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Then, as she stood upon the shore, some Breton fishing-smacks, seeking codfish, came in sight. Making signals with fire and calling for aid, she drew them nearer; but she was now dressed in furs only, and seemed to them but one of the fancied demons of the island. Beating up slowly and watchfully toward the shore, they came within hearing of her voice and she told her dreary tale.
"She was painted like one of our fishing-smacks," interposed Pierre, now too excited to hold his tongue, "but she did not know the channel." "Aye, and she'll try it again," growled the brigadier, "if the night be dark. She'll find it clear sailing in, but a hot road out." "Tobacco?" I asked, now fully alive to the situation. The brigadier spat. "Of course, as full as she'll float," he answered.
Color was everywhere, brilliant even in the sun-tanned cheeks, the black hair and eyes, the orange and gold and red caps and sashes of the three boys who stood on the beach, looking out at the home-coming fleet of feluccas and fishing-smacks. "If only I were a man!" exclaimed one of the boys. "No more Latin lessons with the Padre. I could sail and fish all day like brother Carlo.
The fish are split open and, after the roe and the liver have been removed, hung up on hurdles to dry. Some are sold to the fishing-smacks, which come to the islands to buy the fresh fish, and then salt it down in barrels, or take it away to dry elsewhere. Scores of bundles of dried cod, looking like slips of leather, may be seen for the remainder of the year on every wharf in Norway.
Not only all the fishing-smacks, and Captain Stubbard's galley, but every boat half as sound as a hat, might now be seen near the grounded vessel, preparing to labour or look on. And though the White Pig was allowed to be three-quarters of a mile from the nearest point, the mighty voice of Captain Zeb rode over the flickering breadth of sea, and through the soft babble of the waves ashore.
Among the sailors on the fishing-smacks were many unfamiliar and wild-looking Cuban and Spanish types men with hard, dark faces, lighted up by fierce, brilliant black eyes, who looked as if they would have been in their proper sphere fighting under a black flag, on the Spanish Main, in the good old days of the bucaneers.
"You are right, Blyth; I forgot that for the moment. There would have been weeping and wailing indeed, even in our own household. But they could not have kept them long, though the loss of their boats would have been most terrible. But I cannot make out why the French should have wanted to catch a few harmless fishing-smacks. Aquila non captat muscas, as you taught the boys at Stonnington.
In addition to the steamers, there were perhaps a dozen sailing craft colliers and fishing-smacks, mostly in sight, the wrinkling canvas of which, as they rolled gently upon the invisible swell, with their bows pointing all round the compass, afforded further confirmation, if such were needed, of the absolute stillness of the atmosphere.
Hill and valley, tree and fence, woodshed and well-sweep, barn and pigsty, fishing-smacks frozen tip at the wharf, ribbed monsters of dismantled hulks scattered along the river-side, all lie transfigured in the white glory and sunshine. The eye, wherever it turns, aches with the cold brilliance, unrelieved save where.
"Ah, but I shall have a dozen fishing-smacks, each of which will be commanded by one of my men, and we shall collar him " "If he doesn't slip through your dozen smacks, like a fish through the meshes." "All right, then I'll sink him." "The devil you will! Shall you have guns?" "Why, of course! There's a torpedo-boat at the Havre at this moment.
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