Yes! I recognize it well, and, like Yves, salute it with a smile; somewhat puzzled, nevertheless, to see it reappear so close to us, and in the midst of this festival of shadows, on a morning when I was not expecting it. . . . What were we going to do there, in its neighbourhood? This was no part of our original plan and I could not understand it. It was a sudden decision of the captain, taken during my hour of sleep: to make for the entrance to the roadstead of Taureau, hard by Saint Pol, and seek a shelter there from the south wind, the open sea being now too rough for us. And that was how it came about that, on his return to the northern waters, Yves' first visit was to the Creizker tower. CHAPTER LXIII CHERBOURG, 27_th December_, 1880. At seven o'clock in the morning word is brought to me that Yves, dead-drunk, is in a boat alongside. Some old friends of his, topmen on the _Vénus_, have kept him drinking through the night in low taverns--to celebrate their return from the Antilles. I am of the watch. There is no one yet on deck, save some sailors busy with their furbishing--but devoted fellows these, known for many a day and to be counted on. Four men get him aboard, and furtively carry him down a hatch and hide him in my room. A bad beginning, truly, on board this _Sèvre_, where I had taken him under my charge as on a kind of probation, and where he had promised to be exemplary. And the black thought came to me for the first time that he was lost, beyond redemption, no matter what I might do to save him from himself. And also this other thought, more desolating still, that perhaps he was deficient in certain qualities of heart. Throughout the day Yves was like a dead man. He had lost his bonnet, his purse, his silver whistle, and there was a dent in his head. It was not until about six o'clock in the evening that he showed sign of life. Then, like a child awakening, he smiled--a sign this that he was still drunk, for otherwise he would not smile--and asked for food. Then I said to Jean-Marie, my faithful servant, a fisherman from Audierne: "Go to the ward-room kitchen and see if you can get him some soup." Jean-Marie brought the soup, and Yves began to turn his spoon this way and that, as if he did not remember which way to hold it: "Come on, Jean-Marie, make him eat it!" "It is too salty!" said Yves suddenly, lying back, making a wry face, his accent very Breton, his eyes again half-closed. "Too salty! Too salty!" . . . Then he fell asleep again, and Jean-Marie and I burst out laughing. I was in no frame of mind for laughter, but this notion and this spoilt child's air were too comical. . . . Later, at ten o'clock, Yves came round, got up furtively, and disappeared. For two days he remained hidden in the crews' quarters in the bow of the ship, only showing himself for his watch and for drill, hanging his head, not daring to look at me.