than dry
frost; and when breathing it, one tasted the flavour of brine. All was
calm, and the rain had ceased; overhead the clouds, without form or
colour, seemed to conceal that latent light that could not be explained;
the eye could see clearly, yet one was still conscious of the night;
this dimness was all of an indefinable hue.

The three men on deck had lived since their childhood upon the frigid
seas, in the very midst of their mists, which are vague and troubled
as the background of dreams. They were accustomed to see this varying
infinitude play about their paltry ark of planks, and their eyes were as
used to it as those of the great free ocean-birds.

The boat rolled gently with its everlasting wail, as monotonous as a
Breton song moaned by a sleeper. Yann and Sylvestre had got their bait
and lines ready, while their mate opened a barrel of salt, and whetting
his long knife went and sat behind them, waiting.

He did not have long to wait, or they either. They scarcely had thrown
their lines into the calm, cold water in fact, before they drew in huge
heavy fish, of a steel-grey sheen. And time after time the codfish let
themselves be hooked in a rapid and unceasing silent series. The third
man ripped them open with his long knife, spread them flat, salted
and counted them, and piled up the lot--which upon their return would
constitute their fortune--behind them, all still redly streaming and
still sweet and fresh.

The hours passed monotonously, while in the immeasurably empty regions
beyond the light slowly changed till it grew less unreal. What at first
had appeared a livid gloaming, like a northern summer's eve, became
now, without any intervening "dark hour before dawn," something like
a smiling morn, reflected by all the facets of the oceans in fading,
roseate-edged streaks.

"You really ought to marry, Yann," said Sylvestre, suddenly and very
seriously this time, still looking into the water. (He seemed to know
somebody in Brittany, who had allowed herself to be captivated by
the brown eyes of his "big brother," but he felt shy upon so solemn a
subject.)

"Me! Lor', yes, some day I will marry." He smiled, did the always
contemptuous Yann, rolling his passionate eyes. "But I'll have none of
the lasses at home; no, I'll wed the sea, and I invite ye all in the
barkey now, to the ball I'll give at my wedding."

They kept on hauling in, for their time could not be lost in chatting;
they had an immense