Pilots of the Third Company hastening to embark.
Too sleepy to be talkative they step on board in silence. But a few low
grunts and an enormous yawn are heard. Somebody even ejaculates: "Ah!
Coquin de sort!" and sighs wearily at his hard fate.

The patron of the Third Company (there were five companies of pilots
at that time, I believe) is the brother-in-law of my friend Solary
(Baptistin), a broad-shouldered, deep-chested man of forty, with a
keen, frank glance which always seeks your eyes. He greets me by a low,
hearty, "He, l'ami. Comment va?" With his clipped moustache and massive
open face, energetic and at the same time placid in expression, he is
a fine specimen of the southerner of the calm type. For there is such
a type in which the volatile southern passion is transmuted into solid
force. He is fair, but no one could mistake him for a man of the north
even by the dim gleam of the lantern standing on the quay. He is worth
a dozen of your ordinary Normans or Bretons, but then, in the whole
immense sweep of the Mediterranean shores, you could not find half a
dozen men of his stamp.

Standing by the tiller, he pulls out his watch from under a thick jacket
and bends his head over it in the light cast into the boat. Time's up.
His pleasant voice commands in a quiet undertone "Larguez." A suddenly
projected arm snatches the lantern off the quay--and, warped along by
a line at first, then with the regular tug of four heavy sweeps in
the bow, the big half-decked boat full of men glides out of the black
breathless shadow of the Fort. The open water of the avant-port glitters
under the moon as if sown over with millions of sequins, and the long
white breakwater shines like a thick bar of solid silver. With a quick
rattle of blocks and one single silky swish, the sail is filled by a
little breeze keen enough to have come straight down from the frozen
moon, and the boat, after the clatter of the hauled-in sweeps, seems
to stand at rest, surrounded by a mysterious whispering so faint and
unearthly that it may be the rustling of the brilliant, over-powering
moonrays breaking like a rain-shower upon the hard, smooth, shadowless
sea.

I may well remember that last night spent with the pilots of the Third
Company. I have known the spell of moonlight since, on various seas
and coasts--coasts of forests, of rocks, of sand dunes--but no magic so
perfect in its revelation of unsuspected character, as though one were
allowed to l