CHAPTER XCI

On the evening of the burial of Barazère, Yves had brought his friend Jean Barrada with him to my room. They were now the only survivors of the old band: Kerboul, Le Hello, had been sleeping for many a long day at the bottom of the sea, to which they too had descended in the fullness of youth; the others had left to join the merchant service, or had returned to their villages: all were scattered.

Yves and Barrada were very old friends. On shore, when they were together, it was not good to cross them in their whims.

I can still see the two of them sitting there before me, sharing the same chair on account of the limited space of the room, holding on with one hand in the habit learnt from the rolling of the ship, and looking at me with attentive eyes. For I was endeavouring to prove to them on this evening that _it was not with men as with beasts_, and to speak to them of the mysterious _beyond_. . . . And they, with Barazère's death fresh in their memory, were listening to me surprised, fascinated, in the midst of that very special peacefulness of calm evenings at sea, a peacefulness which predisposes to the comprehension of the incomprehensible.

Old arguments repeated over and over again at school which I developed to them and which it seemed to me might still make an impression on their young minds. . . . It was perhaps very stupid, this discourse on immortality; but it did them no harm; on the contrary.