er lips. You ask
her why, and she cannot tell. She know that something will happen. A man
has great idee, a woman great sight. So my wife, she turn her face away
all sad from me then, and she was right--she was right!

"One day in the ocean we pass a ship--only two days out. The ship signal
us. I say to my wife: 'Ha, ha! now we can go back, maybe, to the good
Ste. Anne.' Well, the ships come close together, and the captain of the
other ship he have something importan' with ours. He ask if there will
be chance of pilot into the gulf, because it is the first time that he
visit Quebec. The captain swing round and call to me. I go up. I bring
my wife and my little Babette; and that was how we sail back to the
great gulf.

"When my wife step on board that ship I see her face get pale, and
something strange in her eyes. I ask her why; she do not know, but she
hug Babette close to her breast with a kind of fear. A long, low, black
ship, it could run through every sea. Soon the captain come to me and
say: 'You know the coast, the north coast of the gulf, from Labrador to
Quebec?' I tell him yes. 'Well,' he say, 'do you know of a bay where few
ships enter safe?' I think a moment and I tell him of Belle Amour. Then
he say, ver' quick: 'That is the place; we will go to the bay of Belle
Amour.' He was ver' kind to my face; he give my wife and child
good berth, plenty to eat and drink, and once more I laugh; but my
wife--there was in her face something I not understan'. It is not easy
to understan' a woman. We got to the bay. I had pride: I was young. I
was the best pilot in the St. Lawrence, and I took in the ship between
the reefs of the bay, where they run like a gridiron, and I laugh when I
swing the ship all ver' quick to the right, after we pass the reefs, and
make a curve round--something. The captain pull me up and ask why. But
I never tell him that. I not know why I never tell him. But the good God
put the thought into my head, and I keep it to this hour, and it never
leave me, never--never!"

He slowly rubbed his hands up and down his knees, took another sip of
rum, and went on:

"I brought the ship close up to the shore, and we go to anchor. All that
night I see the light of a fire on the shore. So I slide down and swim
to the shore. Under a little arch of rocks something was going on.
I could not tell, but I know from the sound that they are to bury
something. Then, all at once, it come to me--this is a pirate ship!