infinitude play about their paltry ark of planks, and their eyes were as
used to it as those of the great free ocean-birds.

The boat rolled gently with its everlasting wail, as monotonous as a
Breton song moaned by a sleeper. Yann and Sylvestre had got their bait
and lines ready, while their mate opened a barrel of salt, and whetting
his long knife went and sat behind them, waiting.

He did not have long to wait, or they either. They scarcely had thrown
their lines into the calm, cold water in fact, before they drew in huge
heavy fish, of a steel-grey sheen. And time after time the codfish let
themselves be hooked in a rapid and unceasing silent series. The third
man ripped them open with his long knife, spread them flat, salted
and counted them, and piled up the lot--which upon their return would
constitute their fortune--behind them, all still redly streaming and
still sweet and fresh.

The hours passed monotonously, while in the immeasurably empty regions
beyond the light slowly changed till it grew less unreal. What at first
had appeared a livid gloaming, like a northern summer's eve, became
now, without any intervening "dark hour before dawn," something like
a smiling morn, reflected by all the facets of the oceans in fading,
roseate-edged streaks.

"You really ought to marry, Yann," said Sylvestre, suddenly and very
seriously this time, still looking into the water. (He seemed to know
somebody in Brittany, who had allowed herself to be captivated by
the brown eyes of his "big brother," but he felt shy upon so solemn a
subject.)