Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/479

Rh As their ship went to sea, we knew eyes would turn, as do the eyes of all who leave and approach St. Pierre, toward the niche in the cliff where the Virgin of the Waves stands serenely above the coast road to Cap à l'Aigle. It was among the crags of this point of land that there appeared to Chateaubriand the sailor-girl to whom he refers in d'Outre Tombe as his "Cap à l'Aigle sweetheart."

We sauntered the road to the Eagle's Cape; we drove behind one of the island's few horses to the hamlet of Savoyard, where the odour of curing cod betrays the vocation of its inhabitants; we climbed and descended steeps to the shelter where the Anglo-American cable rises out of the sea; we visited the cable quarters where messages are relayed from New York and Duxbury to Heart's Content on the Newfoundland coast, and thence to England.

One evening, above the toot and boom of the village band practising Sambre et Meuse for an approaching holiday, came the wailing alarm of the fire trumpet. In a moment, the road below our hinged windows was alive with running feet. "Feu! Feu!" the women cried, while husbands lent a hand with the water-cart and little boys raced up and down to point the way. An empty house had caught fire. The blaze was soon drowned. The town was apprised of the fact by the ringing of the church bell, and the desisting of the horn. But long after bed hour excited voices