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He paused again, threw his head back with a despairing toss, his chin dropped on his breast, his hands clasped between his knees, and his pipe, laid beside him on the bench, was forgotten.

Pierre quietly put some wood upon the fire, opened his kit, drew out from it a little flask of rum and laid it upon the bench beside the pipe. A long time passed. At last Gaspard roused himself with a long sigh, turned and picked up the pipe, but, seeing the flask of rum, lifted it, and took one long swallow before he began to fill and light his pipe. There came into his voice something of iron hardness as he continued his story.

“Alors, we went into the boat. As we travelled down the gulf a great storm came out of the north. We thought it would pass, but it stayed on. When we got to the last place where the pilot could land, the waves were running like hills to the shore, and no boat could live between the ship and the point. For myself, it was nothing–I am a strong man and a great swimmer. But when a man has a wife and a child, it is differen’. So the ship went on out into the ocean with us. Well, we laugh a little, and think what a great brain I had when I say to my wife: ‘Come and bring the child for the last voyage of Gaspard the pilot.’ You see, there we were on board the ship, everything ver’ good, plenty to eat, much to drink, to smoke, all the time. The sailors, they were ver’ funny, and to see them take my child, my little Babette, and play with her as she roll on the deck–merci, it was gran’! So I say to my wife:

“‘This will be bon voyage for all.’ But a woman, she has not the mind like a man. When a man laugh in the sun and think nothing of evil, a woman laugh too, but there come a little quick sob to her lips. You ask her why, and she cannot tell. She know that something will happen. A man has great idee, a woman great sight. So my wife, she turn her face away all sad from me then, and she was right–she was right!

“One day in the ocean we pass a ship–only two days out. The ship signal us. I say to my wife: ‘Ha, ha! now we can go back, maybe, to the good Ste. Anne.’ Well, the ships come close together, and the captain of the other ship he have something importan’ with ours. He ask if there will be chance of pilot into the gulf, because it is the first time that he visit Quebec. The captain swing round and call to me. I go up. I bring my wife and my little Babette; and that was how we sail back to the great gulf.

“When my wife step on board that ship I see her face get pale, and something strange in her eyes. I ask her why; she do not know, but she hug Babette close to her breast with a kind of fear. A long, low, black ship, it could run through every sea. Soon the captain come to me and say: ‘You know the coast, the north coast of the gulf, from Labrador to Quebec?’ I tell him yes. ‘Well,’ he say, ‘do you know of a bay where few ships enter safe?’ I think a moment and I tell him of Belle Amour. Then he say, ver’ quick: ‘That is the place; we will go to the bay of Belle Amour.’ He was ver’ kind to my face; he give my wife and child good berth, plenty to eat and drink, and once more I laugh; but my wife–there was in her face something I not understan’. It is not easy to understan’ a woman. We got to the bay. I had pride: I was young. I was the best pilot in the St. Lawrence, and I took in the ship between the reefs of the bay, where they run like a gridiron, and I laugh when I swing the ship all ver’ quick to the right, after we pass the reefs, and make a curve round–something. The captain pull me up and ask why. But I never tell him that. I not know why I never tell him. But the good God put the thought into my head, and I keep it to this hour, and it never leave me, never–never!”