d him to come to them. Some happy
strain they sang, like the "Whist! here, you darling boy!" so often
heard at Brest. But seductive as was their country, their call was
imperious and exasperating, making his very flesh shudder. Their perfect
bosoms rose and fell under transparent muslin, in which they were solely
draped; they were glowing and polished as in bronze statues. Hesitating,
fascinated by them, he wavered about, following them; but the
boatswain's sharp shrill whistle rent the air with bird-like trills,
summoning him hurriedly back to his boat, about to push off.

He took his flight, and bade farewell to India's beauties.

After a second week of the blue sea, they paused off another land of
dewy verdure. A crowd of yellow men appeared, yelling out and pressing
on deck, bringing coal in baskets.

"Already in China?" asked Sylvestre, at the sight of those grotesque
figures in pigtails.

"Bless you, no, not yet," they told him; "have a little more patience."

It was only Singapore. He went up into his mast-top again, to avoid the
black dust tossed about by the breeze, while the coal was feverishly
heaped up in the bunkers from little baskets.

One day, at length, they arrived off a land called Tourane, where the
_Circe_ was anchored, to blockade the port. This was the ship to which
Sylvestre had been long ago assigned, and he was left there with his
bag.

On board he met with two mates from home, Icelanders, who were captains
of guns for the time being. Through the long, hot, still evenings, when
there was no work to be done, they clustered on deck apart from the
others, to form together a little Brittany of remembrances.

Five months he passed there in inaction and exile, locked up in the
cheerless bay, with the feverish desire to go out and fight and slay,
for change's sake.

CHAPTER XI--A CURIOUS RENCONTRE

In Paimpol again, on the last day of February, before the setting-out
for Iceland. Gaud was standing up against her room door, pale and still.
For Yann was below, chatting to her father. She had seen him come in,
and indistinctly heard his voice.

All through the winter they never had met, as if some invincible fate
always had kept them apart.

After the failure to find him in her walk to Pors-Even, she had placed
some hope on the _Pardon des Islandais_ where there would be many
chances for them to see and talk to one another, in the market-place at
dusk, among the crowd.

But on the ve