Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/283

Rh near the rail, and the lookers-on saw him take a half-full bottle of gin from the pocket of his overcoat.

"See here," he stuttered, as he reeled about brandishing the bottle above his head, "here's all that I have left; the last money I had was drowned in this bottle … and I drink this in farewell to Belgium!…"

And putting the bottle to his lips, he emptied it at one gulp; then he threw it with all his force against the side of the dock, shattering it into splinters in the water. And with a vacant laugh, he yelled:

"Evviva America!"

However, the sailors drew in and rolled up the hawsers unloosed from the dock, the screws commenced to churn the water; on his bridge the captain was hurling repeated orders to aft and stern, and talking through a tube with the men in the engine room; and beneath the touch of the helmsman, the boat turned slowly from the bank, and seething little waves licked the sides of The Gina.

At the shock of the start, the drunkard collapsed at the feet of his fellow-travellers.

Laurent turned his eyes toward more sympathetic people.

The Willeghem band waved its velvet flag, embroidered and tasselled with gold, and again took up the "Où peut-on être mieux," which both Borains and Campinois shouted in chorus.

Among the mass of ruddy or wan faces, Laurent ended by seeing only the Tilbak group. Until the last minute he had thought of taking passage, without telling them, on board The Gina, to share their destiny and face the unknown with them; only the fear of displeasing Vincent and Siska, of opening up a