Part 9 (1/2)

”Are there any other things in the locker?” asked the girl.

”Oh, Mon Dieu, yes,” replied the old fellow. ”There's a lot of truck, but it's no use to us.”

”Let's go and see,” said Cleo. She rose up and came down the beach followed by the others. The wind from the mountains died away but the sea torment remained and, though the tide was beginning to ebb, the spray of the waves almost reached the boat.

It had been listed to one side by the Wooley but was undamaged and the forward locker was still open as it had been left by the careless Bompard.

It was one of the boats used for fis.h.i.+ng and deep sea work, hence the contents of the locker.

The steel head of a two p.r.o.nged fish spear, a fisherman's knife in its sheath with belt, a paternoster, invaluable for the fathoms of fis.h.i.+ng line attached, a small American axe with the head vaselined, a canvas housewife with sail-needles, a few darning needles and some pack thread, and a number of odds and ends including some extra heavy lead sinkers.

Bompard looked on apathetically and La Touche stood with his hands in his pockets as the girl fished the things out one by one, placing them, some on the sands and some on the thwarts of the boat.

The things seemed to have no interest for the men. Accustomed all their lives to being looked after as far as shelter and food were concerned they seemed absolutely helpless in front of new conditions. Men are like that, especially men of the people, and when you read of Crusoes and their wonderful doings on desert islands you read Romance.

The quick, trained mind of the girl seemed to see clearly where they could scarcely see at all, she had imagination and she was a woman--that is to say a being more gifted than man, with prevision in affairs purely material.

Bompard did not see any use in the axe and said so. The girl, with her hand resting on the gunnel of the boat, stood like a housekeeper trying to explain to a mere male creature the use of some household implement.

”We will want a fire and an axe will chop wood,” said she.

”Ay, and where are you to get the wood?” asked La Touche. ”There's not a tree on this blasted place, nor the sign of one.”

”Well, we'll have to look--there may be trees inland--there's sure to be bushes of some sort--anyhow we will take these things up to the cave, they will be safer there.”

The baling tin of the boat caught her eye, she included it amongst her prizes.

This baling tin, like a psychological instrument, exhibited the mind of Bompard as though that said mind had been scooped out and placed in it.

To him it was a baling tin; here there were no boats to be baled out--where was the use of it?

To the woman it was a possible pot to boil things in if they could get a fire and things to boil.

She explained and Bompard saw the light. La Touche saw it, too, but promptly pointed out that they had no fire and nothing to boil. He seemed to find an odious satisfaction in the fact, a satisfaction which Bompard faintly reflected, and for a moment the girl seemed to glimpse in the two men a lethargy of mind almost unthinkable. A lethargy and laziness, mulish, and kicking at anything that disturbed it, that actually fought against betterment because betterment meant exercise of intellect and action.

She felt angry with them, just as a grown person feels angry with lazy children, and putting the belt with the knife round her waist and picking up some of her treasures she ordered the others to follow with the rest.

When they had been placed in the cave with the provisions, Bompard, after his great labours, cut himself some tobacco and La Touche lit his pipe. Then they sat down at their cave opening to smoke and rest themselves whilst the girl, who could not keep still, went back to the boat to explore the other lockers and see if by chance anything else of a useful nature might be found. The two men seated smoking at the cave mouth watched her as she went. She felt their eyes upon her and guessed that they were discussing her, but she did not mind.

The ceaseless activity of old Madame de Warens seemed to have descended on her through the air of Kerguelen. The will that Prince Selm had divined in her had been aroused; the surroundings seemed to call her to action from every side; the past and the future seemed phantoms before the tremendous and insistent present. Fate could perhaps have broken her spirit only in one way, by casting her upon the sordid. If she had been socially s.h.i.+pwrecked and thrown onto a Paris slum she might have gone under. Here where everything was clean, where the air was life, where nothing was sordid, she swam; here she was miraculously filled with a new energy and an extraordinary new interest as though she were peeping at things for the very first time.

The forward locker was now empty, she hunted in the others and discovered two more Maconochie tins that Bompard had overlooked, some cotton waste, a roll of thick copper wire and a bradawl.

She collected the lot and brought them up to the cave before which her companions were seated.

She handed them to La Touche, who, without getting up, leaned back and pushed them as far into the cave as he could reach, then he resumed his pipe whilst Cleo standing and shading her eyes looked away up and down the beach as though measuring its possibilities.

”I found a lot of things down there this morning before the tide was high,” said she. ”There were star-fish, big ones like what I have seen on the beach at Bordighera; the Italian people eat them. I'm sure there must be lots of food to be found here on the beach. Then there is a big break in the cliffs lower down that seems to lead inland. I think the best thing we can do is to start now and hunt about and see what we can find. You two can go inland, and I will go along the beach. It's absolutely necessary to find any sort of food, and wood to make a fire.”

The smokers were disposed to argue.