'Ti
Canotiê.
301
T o the horizon—" nou kallé Ihorizon!"— a phrase of terrible picturesqueness. . . . In the Creole tongue, " to the horizon" signifies to the Great Open—into the measureless sea. —"
C'est
pa
lapeine
pagayé
atouélement"
(It is no use
to
paddle now), sobbed Maximilien, laying down his palettes. —"Si! si!" said Stéphane, reversing the motion: " paddle with the current." — " With the current ! It runs to La Dominique !" —"Pouloss," phlegmatically returned Stéphane,—"enrum !—let us make for La Dominique !" — " Thou fool !—it is more than past forty kilometres. . . . Stéphane,
mi!
gadé!—mi
qui goubs
requ'em
!"
A long black fin cut the water almost beside them, passed, and vanished,— a requin indeed! But, in his patois, the boy almost re-echoed the name as uttered by quaint Père Dutertre, who, writing o f strange fishes more than two hundred years ago, says it is called R E Q U I E M , because for the man who findeth himself alone with it in the midst of the sea, surely a requiem must be sung. — " D o not paddle, Stéphane !—do not put thy hand in the water again !" III. . . . T H E La Guayra was a point on the sky-verge ; — the sun's face had vanished. The silence and the darkness were deepening together. —"Si
lanmè
ka
vini
plis
fb,
ça
nou
ké fai?"
(If
the
sea roughens, what are we to do ?) asked Maximilien. — " Maybe we will meet a steamer," answered Stéphane : " the Orinoco was due to-day." — " And if she pass in the night ?" — " They can see us." . . . — " No, they will not be able to see us at all. There is no moon." — " T h e y have lights ahead."