The Rover quotes

You must have been a deserter from the Navy at one time, whatever you may call yourself now.”

There was not a quiver on the large cheeks of the gunner Peyrol.

“If there was anything of the sort it was in the time of kings and aristocrats,” he said steadily. “And now I have brought in a prize, and a service letter from Citizen Renaud, commanding in the Indian seas.

With an unexpected sigh the man sat down at the foot of the cross, and, immediately, his dog went off a little way and curled himself up amongst the tufts of grass.

“We are all savages here,” said the forlorn fisherman from the lagoon.

“But the master up there is a real patriot from the town. If you were ever to go to Toulon and ask people about him they would tell you. He first became busy purveying the guillotine when they were purifying the town from all aristocrats.

“All right. The man is here.” Her eyes, which had steadied, began to wander again all round and about the motionless Peyrol. She moved a step nearer to him and asked in a low confidential tone:

“Have you ever carried a woman’s head on a pike?”

Peyrol, who had seen fights, massacres on land and sea, towns taken by assault by savage warriors, who had killed men in attack and defence, found himself at first bereft of speech by this simple question, and next moved to speak bitterly.

Her husband. Was it possible? … Well, perhaps it was possible. He could not tell. He felt his utter incompetence. As to catching her glance, you might just as well have tried to catch a wild seabird with your hands.

And altogether she was like a seabird⁠—not to be grasped.

But Peyrol knew how to be patient, with that patience that is so often a form of courage. He was known for it. It had served him well in dangerous situations. Once it had positively saved his life. Nothing but patience.

… Well, perhaps it was possible. He could not tell. He felt his utter incompetence. As to catching her glance, you might just as well have tried to catch a wild seabird with your hands. And altogether she was like a seabird—not to be grasped.

But Peyrol knew how to be patient, with that patience that is so often a form of courage.

He was known for it. It had served him well in dangerous situations. Once it had positively saved his life. Nothing but patience. He could well wait now. He waited.

It made a free-limbed, deep-breathing sailor-man feel like a mere overloaded animal, thus extending whatever there was of compassion in Peyrol’s nature towards the four-footed beasts that carry men’s burdens on the earth.

The necessities of a lawless life had taught Peyrol to be ruthless, but he had never been cruel.

Sprawling in the chair, stripped to the waist, robust and grey-haired, his head with a Roman profile propped up on a mighty and tattooed forearm, he remained at ease, with his eyes fixed on his treasure with an air of meditation.

“What drove you out last night?” Peyrol tried to catch her eyes, but they eluded him in the usual way. And now her face looked as though it couldn’t smile.

“My heart,” she said.

For a moment Peyrol lost his tongue and even all power of motion.

She recovered from her scare to say:

“I was born here, grew up here, and early in my life I made up my mind to die here.”

“A strange notion,” said Peyrol, “for a young girl to take into her head.”

Peyrol, whose trousers were rolled up above the knee because he had been washing the hold, looked at his calves complacently. “You could hardly have expected that,” he remarked with simplicity.

“Ah, but you don’t know what people with properly made bodies expected or pretended to,” said the cripple. “Everything was going to be changed. Everybody was going to tie up his dog with a string of sausages for the sake of principles.”

His long face, which, in repose, had an expression of suffering peculiar to cripples, was lighted up by an enormous grin. “They must feel jolly well sold by this time,” he added. “And of course that vexes them, but I am not vexed.

Wouldn’t they have exulted at their enormous piece of luck! But they wouldn’t have called it accidental. Oh no! They would have called it providential. I know the English a little too.

They like to have God on their side⁠—the only ally they never need pay a subsidy to.

Come, gunner, would it not have been a perfect way?”

“Yes,” said Peyrol.

“The cabin is used to that kind of thing,”

and suddenly he felt very bitter. “It has been a deathtrap for better people than this fellow, whoever he is.”

It was of that man’s youth that he thought, of how that face had looked twenty years ago. Suddenly he shifted his position, and putting his lips to the ear of that inanimate head, yelled with all the force of his lungs:

“Hullo! Hullo! Wake up, shipmate!”

It seemed enough to wake up the dead. A faint “Voilà! Voilà!” was the answer from a distance, and presently Michel put his head into the cabin with an anxious grin and a gleam in the round eyes.

“Hullo! Hullo! Wake up, shipmate!”

It seemed enough to wake up the dead.

A faint “Voilà! Voilà!” was the answer from a distance, and presently Michel put his head into the cabin with an anxious grin and a gleam in the round eyes.

“How did you say that? Kitten? Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Peyrol.

“You make a nice petit chat.”

He seized the demijohn by the neck and filled the mugs. “There,” he went on, pushing one towards the prisoner—“it’s good drink—that.”

So the change, if one could believe what people talked about, could not be very great. The rover had also his own positive notions as to what these three words were worth.

Liberty⁠—to hold your own in the world if you could.

Equality—yes! But no body of men ever accomplished anything without a chief. All this was worth what it was worth. He regarded fraternity somewhat differently. Of course brothers would quarrel amongst themselves;

He had been thinking so hard of all these people, that to find no one about seemed unnatural and even depressing. He had seen many abandoned places in his life, grass huts, mud forts, kings’ palaces—temples from which every white-robed soul had fled.

Temples, however, never looked quite empty. The gods clung to their own.

Peyrol’s eyes rested on the bench against the wall of the salle.

He walked forward with a tense still face straight at Peyrol as though he had been blind. Startled, the rover stepped out of the way and, turning on his heels, followed him with his eyes.

The lieutenant paced on, as if drawn by a magnet, in the direction of the door of the house.

Peyrol, his eyes fastened on Réal’s back, let him nearly reach it before he called out tentatively: “I say, lieutenant!” To his extreme surprise, Réal swung round as if to a touch.

“

I laughed because I thought of all the days to come. Days and days and days. Have you thought of them?

”

And there it was, nearly worn out. The others too. That steel! And here he was, holding the case in his hand as though he had just picked it up from the floor.

Same case. Same man. And the steel worn out.

He shut the case brusquely, flung it into his sea-chest, which was standing open, and slammed the lid down.

He had a hill on each side of him and the placid cove below his feet. He muttered “H’m!

Thunder at sunrise. It must be in the west. It only wanted that!

” He feared it would first kill the little breeze there was and then knock the weather up altogether. For a moment all his faculties seemed paralysed by that faint sound.

“

Somebody must be last in this world.

”

He will do it because he is a first-rate seaman, but I, Michel, I am just a little bit cleverer than he.” He glanced over his shoulder at the Amelia rushing after the tartane with swelling sails, and raised his voice suddenly. “

He will do it because no more than half a mile ahead of us is the spot where Peyrol will die!

”

A blown seatop flicked his face noisily, followed by a smooth interval, a silence of the waters.

He beheld in a flash the days of his manhood, of strength and adventure.

Suddenly an enormous voice like the roar of an angry sea-lion seemed to fill the whole of the empty sky in a mighty and commanding shout: “Steady!”

He beheld in a flash the days of his manhood, of strength and adventure. Suddenly an enormous voice like the roar of an angry sea-lion seemed to fill the whole of the empty sky in a mighty and commanding shout: “Steady!” …

And with the sound of that familiar English word ringing in his ears Peyrol smiled to his visions and died.

The Amelia, stripped down to her topsails and hove to, rose and fell easily, while on her quarter about a cable’s length away Peyrol’s tartane tumbled like a lifeless corpse amongst the seas.