The red and yellow light played full
on the weird face of the old man as he lay opposite to it, and
glanced fitfully on the figures of the young girl, Gabriel, and
the two children; the great, gloomy shadows rose and fell, and
grew and lessened in bulk about the walls like visions of
darkness, animated by a supernatural specter-life, while the
dense obscurity outside spreading before the curtainless window
seemed as a wall of solid darkness that had closed in forever
around the fisherman's house. The night scene within the cottage
was almost as wild and as dreary to look upon as the night scene
without.
For a long time the different persons in the room sat together
without speaking, even without looking at each other. At last the
girl turned and whispered something into Gabriel's ear:
"Perrine, what were you saying to Gabriel?" asked the child
opposite, seizing the first opportunity of breaking the desolate
silence--doubly desolate at her age--which was preserved by all
around her.
"I was telling him," answered Perrine, simply, "that it was time
to change the bandages on his arm; and I also said to him, what I
have often said before, that he must never play at that terrible
game of the _Soule_ again."
The old man had been looking intently at Perrine and his
grandchild as they spoke. His harsh, hollow voice mingled with
the last soft tones of the young girl, repeating over and over
again the same terrible words, "Drowned! drowned! Son and
grandson, both drowned! both drowned!"
"Hush, grandfather," said Gabriel, "we must not lose all hope for
them yet.
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