Our house was in the eastern quarter of the town, in Jonquières. To reach the graveyard we had to cross the Isle, and go through Ferrières, and then up the hill-side beyond. But I did not mean that we should do that; and when we had crossed the Canal du Roi I said to Magali that we would turn, before we went onward, and walk down past the Fish-market to the end of the Isle--that from there we might see the lights glowing in the dusk on the slope rising above us black against the western sky. We had done that before--it is a pretty sight to see all those far-off glittering points of light above, and then to see their glittering reflections near by in the water below--and she willingly came with me.
But I had more in view. Down at the end of the Isle, along with the other boats moored at the wharf there to be near the Fish-market, my boat was lying; and when we were come close to her I said suddenly, as though the thought had entered my head that minute, that we would go aboard of her and run out a little way--and so see the death-fires more clearly because they would be less hidden by the shoulder of the hill. I did not have to speak twice. Magali was aboard of the boat on the instant, and was clapping her hands at the notion--for she had, as all our women have, a great pleasure in following any sudden fancy which promises something amusing and also a little strange. And I was quick after her, and had the lines cast off and began to get up the sail.
"Oh," she said, "won't the oars do? Need we bother with the sail for such a little way?"
But I did not answer her, and went on with what I was doing, while the boat drifted quickly out from land before the gusts of wind which struck us harder and harder as we cleared the point of the Isle. Until then I had not thought about the weather--my mind had been full of the other and bigger thought. The gusts of wind waked me up a little, and as I looked at the sky I began to have doubts that I could do what I wanted to do; for it was plain that a gale was rising which would make ticklish work for me even out on the Gulf of Fos--and would make pretty near impossible my keeping on to Les Saintes over the open sea. And I had about made up my mind that we must go back, and that I must carry out my plan some other time, when there came a hail to us from the shore.