplied a full translation.
"Good for you, my hearty!" said he. "Gimme one fair pull at a bottle of decent stuff now, an' I'll load you to the bung with the same once we're ashore."
CHAPTER IV
THE HOME-COMING
Peridot had stipulated that the Hirondelle should start on her homeward run "not a minute later than three o'clock." He had cast off from the wharf at Le Pouldu slightly before that hour; but the wreck of the Stella and its attendant circumstances – not least being the necessity enforced by the change of wind to take the deep-sea course after leaving the reef – cost a good deal of time. As a consequence daylight had almost failed before the bar of the Aven was crossed.
On Pointe d'ar Vechen, within thirty feet of the Port Manech Hotel, stands a tiny lighthouse which sheds a mild beam over the entrance to the estuary. It is essentially a harbor light. A broad white band covers the safe channel extending from Les Verrés to l'Isle Verte, a red sector forbids the former, and a green one indicates the narrow inside passage between reef and mainland.
In crossing the bar, of course, each color became visible in turn. Ingersoll had seen the light scores of times. Never a week passed in summer that he did not spend a day, or even three days, at sea with the fishermen. His studies of the sardine fleet, in particular, were greatly in request.
Yet on this night of nights, when the return to his beloved Pont Aven might well be reckoned the close of the most notable achievement of his whole life, he seemed to have collapsed physically and mentally. His eyes had a vacant look. Their wonted expression of a somewhat sarcastic yet not intolerant outlook on life had fled for the hour, and he peered at the Breton and the sailor as though he had never before seen either. His slight but usually alert and wiry frame appeared to have shrunk. He remained deaf to Peridot's suggestion as to the brandy, and became curiously interested in the red gleam of the lighthouse which came in sight just before the bar was reached.
The Breton imagined that his employer's bodily resources had been unduly taxed. Catching the eye of the yacht's skipper (whose name, by the way, was William Popple), he nodded toward the tiller, pointed straight ahead, and held up a finger. "Wan mineet," he said.
Captain Popple was not to be outdone in linguistic amenities. "Comprenny," he grinned, and took control.
Peridot thrust his head into the hatch. "Ma'mselle," he said, "these poor devils' teeth are chattering with the cold. Will you pass the cognac?"
Yvonne felt the urgency of the request. Nearly every man was wet to the skin, and the wind bit keenly. She abandoned her nurse's work for the moment, opened a locker, and produced a bottle of generous size.
"Here you are," she said. "See that a little is left. I have given some to the men, and I hope my other invalid will soon be able to take a small quantity."
The fisherman removed a plug which had replaced the ordinary cork, and handed the bottle to Captain Popple. The brandy was a fine old liquor, brown, and mellow, and smooth to the palate, and Popple took a draft worthy of a Russian grand duke.
"Gosh!" he said, passing the bottle to Ingersoll, "that's the stuff! It warms the cockles of yer heart."
Ingersoll swallowed a mouthful. It seemed to restore his wits. The eye of the lighthouse had changed from red to green. "It is singular," he said, "how a quality of evil can be associated with certain colors. Red means danger and possible death, while green implies a jealous love perilously akin to hate."
He had not the least notion of the incongruity of such a remark just then. He might have been making conversation for some boarding-school miss whom Yvonne had brought on a summer cruise.
The other man, puzzled, stared stolidly into the gathering gloom.
"When you're plashin' at sea on a dark night you find them colored sectors mighty useful, Sir," was all he could find to say.
Ingersoll roused himself, as though from sleep, and indeed he had been wholly unconscious of his surroundings during the last few minutes. "Oh, doubtless," he said apologetically, "I was thinking aloud, a foolish habit. You were telling me about the owner of the Stella. Carmac is the name, I think? I knew a Walter H. Carmac many years ago. He was very tall, but slightly built. Surely a man cannot change his physique so markedly in the course of, say, twenty years!"
"Well, as to that, Sir, on'y the other day I was talkin' of Mr. Carmac's size to Mr. Raymond, the gentleman with the broken arm (Mr. Carmac's secretary, he is), an' he said the guv'nor used to be thin as a lath once. P'raps it was a case of laugh and grow fat. Very pleasant gentleman, Mr. Carmac was; an' his lady too – one of the best. Excuse me, Sir, but I couldn't help starin' at your girl. She's that like Mrs. Carmac it's surprising. If anyone said they was mother an' daughter, I'd agree at once – if I didn't know different."
There was a pause. Peridot had intrusted the supply of brandy to Tollemache for further distribution. He came aft now, as careful piloting would soon be needed.
"Once we're inside, Monsieur," he said, "we'll set the men at work by turns with the sweeps. That will drive the chill away."
Ingersoll explained the scheme to the skipper, who gave it his hearty approval.
"Did the yacht belong to Mr. Carmac?" went on the artist.
"Yes, Sir. He bought her a fortnight ago. She used to be Lord Aveling's Nigger; but Mr. Carmac didn't like that name, and changed it to the Stella, after his wife's Christian name."
"He didn't care to sail in a yacht called the Nigger, eh?"
A bitterness of aloes was in the words. Apparently they suggested some unpleasing notion to Popple, who branched off to another topic.
"I've a sort of idea his heart was affected," he said. "I know that some bigwig of a London doctor recommended a long voyage, and Mr. Carmac bein' several times a millionaire he just up and grabbed the first suitable craft that offered. Wouldn't wait for a survey. Took everything for granted; though I warned him that white paint may cover a lot of black sins. He an' the missis had planned a regular tour in the Mediterranean, goin' from Gib to the Balearics, and dodgin' in and out of ports all along the north coast until we brought up at Constantinople sometime in April. I advised him to let me meet him at Gib or Marseilles; but he was one of the men who will have their own way, and nothin' would suit but that he should come straight aboard. We left Southampton Tuesday evenin', and made Brest yesterday afternoon. Today we were for callin' at Belle Isle and berthin' at Lorient; but the foul weather met us, an' he was half inclined to put in at this very place we're headin' for, – Pont Aven is the name, isn't it? – on'y poor Mrs. Carmac wouldn't hear of it. She said Belle Isle was no distance, an' made out she was a good sailor – which was hardly correct, because she was ill as could be for the last two hours."
