The Negro shuffled forward, peering. A lantern flashed on one of the big schooners. Looking up, Grimshaw saw the name: "_Anne Beebe, New Orleans_." A querulous voice, somewhere on the deck, demanded: "That you, Richardson?" And then, angrily: "This damned place--dark as hell.... Who's there?"
The man on deck stared down at the quay a moment. Then, apparently having seen nothing, he turned away, and the lantern bobbed aft like a drifting ember. The Negro moaned. Holding both hands over the deep wound in his breast, he slowly climbed the side ladder, turned once, to look at Grimshaw, and disappeared....
Grimshaw felt again the rushing darkness. Again he struggled. And again, opening his eyes after a moment of blankness, he found himself kneeling on the sanded floor of the cafe, holding the dead Negro in his arms. He glanced down at the face, astounded by the look of placid satisfaction in those wide-open eyes, the smile of recognition, of gratification, of some nameless and magnificent content....
The woman Marie touched his shoulder. "The fellow's dead, _m'sieur_. We had better go."
Grimshaw followed her into the street. He noticed that there were no stars. A bitter wind, forerunner of the implacable _mistral_, had come up. The door of the café slammed behind them, muffling a sudden uproar of voices that had burst out with his going....
Grimshaw had a room somewhere in the Old Town; he went there, followed by the woman. He thought: "I am mad! Mad!" He was frightened, not by what had happened to him, but because he could not understand. Nor can I make it clear to you, since no explanation is final when we are dealing with the inexplicable....
When they reached his room, Marie lighted the kerosene lamp and, smoothing down her black hair with both hands, said simply: "I stay with you."
"I love you," she said. "You are a great man. _C'est ça_. That is that! Besides, I must love someone--I mean, do for someone. You think that I like pleasure. Ah! Perhaps. I am young. But my heart follows you. I stay here."
Grimshaw stared at her without hearing. "I opened the door. I went beyond.... I am perhaps mad. Perhaps privileged. Perhaps what they have always called me--an incorrigible poet." Suddenly he jumped to his feet and shouted: "I went a little way with his soul! Victory! Eternity!"