s. Poor Fly has announced a piece of disastrous news to me,
and at the same time has asked me to tell it to you: She is pregnant,
and I will only add two words. This is not the moment to abandon her,
and it is forbidden to try and find out who is the father.'[2]

[Footnote 2: _La recherche de la paternite est interdite._ A celebrated
clause in the Code Napoleon, whereby a man cannot be made chargeable for
a bastard.--TRANSLATOR.]

"At first we were stupefied, and felt as if some disaster had befallen
us, and we looked at each other with the longing to accuse some one, but
whom? Oh! Which of us? I have never felt as I did at that moment, the
perfidy of that cruel joke of nature, which never allows a man to know
for certainty whether he is the father of his child. Then, however, by
degrees a sort of feeling of consolation came over us and gave us
comfort, which sprung from a confused idea of joint responsibility.

"Tomahawk, who spoke but little, formulated a beginning of reassurance by
these words: 'Well, so much the worse, by Jove: _Union is Strength_,
however.' At that moment a scullion brought in the fried gudgeons, but
they did not fall to on them like they generally did, for they all had
the same trouble on their mind, and Only-One-Eye continued: 'Under these
circumstances she has had the delicacy to confess everything to me. My
friends, we are all equally guilty, so let us shake hands and adopt the
child.'

"That was decided upon unanimously; they raised their hands to the dish
of fried fish and swore: 'We will adopt it.' Then, when she was thus
suddenly saved, and delivered from the weight of the terrible anxiety
that had been tormenting her for a month, this pretty, crazy, poor child
of love, Fly, exclaimed: 'Oh! my friends! my friends! You have kind,
good hearts ... good hearts.... Thank you, all of you!' And she shed
tears for the first time before us all.

"From that time we spoke in the boat about the child, as if it were
already born, and each of us took an exaggerated interest, because of
our share in the matter, in the slow and regular development of our
mistress's waist, and we stopped rowing in order to say: 'Fly?' 'Here I
am,' she replied. 'Boy or girl?' 'Boy.' 'What will he be when he grows
up?'

"Then she indulged in the most fantastic flights of fancy. They were
interminable stories, astounding inventions, from the day of his birth
until his final triumph. In the unsophisticated, passionate and