after the departure of the boat-that he went home with a sad and heavy
heart.

The adventurous navigators had taken the course from Toulon to Bastia,
and at first it seemed to the king that the sailors' predictions were
belied; the wind, instead of getting up, fell little by little, and two
hours after the departure the boat was rocking without moving forward or
backward on the waves, which were sinking from moment to moment. Murat
sadly watched the phosphorescent furrow trailing behind the little boat:
he had nerved himself to face a storm, but not a dead calm, and without
even interrogating his companions, of whose uneasiness he took no
account, he lay down in the boat, wrapped in his cloak, closing his eyes
as if he were asleep, and following the flow of his thoughts, which were
far more tumultuous than that of the waters. Soon the two sailors,
thinking him asleep, joined the pilot, and sitting down beside the helm,
they began to consult together.

"You were wrong, Langlade," said Donadieu, "in choosing a craft like
this, which is either too small or else too big; in an open boat we can
never weather a storm, and without oars we can never make any way in a
calm."

"'Fore God! I had no choice. I was obliged to take what I could get,
and if it had not been the season for tunny-fishing I might not even have
got this wretched pinnace, or rather I should have had to go into the
harbour to find it, and they keep such a sharp lookout that I might well
have gone in without coming out again."

"At least it is seaworthy," said Blancard.