This glance of the captain’s tallied with an aside growled out, at the other end of the vessel, by the old man, “We don’t even see the pointers, nor the star Antares, red as he is.  Not one is distinct.”

No care troubled the other fugitives.

Still, when the first hilarity they felt in their escape had passed away, they could not help remembering that they were at sea in the month of January, and that the wind was frozen.  It was impossible to establish themselves in the cabin.  It was much too narrow and too much encumbered by bales and baggage.  The baggage belonged to the passengers, the bales to the crew, for the hooker was no pleasure boat, and was engaged in smuggling.  The passengers were obliged to settle themselves on deck, a condition to which these wanderers easily resigned themselves.  Open-air habits make it simple for vagabonds to arrange themselves for the night.  The open air (la belle etoile) is their friend, and the cold helps them to sleep—­sometimes to die.

This night, as we have seen, there was no belle etoile.

The Languedocian and the Genoese, while waiting for supper, rolled themselves up near the women, at the foot of the mast, in some tarpaulin which the sailors had thrown them.

The old man remained at the bow motionless, and apparently insensible to the cold.

The captain of the hooker, from the helm where he was standing, uttered a sort of guttural call somewhat like the cry of the American bird called the exclaimer; at his call the chief of the brand drew near, and the captain addressed him thus,—­

“Etcheco Jauena.”  These two words, which mean “tiller of the mountain,” form with the old Cantabri a solemn preface to any subject which should command attention.

Then the captain pointed the old man out to the chief, and the dialogue continued in Spanish; it was not, indeed, a very correct dialect, being that of the mountains.  Here are the questions and answers.

“Etcheco jauena, que es este hombre?”

“Un hombre.”

“Que lenguas habla?”

“Todas.”

“Que cosas sabe?”

“Todas.”

“Quai pais?”

“Ningun, y todos.”

“Qual dios?”

“Dios.”

“Como le llamas?”

“El tonto.”

“Como dices que le llamas?”

“El sabio.”

“En vuestre tropa que esta?”

“Esta lo que esta.”

“El gefe?”

“No.”

“Pues que esta?”

“La alma."[3]

The chief and the captain parted, each reverting to his own meditation, and a little while afterwards the Matutina left the gulf.

Now came the great rolling of the open sea.  The ocean in the spaces between the foam was slimy in appearance.  The waves, seen through the twilight in indistinct outline, somewhat resembled plashes of gall.  Here and there a wave floating flat showed cracks and stars, like a pane of glass broken by stones; in the centre of these stars, in a revolving orifice, trembled a phosphorescence, like that feline reflection, of vanished light which shines in the eyeballs of owls.