The Toilers of the Sea

by Victor Hugo

  He replied: "As you see. How do you do, Sieur Clubin?"

  The other man started.

  "You recognize me, then?"

  "You recognized me all right," said Rantaine.

  The sound of oars was heard. It was the boat that the coastguardsman had been watching, now approaching the coast.

  Sieur Clubin murmured, as if speaking to himself: "It was over very quickly."

  "What can I do for you?" asked Rantaine.

  "Not much. It is just ten years since I saw you last. You must have done well for yourself. How are you?"

  "Pretty well," said Rantaine. "What about you?"

  "Very well," replied Sieur Clubin.

  Rantaine took a step toward Sieur Clubin.

  He heard a sharp click. It was Sieur Clubin cocking the revolver.

  "Rantaine, we are fifteen paces from one another. It's a good distance. Stay where you are."

  "Very well," said Rantaine. "What do you want of me?"

  "I have come to talk to you."

  Rantaine did not move. Sieur Clubin went on:

  "You have just murdered a coastguardsman."

  Rantaine raised the brim of his hat and replied:

  "You have already told me that."

  "In rather less precise terms. I said, a man; now I say, a coastguardsman. This coastguardsman was No. 619. He was married, and he leaves a wife and five children."

  "That may well be," said Rantaine.

  After an imperceptible pause Clubin went on:

  "These coastguardsmen are picked men; almost all of them are former sailors."

  "I have noticed," said Rantaine, "that they do generally leave a wife and five children."

  Sieur Clubin continued:

  "How much do you think this revolver cost me?"

  "It's a good little gun," said Rantaine.

  "What do you think it's worth?"

  "I think a lot of it."

  "It cost me a hundred and forty-four francs."

  "You must have bought it," said Rantaine, "in the shop in Rue Coutanchez."

  Clubin went on:

  "He didn't even give a cry. Falling cuts off your voice."

  "Sieur Clubin, there's going to be a bit of a breeze tonight."

  "I am the only one in the know."

  "Do you still put up at the Auberge Jean?" asked Rantaine.

  "Yes; it's a comfortable place."

  "I remember having had a good dish of sauerkraut there."

  "You must be very strong, Rantaine. What shoulders you have! I wouldn't like to get a tap from you. When I came into the world I looked so puny that they weren't sure whether they would be able to keep me alive."

  "Fortunately, they managed to."

  "Yes, I still put up at the old Auberge Jean."

  "Do you know, Sieur Clubin, how I recognized you? It was because you recognized me. I said to myself, 'Only Clubin could do that.' "

  And he took a step forward.

  "Get back to where you were, Rantaine."

  Rantaine retreated, saying to himself in an aside: "Faced with a thing like that, you're as helpless as a child."

  Sieur Clubin went on:

  "Now, this is the situation. To the right, in the direction of SaintEnogat, three hundred paces from here, we have another coastguardsman, No. 618, who is alive, and to the left, toward Saint-Lunaire, a customs post. That makes seven armed men who can be here within five minutes. The rock is surrounded. The pass will be guarded. There is no way of escape. There is a corpse at the foot of the cliff."

  Rantaine cast a sidelong glance at the revolver.

  "As you say, Rantaine, it is a good little gun. Perhaps it is only loaded with blank, but what difference does that make? It needs only one shot to bring all these armed men to the spot. I have six shots to fire."

  The sound of oars was increasingly distinct. The boat was very near now.

  The tall man looked at the shorter man with a strange look in his eye. Sieur Clubin's voice was becoming increasingly tranquil and gentle.

  "Rantaine, the men in the boat that is coming in would help to arrest you. You are paying Captain Zuela ten thousand francs for your passage. As a matter of fact, you could have done a better deal with the Pleinmont smugglers; but they would only have taken you to England, and you cannot risk going to Guernsey, where you are known. So the situation is this. If I fire you will be arrested. You are paying Zuela ten thousand francs to get you away, and you have given him a down payment of five thousand francs. Zuela would keep the five thousand francs and go on his way. There you are, then. You have a good disguise, Rantaine. That hat, that coat of yours, and these gaiters change you. You have lost your spectacles, and it was a good idea to let your whiskers grow."

  Rantaine smiled: a smile that was more like a grimace. Clubin went on:

  "Rantaine, you are wearing a pair of American trousers with two fobs. In one of them is your watch: you can keep it."

  "Thank you, Sieur Clubin."

  "In the other is a small box of beaten iron with a spring-loaded lid. It is an old sailor's tobacco box. Take it out of your fob and throw it to me."

  "But that is robbery!"

  "Call for help if you want to."

  And Clubin continued to fix his eyes on Rantaine.

  "Look here, Mess Clubin--," said Rantaine, taking a step forward and holding out his open hand.

  The style "Mess" was an attempt at flattery.

  "Stay where you are, Rantaine."

  "Mess Clubin, we can come to some arrangement. I'll give you half."

  Clubin folded his arms, allowing the tip of his revolver to show.

  "What do you take me for, Rantaine? I am a respectable citizen."

  After a moment's pause he added: "I want the lot."

  Rantaine muttered between his teeth: "He's a hard man, this fellow."

  A gleam came into Clubin's eye. His voice became as sharp and cutting as steel:

  "I see you don't understand the position. It is you who go in for robbery: my aim is restitution. Listen to me, Rantaine. Ten years ago you left Guernsey by night, taking from the funds of a partnership of which you were a member fifty thousand francs that belonged to you but failing to leave behind fifty thousand francs that belonged to someone else. Those fifty thousand francs that you stole from your partner, the good and worthy Mess Lethierry, now amount, with compound interest over ten years, to eighty thousand six hundred and sixty-six francs and seventy centimes. Yesterday you went to a money changer. I will tell you his name: it was Rebuchet, in Rue Saint-Vincent. You gave him seventy-six thousand francs in French banknotes, for which he gave you three English banknotes, each for a thousand pounds sterling, plus some small change. You put the banknotes in the iron tobacco box and put the box in your right-hand fob. These three thousand pounds are worth seventy-five thousand francs. On behalf of Mess Lethierry, I shall be satisfied with that amount. I am leaving tomorrow for Guernsey, and I mean to hand them over to him. Rantaine, the three-master lying to out there is the Tamaulipas. Last night you had your baggage stowed away aboard her among the bags and trunks of the crew. You want to get away from France. You have good reason to. You are going to Arequipa.

  "The boat is coming to fetch you, and you are waiting for it here. It is just coming: you can hear the sound of oars. It is up to me either to let you go or compel you to stay. But that's enough talking. Throw me the tobacco box."

  Rantaine opened his fob, took out a small box, and threw it to Clubin. It was the iron tobacco box. It rolled to Clubin's feet.

  Clubin bent down without lowering his head and picked the box up in his left hand, keeping his two eyes and the six barrels of the revolver trained on Rantaine.

  Then he cried: "Turn around."

  Rantaine turned his back.

  Sieur Clubin tucked the revolver away under his armpit and pressed the spring to open the box.

  It contained four banknotes, three for a thousand pounds and one for ten pounds.

  He folded up the three
thousand-pound notes, put them back in the tobacco box, closed the box, and put it in his pocket. Then he picked up a pebble, wrapped the ten-pound note around it, and called to Rantaine: "Turn around again."

  Rantaine turned around. Sieur Clubin went on:

  "I told you I would be satisfied with three thousand pounds. You can have the ten pounds back."

  And he threw Rantaine the note wrapped around the pebble.

  Rantaine kicked the banknote and the pebble into the sea.

  "As you please," said Clubin. "I see you must be well off. I needn't worry about you."

  The sound of oars, which had become steadily closer during this exchange, now ceased, showing that the boat had reached the foot of the cliff.

  "Your cab is waiting for you down there. You may go, Rantaine."

  Rantaine made for the rock staircase and started to go down.

  Clubin walked carefully to the edge of the cliff, bent his head, and watched Rantaine's descent.

  The boat had stopped near the last step in the cliff face, at the very spot where the coastguardsman had fallen.

  As he watched Rantaine going down Clubin muttered:

  "Poor No. 619! He thought he was alone. Rantaine thought that there were only two of them. I was the only one who knew that there were three of us."

  He noticed, lying on the grass at his feet, the telescope that had been dropped by the coastguardsman, and picked it up.

  The sound of oars was heard again. Rantaine had just jumped into the boat, and it was putting out to sea.

  After the first few strokes of the oars, when the boat was beginning to pull away from the cliff, Rantaine suddenly stood up, his face distorted with rage, and shook his fist, shouting: "Oh, the Devil himself is a rascal!"

  A few seconds later Clubin, standing on the cliff top and training the telescope on the boat, distinctly heard these words, shouted in a loud voice above the noise of the sea: "Sieur Clubin, you are a respectable citizen, but you won't mind if I write to Lethierry to tell him what has happened. There is a sailor from Guernsey in the boat, named Ahier-Tostevin, one of the crew of the Tamaulipas, who will be coming back to Saint-Malo on Zuela's next voyage and will bear witness to the fact that I have given you, on Mess Lethierry's behalf, the sum of three thousand pounds sterling."

  It was the voice of Rantaine.

  Clubin liked to see things through. Standing motionless as the coastguardsman had stood, and on the same spot, his eye glued to the telescope, he kept his glance firmly fixed on the boat. He watched it growing steadily smaller amid the waves, disappearing and reappearing, drawing near the ship that was lying to and finally coming alongside, and was able to make out the tall figure of Rantaine standing on the deck of the Tamaulipas.

  When the boat had been hauled in and slung up on the davits the Tamaulipas got under way. A breeze was blowing up to seaward, and she spread all her sails. Clubin kept his telescope trained on the outline of the ship, which became increasingly indistinct. In half an hour the Tamaulipas was no more than a black spot diminishing on the horizon against the pale twilight sky.

  IX

  USEFUL INFORMATION FOR THOSE EXPECTING, OR FEARING, LETTERS FROM OVERSEAS

  That evening Sieur Clubin was again late in returning to his inn.

  One of the causes of his lateness was that before returning he had gone to the Porte Dinan, where there were a number of taverns. In one of the taverns where he was not known he had bought a bottle of brandy, which he had put in one of the capacious pockets of his sea jacket as if he wanted to hide it. Then, since the Durande was due to sail the following morning, he had looked around the ship to make sure that everything was in order.

  When Sieur Clubin returned to the Auberge Jean there was no one in the lower room but the old oceangoing captain Monsieur Gertrais-Gaboureau, sitting with his tankard and smoking his pipe. He greeted Sieur Clubin between a mouthful of beer and a puff of smoke: "How d'you do,137 Captain Clubin?"

  "Good evening, Captain Gertrais."

  "Well, there's the Tamaulipas away."

  "Ah!" said Clubin: "I hadn't noticed."

  Captain Gertrais-Gaboureau spat and went on:

  "Zuela's off."

  "When did he go?"

  "This evening."

  "Where is he off to?"

  "To the Devil."

  "I dare say; but where?"

  "Arequipa."

  "I didn't know that," said Clubin.

  He added:

  "I'm going to bed."

  He lit his candle, walked to the door, and then came back.

  "Have you been to Arequipa, Captain Gertrais?"

  "Yes. Years ago."

  "Where do you call in on the way there?"

  "In all sorts of places. But the Tamaulipas won't be calling in anywhere."

  Monsieur Gertrais-Gaboureau knocked out the ash from his pipe on the edge of a plate and went on: "You know the lugger Cheval de Troie and that fine three-master the Trentemouzin that set off for Cardiff? I didn't think they ought to go because of the weather. When they came back they were in a pretty state. The lugger had a cargo of turpentine. She sprang a leak, and when they started pumping they pumped out all the turpentine along with the water. As for the three-master, she suffered mainly in her topsides. The cutwater, the head rail, the bumkins, and the stock of the port anchor were all broken. The flying jibboom of the outer jib was broken off at the cap. The jib shrouds and the bobstays--what a pretty state they were in! The mizzenmast is all right, but it has had a severe shock. All the iron on the bowsprit has given way, but by a wonder the bowsprit itself was only scraped, though it is completely stripped. There's a hole three feet square in the bow on the port side. That's what happens when you don't take advice."

  Clubin had put his candle down on the table and had begun taking out and replacing a row of pins he had in the collar of his jacket. Then he went on: "Didn't you say, Captain Gertrais, that the Tamaulipas won't be calling in anywhere?"

  "No, she won't. She's making straight for Chile."

  "In that case there won't be any word from her until she gets there."

  "No, you're wrong, Captain Clubin. In the first place, she can send mail by any vessels bound for Europe that she meets."

  "I see."

  "And then there is the post box of the sea."

  "What do you mean by the post box of the sea?"

  "You don't know what that is, Captain Clubin?"

  "No."

  "When you pass the Strait of Magellan--"

  "Well?"

  "Snow everywhere, always rough weather, vile winds, a foul sea."

  "What then?"

  "When you have rounded Cape Monmouth--"

  "Then?"

  "Then you round Cape Valentine."

  "And then?"

  "Then you round Cape Isidore."

  "And then?"

  "You round Cape Anna."

  "All right. But what is the post box of the sea you talk about?"

  "I'm coming to that. Mountains to right of you, mountains to left of you; penguins everywhere, and stormy petrels. A fearful place! Mille saints mille singes! What a battering you get there! What winds! The squalls don't need any help there! That's where you have to look to the wing transom. That's where you shorten sail. That's where you replace the mainsail by the jib, and the jib by the storm jib. One blast of wind after another! And then sometimes four, five, or six days under bare poles. Often a brand-new suit of sails will be reduced to rags. What a dance it leads you! Gusts that make a three-master hop like a flea. I once saw a little cabin boy on an English brig, the True Blue, swept off the jibboom he was working on, and the jibboom with him. You're thrown into the air like butterflies! And I saw the leading hand on the Revenue, a pretty little schooner, torn off the fore crosstree and killed on the spot. I have had my sheer rails smashed and my waterway in smithereens. You come out of it with all your sails in ribbons. Fifty-gun frigates take in water like a wicker basket. And what a devilish coast it is! Rugged as the
y come. Such jagged rocks and reefs! Then you come to Port Famine. There it's worst of all. The heaviest breakers I've seen in my life. It's a hellish place. And there you suddenly see these two words written in red: POST OFFICE."

  "What do you mean, Captain Gertrais?"

  "What I mean, Captain Clubin, is that immediately after you have rounded Cape Anna you see on a rock a hundred feet high a tall post with a barrel hanging from it. The barrel is the post box of the sea. The English thought fit to label it Post Office. What business was it of theirs? It is the post office of the ocean; it does not belong to that honorable gentleman the king of England. This post box is common property. It belongs to all who sail the seas, whatever flag they fly. Post Office, indeed! It's as if the Devil himself were offering you a cup of tea. And this is how it works. Every vessel that passes that way sends a boat to the barrel with her mail. Ships coming from the Atlantic post their letters for Europe, and ships coming from the Pacific post their letters for America. The officer in charge of your boat puts your letters into the barrel and takes out those he finds in it. You take these letters; and the boat that comes after you will take yours. As you are sailing in opposite directions the continent you have come from is the one I am going to. I carry your letters, and you carry mine. The barrel is made fast to the post with a chain. And it rains! And it snows! And it hails! And what a dirty sea, with the stormy petrels flying all around you! The Tamaulipas will pass that way. The barrel has a good hinged lid, but no lock or padlock. So you see, you can write to your friends, and the letters will be delivered."

  "Curious," muttered Clubin thoughtfully.

  Captain Gertrais-Gaboureau returned to his beer.

  "If that rascal Zuela wanted to write to me he would put his scribble in the barrel at Magellan, and I would get it four months later.-- Well, Captain Clubin, are you leaving tomorrow?"

  Clubin, absorbed in a kind of daydream, did not hear. Captain Gertrais repeated his question.

  Clubin woke up.

  "Yes, of course, Captain Gertrais. It's my day. I must sail tomorrow morning."

  "If I were you I wouldn't go, Captain Clubin. The hair on dogs' coats smells damp. For the last two nights the seabirds have been wheeling around the lighthouse. It's a bad sign. I have a storm glass that is misbehaving. We are in the moon's second quarter; the month is at its wettest. A little while ago I saw pimpernels closing up their leaves and a field of clover with the stems of the flowers standing up straight. The worms are coming out of the ground, the flies are biting, the bees are staying in their hives, the sparrows are twittering. You can hear church bells a long way off. This evening I heard the Angelus from Saint-Lunaire. And there was a dirty sunset. There will be heavy fog tomorrow. I wouldn't advise you to sail. I'm more afraid of fog than of a hurricane. It's a treacherous thing, fog."