"You will soon have somewhere to keep him," said she, "we will get him
to-morrow. Come on. I want now to find the place where the fishing boats
put in. I saw it the last time I was here in Marseilles, years ago, but
I am not sure of the direction."

She asked a man who was passing and he pointed the way; it was a long
distance, but it seemed short, so full was her mind with the plan she
had formulated before leaving the hotel. She talked as she went. Talked
just as though they were on the Kerguelen beach hunting for a cave.

"We will find a place to put the parrot. I want a great big boat, not a
yacht. I've had enough of those. I want a good sea boat and the
fisher-boats I have seen here seemed to me good, and the men are the
right sort of men. I am going to buy one--or hire one--well, we shall
see. I want you to help to get it ready for us. How good the smell of
this place is," she paused to sniff the tar-sea scents brought by the
afternoon wind. It was like the smell of Freedom.

Then they came on to the fisher wharf and right into the arms of Captain
Jean Bontemps.

Captain Jean was about five feet in height and he seemed five feet in
thickness. He was propped against a bollard and he was in his
shore-going clothes. The girl's eye told her at once that here was a
useful man, a man of authority and knowledge. She approached him, and as
he took his pipe from his mouth and removed his cap, she opened her
business without parley or hesitation.

She wanted to buy or hire a fishing boat, price no object.

He did not understand her at first. He seemed suffering from some form
of deafness. Then when she repeated the statement he shewed no surprise.

He himself was a fishing boat owner, Captain Bontemps of the
_Arlesienne_, and he was quite willing to sell his boat, for a sum--two
thousand pounds he asked, and she did not know that he was speaking in
jest, just as one might speak to a child.

"If your boat suits me, I will pay what you ask," said she, "let me see
it."

Then it came upon Captain Jean that he was either talking to a lunatic
or some wealthy woman with a craze. His sails were taken aback and he
was left wallowing in a heavy ground sea of the mind with a smell of
spice islands tinging the air.

_La Belle Arlesienne_, his old boat, was not worth a thousand pounds.
Under the hammer heaven knows what she would have fetched, but she was
his wife, or the only female thing that stood in that relationship to