THE ROVER
BY
JOSEPH CONRAD
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please
Spenser
THE RYERSON PRESS
TORONTO
1923{4}
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
To
G. JEAN AUBRY
IN FRIENDSHIP
THIS TALE OF THE LAST DAYS OF A
FRENCH BROTHER OF THE COAST
| Chapter I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI. |
THE ROVER
I
After entering at break of day the inner roadstead of the Port ofToulon, exchanging several loud hails with one of the guardboats of theFleet, which directed him where he was to take up his berth,Master-Gunner Peyrol let go the anchor of the sea-worn and battered shipin his charge, between the arsenal and the town, in full view of theprincipal quay. The course of his life, which in the opinion of anyordinary person might have been regarded as full of marvellous incidents(only he himself had never marvelled at them) had rendered himundemonstrative to such a degree, that he did not even let out a sigh ofrelief at the rumble of the chain. And yet it ended a most anxious sixmonths of knocking about at sea with valuable merchandize in a damagedhull, most of the time on short rations, always on the lookout forEnglish cruisers, once or twice on the verge of shipwreck and more thanonce on the verge of capture. But as to that, old Peyrol had made up hismind from the first to blow up his valuable charge—unemotionally, forsuch was his character, formed under the sun of the Indian seas inlawless contests with his kind for a little loot that vanished as soonas grasped, but mainly for bare life{8} almost as precarious to holdthrough its ups and downs, and which now had lasted for fifty-eightyears.
While his crew of half-starved scarecrows, hard as nails and ravenous asso many wolves for the delights of the shore, swarmed aloft to furl thesails nearly as thin and as patched as the grimy shirts on their backs,Peyrol took a survey of the quay. Groups were forming along its wholestretch to gaze at the new arrival. Peyrol noted particularly a goodmany men in red caps and said to himself: “Here