We could see nothing but the lights of the streets and the stars, the big twinkling, shining stars of the African heavens.
A boat was waiting in a corner of the harbour. As soon as we got in, a man whose face I could not distinguish began to row, while my friend got the brazier ready for lighting. He said to me: “You know, I do the spearing. No one is better at it.”
“My congratulations.”
We had rounded a kind of mole and were, now, in a little bay full of high rocks whose shadows looked like towers built in the water, and I suddenly realized that the sea was phosphorescent. The oars which beat it gently and rhythmically kindled, as they fell, a weird, moving flame that followed in our wake and then died out. Bending over, I watched the flow of pale light scattered by the oars the indescribable fire of the sea, that chilly fire kindled by a movement, that dies as soon as the waters return to rest. The three of us glided over the stream of light through the darkness.
Where were we going? I could not see my companions, I could see nothing but the luminous ripple and the sparks of water thrown up by the oars. The heat was intense. The darkness seemed as if it had been heated in an oven, and I felt uneasy in my mind about this mysterious voyage with the two men in the silently moving boat.
Dogs—those thin Arabian dogs with red coats, pointed muzzles and bright eyes—were barking in the distance as they bark every night in every quarter of the world, from the shore of the sea to the depth of the desert where wandering tribes pitch their tents. Foxes, jackals, hyenas, answered back; and doubtless, not very far away, a solitary lion was growling in some pass of the Atlas mountains.
Suddenly the boatman stopped. Where could we be? I heard a faint scratching noise close to me and by the light of a match I saw a hand—only a hand—carrying the fragile light towards the iron grating piled up with wood like a floating funeral pyre that hung from the bow.
I gazed, full of surprise, at this novel, disquieting scene, and excitedly watched the slender flame reach out towards a handful of dried heather that began to crackle.
Then in the stillness of the night a sheet of flame shot up, illuminating under the dark pall that hung over us, the boat and two men—an old, thin, pale, wrinkled sailor with knotted kerchief on his head, and Trémoulin, whose fair beard shone in the sudden glare of light.
“Forward,” he shouted, and the old man began to row, surrounded by the blaze of fire, under the dome of mobile dusk that accompanied us. Trémoulin kept throwing wood on the brazier, now burning brightly.
I bent over the side again and saw the bottom of the sea. A few feet below the boat that strange kingdom of the waters unfolded itself—waters which like the air above give life to beast and plant. The brazier cast its brilliant light as far as the rocks and we glided over amazing forests of red, pink, green and yellow weeds. Between them and us there lay a crystal-clear medium that made them look fairy-like, turning them into a dream—a dream springing from the depths of the ocean. This clear, limpid water that one knew was there without seeing it, caused a strange feeling of unreality to come between us and this weird vegetation, making it as mysterious as the land of dreams.
At times the weeds came up to the surface, like floating hair, hardly stirred by the slow passage of the boat.
Among the seaweed thin silver fish darted about, visible for a second, then lost to sight. Others, still asleep, floated about in the watery undergrowth, gleaming, graceful, and impossible to catch. A crab would run off to hide itself in a hole, or a bluish, transparent jellyfish, hardly visible—a pale azure-coloured flower, a real flower of the sea—allowed its liquid mass to be dragged along in the slight ripple made by the boat. Then, suddenly, the ground at the bottom disappeared under a fog of thickened glass, and I saw huge rocks and gloomy-coloured seaweed vaguely, illuminated by the light from the brazier.
Trémoulin, who was standing in the bows with his body bent forward, holding the sharp pointed trident called a spearing-hook in his hands, closely watched ricks, weeds, and water, with the intensity of a beast in pursuit of its prey. Suddenly, with a quick, gentle movement, he darted the forked head of his weapon into the sea so swiftly that it speared a large fish swimming away from us.
I had seen nothing but Trémoulin’s sudden movement, but I heard him grunt with joy and as he raised his hook in the light of the brazier I saw a wriggling conger-eel, pierced by the iron teeth. After looking at it and showing it to me while he held it over the fire, my friend threw it into the bottom of the boat. The sea serpent, with its body pierced by seven wounds, slid and crawled about, and grazed my feet in its search for a hole to escape by; then, having found a pool of brackish water between the ribs of the boat, it crouched there almost dead, twisting itself round and round.
Every minute Trémoulin was gathering up, with remarkable skill and amazing rapidity, all the strange inhabitants of the salt waters. In turn I saw held over the fire, convulsed with agony, silver catfish, eels, spotted with blood, prickly scorpions, and dry, weird-looking fish that spat out into and turned the sea black.
I thought I heard the cry of birds in the night and raised my head in an attempt to see from whence came the sharp whistling sounds,
