from the galleys it had been nineteen years since he had shed a tear.



CHAPTER VIII

BILLOWS AND SHADOWS


A man overboard!

What matters it? The vessel does not halt. The wind blows.
That sombre ship has a path which it is forced to pursue.
It passes on.

The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges, he rises again to
the surface; he calls, he stretches out his arms; he is not heard.
The vessel, trembling under the hurricane, is wholly absorbed in its
own workings; the passengers and sailors do not even see the drowning man;
his miserable head is but a speck amid the immensity of the waves.
He gives vent to desperate cries from out of the depths. What a spectre
is that retreating sail! He gazes and gazes at it frantically.
It retreats, it grows dim, it diminishes in size. He was there
but just now, he was one of the crew, he went and came along
the deck with the rest, he had his part of breath and of sunlight,
he was a living man. Now, what has taken place? He has slipped,
he has fallen; all is at an end.

He is in the tremendous sea. Under foot he has nothing but what
flees and crumbles. The billows, torn and lashed by the wind,