Letters From My Windmill by Alphonse Daudet, Frederick Davies Page B

down. The Master was praying loudly,
while gulls, sole guardians of the cemetery, circled over our heads,
their harsh melancholy cries counterpoint to the sea's lamentations.
    The prayer finished, we plodded, sadly, back to the spot where the boat
was moored. The sailors had not wasted any time; we were met by a great
roaring fire in the shelter of a rock, with a hot-pot steaming. We all
sat around, feet drying by the flames, and soon everyone had two slices
of rye bread to dunk into a soup-filled terra cotta bowl on our knees.
The meal was eaten in silence; after all, we were wet, and hungry, and
near to the cemetery…. However, once the bowls were empty, we lit our
pipes and started to speak about the Sémillante .
    —Well, how did it happen? I asked the boat's Captain, who was looking
thoughtfully into the flames, head in hands.
    —How did it happen? Captain Lionetti repeated by way of a reply. Then
he sighed,—Alas, monsieur, nobody alive can tell you. All we know is
that the Sémillante , loaded with troops bound for the Crimea, had
left Toulon in bad weather the previous night. Later, things changed
for the worse; wind, rain, and enormous seas the like of which had
never been seen before…. In the morning, the wind moderated, but the
sea was still in a frenzy. On top of that, the devil's own fog
descended—you couldn't see a light at four paces. Those fogs,
monsieur, you can't believe how treacherous they can be…. But it
didn't make any difference, I believe the Sémillante must have lost
her rudder that morning, for there is no such thing as a risk-free fog,
and the Captain should never have gone aground there. He was a tough
and experienced seafarer, as we all know. He had commanded the naval
station in Corsica for three years, and knew his coast hereabouts as
well as I; and it's all I do know.
    —At what time do you think the Sémillante foundered?
    —It must have been at midday; yes, monsieur, right in the middle of
the day. But, my word, when it comes to sea fogs, midday is no better
than a pitch-black night…. A local customs' officer told me, that at
about half past eleven that day, as he went outside to close his
shutters, the wind got up again and a gust blew his cap off. At the
risk of being carried away himself, he began to scramble after it along
the shore—on his hands and knees. You must understand that customs'
men are not well off, and a cap is an expensive item. It seems that our
man raised his head for a second and noticed a big ship under bare
poles, running before the wind blowing towards the Lavezzi Islands.
This ship was coming fast, so fast that he hardly had time to get a
good look at her. No doubt it was the Sémillante because half an hour
later, the island shepherd heard something on these rocks…. But
here's the very shepherd I'm talking about, monsieur; he will tell you
himself…. Good day, Palombo, don't be frightened, come and warm
yourself.
    A hooded man, whom I had seen a moment ago hanging around our fire,
came timidly towards us. I had thought he was one of the crew, not
knowing that there was a shepherd on the island.
    He was an old, leprous person, not quite all there, and affected by
some awful disease or other which gave him obscenely thickened lips,
horrible to look at. We took great trouble to tell him what it was all
about. Then, scratching his diseased lip, the old man told us that, yes
indeed, from inside his hut he had heard a fearful crash on the rocks
at midday on that day. The island was completely flooded, so he
couldn't go out-of-doors and it wasn't until the next day that he
opened up to see the shore covered in debris and bodies washed up by
the sea. Horrified, he ran to his boat to try to get some help from
Bonifacio.
    The shepherd was tired by all this talking, and sat down, and the
Master took up the story:
    —Yes, monsieur, this was the unfortunate old man that came to raise
the alarm. He was almost insane with fear, and from that day on, his
mind has