The mast lights of both the ships had now disappeared below Roger's limited horizon and, although the stars had come out, there was no hint of human life whichever way he peered through the surrounding gloom.
For what seemed an eternity he hung there, submerged up to his armpits in water, his dangling legs swaying gently with the motion of the waves. Georgina's prophecy that water would always be dangerous to him reoccurred to his mind. He thought how surprised she would be if she knew how swiftly it had been fulfilled; as by this time she no doubt fondly imagined him to be lodged at some comfortable inn in London having safely deposited the proceeds of her jewels in Messrs. Hoare's bank. He sought such comfort as he could from the idea that her other prophecies had yet to be fulfilled, but he remembered with misgiving her once having told him that things seen in the glass would come to pass only if the subject pursued a path made natural to him through his character and environment—as indeed most people did—but that an abnormal exercise of free will might cause deviations from it, or the whole future suddenly be rendered void by a higher power decreeing death for the subject.
As he tried to weigh the pros and cons of the matter in his mind he was temporarily cheered again by the thought that he was off the coast of France, and it was in France that Georgina had seen him fighting a duel. Yet she had been very definite that the duel would not take place for several years, and if he was washed ashore he meant to get back to England as soon as he possibly could, so that did not get him anywhere either.
He had now been in the water for an hour and a half and with the advance of the night he was becoming chilly. As he began to jerk his limbs about to restore his circulation he turned his head, and suddenly saw a moving light no more than fifty yards distant from him. Instantly he began to shout.
A French voice answered his cries, excited shouts followed; the direction in which the light was moving changed, now coming towards him, and the bulk of a small craft, with her sails set, loomed up out of the darkness. A few minutes later he was being hauled aboard her.
Roger's French consisted only of what he had picked up at school during a year of lessons, and the handful of sailors who crowded round him as he was dragged squelching on to the deck questioned him in their Normandy patois, which he found it almost impossible to understand. But his flair for languages had enabled him to make good use of his comparatively slender instruction. He managed to convey to them that he had fallen overboard unnoticed in the darkness from an English merchantman an hour earlier, and to gather that their boat was one of the fishing fleet which he had seen after they had put out from Le Havre, just before dusk that evening.
A short, swarthy man with gorilla-like shoulders, who appeared to be the Captain, took him below to the tiny cabin. He had borne up so far, but now the reaction from the shock and strain of the last few hours set in and he practically collapsed. It was all he could do to swallow the fiery Calvados that was poured down his throat and to keep his senses while his soaking garments were peeled from his body. Within a quarter of an hour of his rescue he was wrapped up like a mummy in four thicknesses of rough blankets and sound asleep.
When he woke it was daylight and he found the swarthy Captain staring down at him. They exchanged a few more sentences with difficulty, from which Roger learned that the smack had had a good night's fishing and was now heading back to Le Havre. The man then gave him a basin of gruel and left him.
Roger's first thought was for his possessions, but with great relief he saw that the sausage-like bundle, containing Georgina's jewels, had been laid, still tied by the piece of hemp, beside him, and that near it in a small crockery pot were the gold and silver coins that he had had in his boots. His rescuers were evidently honest men, or, perhaps, having recognised that he was a person of quality by his clothes, had been afraid to rob him; but he felt that on discovering his wealth they must have been highly tempted and might well have thrown him back into the sea after despoiling him, so he blessed their integrity.
As he looked round the mean little cabin he thought it all the more striking from their evident poverty. That of Dan's lugger had smelt almost as evilly, but there had been an air of rough comfort about it; bits of spare clothing, worn but of good thick material, stout leather sea-boots, a flitch of bacon and a cask of rum. Here, there was nothing but the refuse of semi-destitution. Even the Captain, Roger had noticed, wore ragged trousers of some thin cotton stuff and wooden clogs, while the gruel he had been given was obviously the crew's normal fare, as there was no good English odour of liver, onions and bacon lingering about the cabin.
The blankets, too, in which he was wrapped were little better than sacking; but, since his clothes had been taken away, there seemed no alternative to lying there until they were returned to him.
For some two hours he dozed and meditated on his own miraculous preservation, the strange sequence of events that had led to his being where he was and the wretched fate which he had good reason to suppose had overtaken the crew of the Albatross. Then the Captain clattered down the ladder, bringing him his clothes.
They had been rough-dried on deck in the morning sunshine and, apart from the fact that they were sadly rumpled, appeared to be little the worse for their immersion. As he put them on he thought sadly of the fine warm greatcoat, and of the satchell with his silver-mounted pistols and other items he valued in it, all of which he had left behind in the cabin of the Albatross; but he swiftly upbraided himself for worrying about such comparative trifles when a merciful Providence had spared him his life, liberty and little fortune.
On going on deck he found that the smack and some two score of her fellow craft were running before a fair breeze towards a smudge on the horizon which must be the coast of France. The bulk of the little ship was occupied by its hold and this was now more than half-filled by a great heap of shiny silver fish, mainly haddocks, whiting and plaice. While he was looking at it one of the crew leant over and gathered a few of them into a small basket, which he took below. Then, half an hour later, the Captain came to Roger, took off his cap, bowed to him and invited him down to the cabin.
In it he saw that some food had been put ready on a rough pine table, but to his surprise the Captain did not sit down with him. Indicating a bench to Roger he tipped the fish from a saucepan out on to a large earthenware dish, cut from a loaf a great hunk of rye bread which he laid beside it, then stood back, respectfully.
Seeing that he was expected to eat with his fingers, Roger set to. The fish had been plain boiled with a clove of garlic and, owing to their freshness, Roger found them excellent. He would have much preferred them fried, but guessed that these poor fisher-folk could not afford the luxury of fat. There was a jug on the table, but no glass, and on drinking from it, Roger found that it contained still cider of an incredible sourness; and it was all he could do, in deference to his host, to prevent his face screwing up into an agonised grimace.
When he had done the Captain bowed him up on deck again and calling to two of his men they went down to eat their share of the mess of fish.