_Kyrie Christe, Dominum nostrum_. . . . The Bretons did not like this kind of song, brought no doubt from the back streets of some great city. But the discordance between the words and the music was so droll, it made them laugh. The newcomers, however, were from the _Gauloise_, and recognized, and were recognized by, the others; they had all been ship-boys together. One of them hastened to embrace Yves: it was Kerboul who had slept in the next hammock to him on board the _Inflexible._ He, too, had become tall and strong; he was on the flagship, and, as he was a steady sort of fellow, he had for a long time worn red stripes on his sleeve. The air in the tavern was oppressive and there was a great deal of noise. Madame Creachcadec brought hot wine all steaming, the preliminary to the dinner that had been ordered, and heads began to swim. There was commotion this night in Brest: the patrols were kept busy. In the Rue de Sept Saints and in the Rue de Saint Yves, singing and shouting went on until the morning; it was as if barbarians had been loosed there, bands escaped from ancient Gaul; there were scenes of rejoicing that recalled the boisterousness of primitive times. The sailors sang. And the women, their fingers itching for the pieces of gold--agitated, dishevelled in this great excitation of the sailors' homecoming--mingled their shrill voices with the deep voices of the men. The latest arrivals from the sea might be recognized by their deeper tint of bronze, by their freer carriage; and then they carried with them objects of foreign origin; some of them passed with bedraggled parakeets in cages; others with monkeys. They sang, these sailors, at the top of their voices, with a kind of naïve expression, things that made one shudder, or perhaps little airs of the south, songs of the Basque country, and, above all, they sang mournful Breton melodies which seemed like old bagpipe airs bequeathed from Celtic antiquity. The simple, the good, sang part songs together; they remained grouped by village, and repeated in their native tongue the long laments of the country, preserving even in their drunkenness their fine resonant young voices. Others stuttered like little children and embraced one another; unconscious of their strength they smashed doors and knocked down passers-by. The night was advancing; only places of ill-repute remained open; and in the streets the rain continued to fall on the exuberance of these wild rejoicings. CHAPTER V Six o'clock on the following morning. A dark mass having the form of a man in the gutter--by the side of a kind of deserted street overhung by ramparts. It is still dark. The rain still falls, fine and cold; and the winter wind continues to roar. It had "watched," as they say in the navy, and passed the night in groaning.