The Ship of Coral

to the tall ships at Port Royal; that great sheet of blue water stretching from Cape Catoche to the Windward Islands, and from Yucatan to bey

the morning, had died down with high afternoon and high tide; the wind had faded as though withered by the sun. Just at the moment of high tide the sea makes a pause

ee cleaning an old tobacco pipe and absorbed in the job, felt this pause and hold

wards heaven, hidden reefs; I have drained the occidental shores a

divided into two great classes, the men from the south

etagne with a blond beard. Yves was over away on the other side of the little island now hunting for what he might find in the rock pools and creeks. Away out there in a right line from where Gaspard was sitting beneath the palm trees, under the blinding

aa-r rip" of the reef that had been waiting a million years for the Rhone, the screaming of scalding steam and scalded men, a wild bellow from the siren, the roar of the boilers opening out, and the sho

d down under water by the suck of the sinking ship, and he would have drown

im in the face and saw a great spar lifting and dripping in the moonlight; saw Gaspard seize the spar, a p

, repenting for that sin of hers, had determined to save these two last survivors of the Rhon

let; a horrible abundance of provisions, all sorts of articles from the cargo, corpses, spars, everything ye

ter amidst the low bay-cedar bushes that stretched from shore edge to shore edge, the islet was in a trade track, an

Then he lay on his back4 with his head in the scanty shade of the palm fronds, the pea

t breathing shook the palm tops against the blue. Maybe it was the breeze carrying t

n?ois de

?ois, Jea

n?ois de

?ois, Jea

ized by Loti sang in the ears of the Moco as he lay,

uld feel the cotton waste protecting his hands from the heat of the r

he gulls brought up the Tamalpais, a three

great sails held hard against the blue, the yards, the studding sail booms; away from years ago and across three thousand m

vanished, and he was on the wharves of Marseilles,5 in a bar

ng behind his laziness and happiness had been working for his discomfort; we all know that feeling when the

u would not, possibly, have looked at her twice, but had you done so

she stood at the bar of the Riga where the Swedes and Norwegians congregate,

ears unharmed and harmful. She had scorned Gaspard, who would have given

tory; his affection for Yves was one of those brotherly loves that ennoble a man, and the Moco was capable, perhaps,

Hi

way out. A passenger had given Yves a cigar; it was always the6 way; Yves had all the luck; if there w

they grew; and to visualize the awful power of woman it is enough to make your mental standpoint the apex of a vast triangle the other two angles of which

nd beside Gaspard, who sprang half erec

ther with a string; he had found a boat sail from the Rhone and a small spar, out of which he intended to make a tent; he

had fallen back in his old position, and th

ast put out at one another; not at all. They were simply sharing the tremendous taciturnity of their species.

Hi

rgy7 to the calling of the gulls; the Moco, his pip

where I fetched these things from-well-over