Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 20, 2025
When he saw the "Baleine," three hundred metres out, making with all her oars toward the black dot, rocking in the distance, his fury redoubled. And he shoved Tupain and Brisemotte into the "Zéphir," and he pulled out in turn, repeating: "No, they shall not have it; I'll die sooner!" Then Coqueville had a fine spectacle; a mad race between the "Zéphir" and the "Baleine."
So Coqueville finds itself a prey to two fierce factions something like one hundred and thirty inhabitants bent upon devouring the other fifty for the simple reason that they are the stronger. The struggle between two great empires has no other history.
To every sentence he added simply: "It was very good!" "But what was it in the cask?" they asked him hotly. "Ah! I don't know it was very good." By this time Coqueville was burning to know. Every one lowered their noses to the boat, sniffing vigorously. With one opinion, it smelt of liquor; only no one could guess what liquor.
Coqueville, thinking it had blown out its candle, had abandoned itself to the darkness. Then the day dawned; and now the sun was flaming, a sun which fell perpendicularly on the sleepers, powerless to make them open their eyelids. They slept rudely, all their faces beaming with the fine innocence of drunkards.
Friday the fishing was superb, undreamed of; there were seven casks, three for Rouget and four for La Queue. Coqueville was entering upon a golden age. They never did anything any more. The fishermen, working off the alcohol of the night before, slept till noon. Then they strolled down to the beach and interrogated the sea.
In a word, much disquieted, he sent Rouget and La Queue to the devil. Perhaps, after all, they would come tomorrow. The next day, Thursday, neither the one nor the other appeared. Toward evening, M. Mouchel, desperate, climbed the rock to the left of Grandport, from which one could see in the distance Coqueville, with its yellow spot of beach. He gazed at it a long time.
Then, in every cask there was a different liquor. So the Emperor was plunged into profound reveries; he who had drunk everything, he could identify nothing any more. La Queue declared that never had he seen such a cargo. The Abbé Radiguet guessed it was an order from some savage king, wishing to set up his wine-cellar. Coqueville, rocked in mysterious intoxication, no longer tried to understand.
"If they had fallen overboard, little Delphin would have been here by this!" All Coqueville had to agree, Delphin swam like a herring. But where then could the three men be? They shouted: "I tell you, yes!" "I tell you, no!" "Too stupid!" "Stupid yourself!" And matters came to the point of exchanging blows.
All were empty; at the bottom of the last one, as if in mockery, he found a little mackerel, which he threw back angrily into the sea. It was fate; there were weeks like that when the fish flouted Coqueville, and always at a time when M. Mouchel had expressed a particular desire for them. When La Queue drew in his nets, an hour later, he found nothing but a bunch of seaweed.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking