ort; fish was scarce, they
were complaining at the markets. So, Sunday evening, going to bed
under squalls of rain, Coqueville growled in a bad humor. It was the
everlasting story: orders kept coming in while the sea guarded its fish.
And all the village talked of the ship which they had seen passing in
the hurricane, and which must assuredly by that time be sleeping at the
bottom of the water. The next day, Monday, the sky was dark as ever. The
sea, still high, raged without being able to calm itself, although the
wind was blowing less strong. It fell completely, but the waves kept up
their furious motion. In spite of everything, the two boats went out in
the afternoon. Toward four o'clock, the "Zephir" came in again, having
caught nothing. While the sailors, Tupain and Brisemotte, anchored in
the little harbor, La Queue, exasperated, on the shore, shook his fist
at the ocean. And M. Mouchel was waiting! Margot was there, with the
half of Coqueville, watching the last surg-ings of the tempest, sharing
her father's rancor against the sea and the sky.

"But where is the 'Baleine'?" demanded some one.

"Out there beyond the point," said La Queue. "If that carcass comes back
whole to-day, it will be by a chance."

He was full of contempt. Then he informed them that it was good for the
Mahes to risk their skins in that way; when one is not worth a sou, one
may perish. As for him, he preferred to break his word to M. Mouchel.

In the meantime, Margot was examining the point of rocks behind which
the "Baleine" was hidden.

"Father," she asked at last, "have they caught something?"

"They?" he cried. "Nothing at all."

He calmed himself and added more gently, seeing the Emperor, who was
sneering at him:

"I do not know whether they have caught anything, but as they never do
catch anything--"

"Perhaps, to-day, all the same, they have taken something," said the
Emperor ill-naturedly. "Such things have been seen." La Queue was about
to reply angrily. But the Abbe Radiguet, who came up, calmed him. From
the porch of the church the abbe had happened to observe the "Baleine";
and the bark seemed to be giving chase to some big fish. This news
greatly interested Coqueville. In the groups reunited on the shore there
were Mahes and Floches, the former praying that the boat might come in
with a miraculous catch, the others making vows that it might come in
empty.

Margot, holding herself very straight, did not take her eyes