Then, when he could no longer bear the sight, he went to the cafe on the wharf, where the captain of “The Saint Louis” was generally to be found.

“Your men will never finish, captain,” he said.  “You will never be ready by Sunday.”

To which the captain invariably replied in his fierce Marseilles accent,—­

“Don’t be afraid, lieutenant.  ‘The Saint Louis,’ I tell you, beats the Indian mail in punctuality.”

And really, on Saturday, when he saw his passenger come as usual to the cafe, the captain exclaimed,—­

“Well, what did I tell you?  We are all ready.  At five o’clock I get my mail at the post-office; and to-morrow morning we are off.  I was just going to send you word that you had better sleep on board.”

That evening the officers of “The Conquest,” gave Daniel a farewell dinner; and it was nearly midnight, when, after having once more shaken hands most cordially with the old chief surgeon, he took possession of his state-room, one of the largest on board ship, in which they had put up two berths, so that, in case of need, Lefloch might be at hand to attend his master.

Then at last, towards four o’clock in the morning, Daniel was aroused by the clanking of chains, accompanied by the singing of the sailors.  He hastened on deck.  They were getting up anchors; and, an hour after that, “The Saint Louis” went down the Dong-Nai, aided by a current, rushing along “like lightning.”

“And now,” said Daniel to Lefloch, “I shall judge, by the time it will take us to get home, if fortune is on my side.”

Yes, fate, at last, declared for him.  Never had the most extraordinarily favorable winds hastened a ship home as in this case.  “The Saint Louis” was a first-class sailer; and the captain, stimulated by the presence of a navy lieutenant, always exacted the utmost from his ship; so that on the seventeenth day after they had left Saigon, on a fine winter afternoon, Daniel could see the hills above Marseilles rise from the blue waters of the Mediterranean.  He was drawing near the end of the voyage and of his renewed anxieties.  Two days more, and he would be in Paris, and his fate would be irrevocably fixed.

But would they let him go on shore that evening?  He trembled as he thought of all the formalities which have to be observed when a ship arrives.  The quarantine authorities might raise difficulties, and cause a delay.

Standing by the side of the captain, he was watching the masts, which looked as if they were loaded down with all the sails they could carry, when a cry from the lookout in the bow of the vessel attracted his attention.  That man reported, at two ship’s lengths on starboard, a small boat, like a pilot-boat, making signs of distress.  The captain and Daniel exchanged looks of disappointment.  The slightest delay in the position in which they were, and at a season when night falls so suddenly, deprived them of all hope of going on shore that night.  And who could tell how long it would take them to go to the rescue of that boat?