Very simply, in brief sentences, with short intervals to permit of more accurate recollection, good old Sammy opened to us vistas of unending fields of ice whereupon men slew the harp-seals, and pictured to us the manner in which the toll of death sometimes turns against the slayers.  He also spoke of fishing schooners tossed by fierce gales, drifting by the side of mountainous bergs of ice rimmed with foam from the billows lashed in fury, and of seams that had opened as the ship spewed off its creeping oakum.  I am sure we could all see the men at the pumps, working until their stiffened arms and frozen hands refused the bidding of brains benumbed by cold and hunger.

“Yes, ma’am, it’s hard, mighty hard, times and times, but when yer gets through wid it ye’ll still be there, if yer has luck, and them as doesn’t get ketched gets back ter th’ wife an’ young, ‘uns, an’ is thankful they kin start all over again.”

I saw how interested Miss Jelliffe was, and did my best to draw the man out.  Like most real fighters he was little inclined to live his own combats over again, yet when he was once started it took little effort to keep him going.  After this I questioned Frenchy, very carefully, for he is even less inclined than the other fishermen to talk about himself.  I have never known the secret, if there be one, in the life of this man, alone of his people on this shore, with that child of his.  He is always ever so friendly, and looks at one with big, dog-like, trusting eyes, but I have never sought to obtain a confidence he does not seem to be willing to bestow on any one.  For this reason I merely asked him whether he had traveled much in foreign lands, as a sailor.

Then, as he puffed quietly at his pipe, the man gradually expanded just a little, though never speaking of anything he had personally accomplished.  His tales, contrasting with Sammy’s, took us to hot countries, with names that were rather vague to us.

He led us up some rivers tenanted by strange beasts wallowing in fetid mud which, when disturbed, sent forth bubbles that burst with foul odors, and made more unbearable the tepid moisture one had to breathe.  Hostile, yellow people in strange garb slunk along the banks, hiding behind bamboos and watching the boats rowed by white men nearly succumbing to the torpor of the misty heat, while pulling with arms enfeebled by the fevers of what he called La Riviere Rouge.  There had been fighting, nights and days of it, and once he had forgotten everything and awakened on board a ship that was out of sight of land.  Now the trade winds were blowing, and many of the sick and wounded felt better, yet the great sharks kept on following because of the long bundles that were daily dropped overboard, done up in sail cloth and weighted at the feet.  And when one arrived in port there were poor old women who called for Jean-Marie and for Joseph, and who sank fainting on the docks.  But others were happy.