III.
… THE La Guayra was a point on the sky-verge;—the sun's face
had vanished. The silence and the darkness were deepening
together.
—"Si lanmè ka vini plis fó, ça nou ké fai?" (If the sea
roughens, what are we to do?) asked Maximilien.
—"Maybe we will meet a steamer," answered Stéphane: "the Orinoco
was due to-day."
—"And if she pass in the night?"
—"They can see us." …
—"No, they will not be able to see us at all. There is no moon."
—"They have lights ahead."
—"I tell thee, they will not see us at all,—pièss! pièss!
pièss!"
—"Then they will hear us cry out."
—"NO,—we cannot cry so loud. One can hear nothing but a steam-whistle
or a cannon, with the noise of the wind and the water and
the machine. … Even on the Fort-de-France packet one cannot
hear for the machine. And the machine of the Orinoco is more big
than the church of the 'Centre.'"
—"Then we must try to get to La Dominique."
… They could now feel the sweep of the mighty current;—it
even seemed to them that they could hear it,—a deep low
whispering. At long intervals they saw lights,—the lights of
houses in Pointe-Prince, in Fond-Canonville,—in Au Prêcheur.
Under them the depth was unfathomed:—hydrographic charts mark it
sans-fond. And they passed the great cliffs of Aux Abymes,
under which lies the Village of the Abysms.
The red glare in the west disappeared suddenly as if blown out;
—the rim of the sea vanished into the void of the gloom;—the
night narrowed about them, thickening like a black fog. And the
invisible, irresistible power of the sea was now bearing them
away from the tall coast,—over profundities unknown,—over the
sans-fond,—out to the horizon.
