CHAPTER IX
THE EASTERN VOYAGE
Sylvestre was soon out on the ocean, rapidly whisked away over the
unknown seas, far more blue than Iceland's. The ship that carried him
off to the confines of Asia was ordered to go at full speed and stop
nowhere. Ere long he felt that he was far away, for the speed was
unceasing, and even without a care for the sea or the wind. As he was
a topman, he lived perched aloft, like a bird, avoiding the soldiers
crowded upon the deck.
Twice they stopped, however, on the coast of Tunis, to take up more
Zouaves and mules; from afar he had perceived the white cities amid
sands and arid hills. He had even come down from his top to look at
the dark-brown men draped in their white robes who came off in small
boats to peddle fruit; his mates told him that these were Bedouins.
The heat and the sun, which were unlessened by the autumn season, made
him feel out of his element.
One day they touched at Port Said. All the flags of Europe waved
overhead from long staves, which gave it an aspect of Babel on a
feast-day, and the glistening sands surrounded the town like a moving
sea.
They had stopped there, touching the quays, almost in the midst of the
long streets full of wooden shanties. Since his departure, Sylvestre
never had seen the outside world so closely, and the movement and
numbers of boats excited and amused him.
With never-ending screeching from their escape-pipes, all these boats
crowded up in the long canal, as narrow as a ditch, which wound itself
in a silvery line through the infinite sands. From his post on high he
could see them as in a procession under a window, till disappearing in
the plain.
On the canal all kinds of costumes could be seen; men in many-coloured
attire, busy and shouting like thunder. And at night the clamour of
confused bands of music mingled with the diabolical screams of the
locomotives, playing noisy tunes, as if to drown the heart-breaking
sorrow of the exiles who for ever passed onward.
The next day, at sunrise, they, too, glided into the narrow ribbon of
water between the sands. For two days the steaming in the long file
through the desert lasted, then another sea opened before them, and
they were once again upon the open. They still ran at full speed
through this warmer expanse, stained like red marble, with their
boiling wake like blood. Sylvestre remained all the time up in his
top, where he would hum his old song of "Jean-Francois de Nantes," to
remind him of his dear brother Yann, of Iceland, and the good old
bygone days.
Sometimes, in the depths of the shadowy distance, some wonderfully
tinted mountain would arise. Notwithstanding the distance and the
dimness around, the names of those projected capes of countries
appeared as the eternal landmarks on the great roadways of the earth
to the steersmen of this vessel; but a topman is carried on like an
inanimate thing, knowing nothing, and unconscious of the distance over
the everlasting, endless waves.
All he felt was a terrible estrangement from the things of this world,
which grew greater and greater; and the feeling was very defined and
exact as he looked upon the seething foam behind, and tried to
remember how long had lasted this pace that never slackened night or
day. Down on deck, the crowd of men, huddled together in the shadow of
the awnings, panted with weariness. The water and the air, even the
very light above, had a dull, crushing splendour; and the fadeless
glory of those elements were as a very mockery of the human beings
whose physical lives are so ephemeral.
Once, up in his crow's nest, he was gladdened by the sight of flocks
of tiny birds, of an unknown species, which fell upon the ship like a
whirlwind of coal dust. They allowed themselves to be taken and
stroked, being worn out with fatigue. All the sailors had them as pets
upon their shoulders. But soon the most exhausted among them began to
die, and before long they died by thousands on the rigging, yards,
ports, and sails--poor little things!--under the blasting sun of the
Red Sea. They had come to destruction, off the Great Desert, fleeing
before a sandstorm. And through fear of falling into the blue waters
that stretched on all sides, they had ended their last feeble flight
upon the passing ship. Over yonder, in some distant region of Libya,
they had been fledged in masses. Indeed, there were so many of them,
that their blind and unkind mother, Nature, had driven away before her
this surplus, as unmoved as if they had been superabundant men. On the
scorching funnels and ironwork of the ship they died away; the deck
was strewn with their puny forms, only yesterday so full of life,
songs, and love. Now, poor little black dots, Sylvestre and the others
picked them up, spreading out their delicate blue wings, with a look
of pity, and swept them overboard into the abysmal sea.
Next came hosts of locusts, the spawn of those conjured up by Moses,
and the ship was covered with them. At length, though, it surged on a
lifeless blue sea, where they saw no things around them, except from
time to time the flying fish skimming along the level water.
