On this special morning, around the small plank platform occupied by
Yann and Sylvestre, the shifting outer world had an appearance of
deep meditation, as though this were an altar recently raised; and the
sheaves of sun-rays, which darted like arrows under the sacred arch,
spread in a long glimmering stream over the motionless waves, as over
a marble floor. Then, slowly and more slowly yet loomed still another
wonder; a high, majestic, pink profile--it was a promontory of gloomy
Iceland.

Yann's wedding with the sea? Sylvestre was still thinking of it--after
resuming his fishing without daring to say anything more. He had felt
quite sad when his big brother had so turned the holy sacrament of
marriage into ridicule; and it particularly had frightened him, as he
was superstitious.

For so long, too, he had mused on Yann's marriage! He had thought that
it might take place with Gaud Mevel, a blonde lass from Paimpol; and
that he would have the happiness of being present at the marriage-feast
before starting for the navy, that long five years' exile, with
its dubious return, the thought of which already plucked at his
heart-strings.

Four o'clock in the morning now. The watch below came up, all three, to
relieve the others. Still rather sleepy, drinking in chestfuls of the
fresh, chill air, they stepped up, drawing their long sea-boots higher,
and having to shut their eyes, dazzled at first by a light so pale, yet
in such abundance.

Yann and Sylvestre took their breakfast of biscuits, which they had to