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.

The skipper looked at this spot.

“In truth,” he growled out, “it is not sky but clouds.”

“A blue cloud is worse than a black cloud,” said the doctor; “and,” he added, “it’s a snow-cloud.”

“La nube de la nieve,” said the skipper, as if trying to understand the word better by translating it.

“Do you know what a snow-cloud is?” asked the doctor.

“No.”

“You’ll know by-and-by.”

The skipper again turned his attention to the horizon.

Continuing to observe the cloud, he muttered between his teeth,—­

“One month of squalls, another of wet; January with its gales, February with its rains—­that’s all the winter we Asturians get.  Our rain even is warm.  We’ve no snow but on the mountains.  Ay, ay; look out for the avalanche.  The avalanche is no respecter of persons.  The avalanche is a brute.”

“And the waterspout is a monster,” said the doctor, adding, after a pause, “Here it comes.”  He continued, “Several winds are getting up together—­a strong wind from the west, and a gentle wind from the east.”