An attempt was made soon afterwards to raise the Royal George, and very nearly succeeded, as she was lifted up, and moored some way from the spot where she went down; but a heavy gale coming on, some of the lighters sank, and the gear gave way, and she was again lost. It was whispered that on account of her rotten state the admiralty had no wish to have her afloat, but that might have been scandal.
Within the tropics, on a wondrous evening when the Southern trades were blowing with their balmiest softness, the corporeal portion of his being tired with a healthy muscular fatigue, gently lulled by the slumberous rhythmic motion of the ship, as a little child is rocked to sleep in his cradle, Jean was half sitting, half lying on the deck in the mild light of the new-born stars, in the midst of the gathering swarm of white-jacketed sailor lads, who were coming up from below, one after another, and forming snug little groups preparatory to passing the pleasant hours of evening in one another’s society. And in those moments of calmness and repose that precede slumber his thoughts, as usual, assumed a more sombre cast as the future and that dreaded examination rose before his mind.
Close at hand, on his right, were his two chosen comrades, Le Marec, quartermaster, and Joal, captain of the mizzen-top, both hailing from the Côtes-du-Nord, surrounded at that moment by a group of young _pays_—or men from their own district—who were listening reverentially to their conversation.
On his left was a little congregation of Basques, a race apart, who every now and then would break out and chatter in an unintelligible jargon, older than the hills.
A little further away another group was singing in chorus a lively air in couplets, in which the refrain: “Old Neptune, Monarch of the Sea,” came in every minute or so in a light, catchy way.
Among the Bretons a blood-curdling, marrow-freezing story of mystery and darkness was going on, the confused beginning of which Jean had failed to catch. The yarn was of a suspicious-looking brig, derelict and abandoned by her crew, that had been encountered in the English Channel in the twilight at the close of a dim winter’s day; a ghostly wanderer on the water that no one dared board for fear of encountering dead men on her.