CHAPTER XLI

On board the _Ariane, May_, 1878.

The island of Teneriffe appears before us like a kind of large pyramidal edifice, placed on an immense reflecting mirror which is the sea. The rugged sides, the gigantic ridges of the mountains are brought near, in little, by the extreme, unbelievable clearness of the air. One can distinguish everything: the sharp angles touched with rose, the hollows touched with blue. And the whole rests on the sea like a picture in a child's scrap-book, infinitely light, weightless. A sharp line of clouds pearly-grey in colour cuts Teneriffe horizontally in two, and, above, the peak rears its great cone bathed in sunlight.

The gulls are making an extraordinary racket around us; they cry and beat the air with their white wings in one of those accessions of frenzy, which seize them sometimes for what reason it is impossible to say.

_Midday._ The crew had just finished dinner. The whistle had sounded: "The port watch will clear away!" And Yves, who was on the port watch on board the _Ariane_, came up on deck and approached me, blowing his whistle softly to assure himself that it was still in good order.

"What is the matter with the gulls to-day? They were puling all the time during dinner, did you hear them?"

To be sure I did not know what was the matter with the gulls. But, since it was necessary, out of politeness, to make some sort of reply to Yves, I answered him in this wise:

That the gulls had asked to speak to the officer of the watch, who to be precise was myself. They wanted news of their little cousin Pierre Kermadec; and I had replied to them: "My good sirs, little Pierre Kermadec, my godson, is not yet born; you are too soon, come back in a few days' time, when we are at Brest." On that, as you see, they have departed. Look over there how they have all made off.

"You have given me a very pretty answer," said Yves, who did not often smile. "But I tell you, I dreamt much about this again last night and, do you know, a fear has come to me. It is that it may be a little girl."

It would indeed be a sad disappointment if the expected godson should turn out to be a little girl! It would not then be possible to call the newcomer Pierre.

This kinship of Yves' little child with the gulls was not of my invention: "gull" was the name given to the topmen on board the _Ariane_, and the name they gave to one another amongst themselves. It was not surprising, therefore, that my little godson should be deemed a blood relation of this bird of the sea.

And so, when we talked of him in our conversations at night, we used always to say:

"When will the 'little seagull' arrive?"

And we never referred to him in any other way.