The Man Who Laughs. A Romance of English History

“Undoubtedly.”

“Whither are you steering?”

“For a creek I know, between Loyola and St. Sebastian.”

“Make the latitude of the harbour’s mouth as soon as possible.”

“Yes, as near as I can.”

“Beware of gusts and currents. The first cause the second.”

“Traidores [4 - Traitors.].”

“No abuse. The sea understands. Insult nothing. Rest satisfied with watching.”

“I have watched, and I do watch. Just now the tide is running against the wind; by-and-by, when it turns, we shall be all right.”

“Have you a chart?”

“No; not for this channel.”

“Then you sail by rule of thumb?”

“Not at all. I have a compass.”

“The compass is one eye, the chart the other.”

“A man with one eye can see.”

“How do you compute the difference between the true and apparent course?”

“I’ve got my standard compass, and I make a guess.”

“To guess is all very well. To know for certain is better.”

“Christopher guessed.”

“When there is a fog and the needle revolves treacherously, you can never tell on which side you should look out for squalls, and the end of it is that you know neither the true nor apparent day’s work. An ass with his chart is better off than a wizard with his oracle.”

“There is no fog in the breeze yet, and I see no cause for alarm.”

“Ships are like flies in the spider’s web of the sea.”

“Just now both winds and waves are tolerably favourable.”

“Black specks quivering on the billows-such are men on the ocean.”

“I dare say there will be nothing wrong to-night.”

“You may get into such a mess that you will find it hard to get out of it.”

“All goes well at present.”

The doctor’s eyes were fixed on the north-east. The skipper continued,-

“Let us once reach the Gulf of Gascony, and I answer for our safety. Ah! I should say I am at home there. I know it well, my Gulf of Gascony. It is a little basin, often very boisterous; but there, I know every sounding in it and the nature of the bottom-mud opposite San Cipriano, shells opposite Cizarque, sand off Cape Peñas, little pebbles off Boncaut de Mimizan, and I know the colour of every pebble.”

The skipper broke off; the doctor was no longer listening.

The doctor gazed at the north-east. Over that icy face passed an extraordinary expression. All the agony of terror possible to a mask of stone was depicted there. From his mouth escaped this word, “Good!”

His eyeballs, which had all at once become quite round like an owl’s, were dilated with stupor on discovering a speck on the horizon. He added,-

“It is well. As for me, I am resigned.”

The skipper looked at him. The doctor went on talking to himself, or to some one in the deep,-

“I say, Yes.”

Then he was silent, opened his eyes wider and wider with renewed attention on that which he was watching, and said,-

“It is coming from afar, but not the less surely will it come.”

The arc of the horizon which occupied the visual rays and thoughts of the doctor, being opposite to the west, was illuminated by the transcendent reflection of twilight, as if it were day. This arc, limited in extent, and surrounded by streaks of grayish vapour, was uniformly blue, but of a leaden rather than cerulean blue. The doctor, having completely returned to the contemplation of the sea, pointed to this atmospheric arc, and said,-

“Skipper, do you see?”

“What?”

“That.”

“What?”

“Out there.”

“A blue spot? Yes.”

“What is it?”

“A niche in heaven.”

“For those who go to heaven; for those who go elsewhere it is another affair.” And he emphasized these enigmatical words with an appalling expression which was unseen in the darkness.

A silence ensued. The skipper, remembering the two names given by the chief to this man, asked himself the question,-

“Is he a madman, or is he a sage?”

The stiff and bony finger of the doctor remained immovably pointing, like a sign-post, to the misty blue spot in the sky.