Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/282

254 "It is time to take in the gang-plank, for we're off, comrade!" the sailor said to Paridael.

The strident whistle alternated with the noise of the engine. Laurent tore himself away from the embraces of his friends and regained the dock.

As if there had not already been enough distress and horror, a lamentable incident came up at the last moment.

A tattered wretch, yellow and livid at the same time, his eyes haggard, his hair in disorder, under the dominion of a violent alcoholic excitation, was forcing toward the gangway of the boat a poor woman with a kindly face, but no less stricken, thin and illy-clad than himself, who was struggling, shrieking, resisting him with all her might, two wretched brats clinging to her knees. Without doubt the unfortunate mother did not intend to follow her drunkard husband to America, regarding as worse than the famine endured in her native land exile far away from all friends, from all familiar faces and things, in lands where nothing would console her for the disgrace and the debauchery of her husband.

Sickened by this scene, Laurent and several of the baes and comrades of the Nations quickly delivered the mother and children. While some led the poor woman, almost dead from exhaustion, to a nearby cafe, the others led the scamp toward The Gina and put him on board more quickly than he would have wished, throwing him across the gang-plank at the risk of plunging him into the water.

The drunkard, completely besotted, seemed to resign himself to this unlooked for divorce; besides, communication with shore had just been cut off. Without worrying further about his family, he came