A little before sunset
the ship was signaled as in sight; and then Pere Bonan and his
wife, followed by Gabriel and Perrine, set forth over the heath
to the beach. With the solitary exception of Francois Sarzeau,
the whole population of the neighborhood was already assembled
there, Gabriel's brother and sisters being among the number.
It was the calmest evening that had been known for months. There
was not a cloud in the lustrous sky--not a ripple on the still
surface of the sea. The smallest children were suffered by their
mothers to stray down on the beach as they pleased; for the waves
of the great ocean slept as tenderly and noiselessly on their
sandy bed as if they had been changed into the waters of an
inland lake. Slow, almost imperceptible, was the approach of the
ship--there was hardly a breath of wind to carry her on--she was
just drifting gently with the landward set of the tide at that
hour, while her sails hung idly against the masts. Long after the
sun had gone down, the congregation still waited and watched on
the beach. The moon and stars were arrayed in their glory of the
night before the ship dropped anchor. Then the muffled tolling of
a bell came solemnly across the quiet waters; and then, from
every creek along the shore, as far as the eye could reach, the
black forms of the fishermen's boats shot out swift and stealthy
into the shining sea.
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