CHAPTER XXIII

We had not long to sleep that night, _my brother and I_, in our little beds in the cupboard.

As soon as the old cottage cuckoo had announced four o'clock in its cracked voice, quickly, we had to get up. We were due at Paimpol before daybreak, to catch there at six o'clock the diligence for Guincamp.

At half-past four, on this cold winter's morning, the poor little door opened to let us out; it closed on a last kiss for Yves from his weeping mother, on a last handshake for me. We set off in the cold rain and the dark night, and for five years we saw them no more.

That is what happens in the families of sailors.

When we were half-way on our road we heard the Angelus sounding behind us at Plouherzel. We thought we were late and began to run. Our faces were bathed in perspiration when we reached Paimpol.

But we had been mistaken; the hour of the Angelus had been put forward.

We found a refuge in a tavern already open, where we had breakfast with some Icelanders and other seafaring folk.

And on the night of the same day, at eleven o'clock, we arrived back in Brest to put to sea once more.