Below, with the crew, the little moneymaster of St.Saviour's worked with an energy which had behind it some generations of hardy qualities; and all the time he refused to be downcast.

There was something in his nature or in his philosophy after all.

He had not much of a voice, but it was lusty and full of good feeling; and when cursing began, when a sailor even dared to curse his baptism--the crime of crimes to a Catholic mind--Jean Jacques began to sing a cheery song with which the habitants make vocal their labours or their playtimes: "A Saint-Malo, beau port de mer, Trois gros navir's sont arrives, Trois gros navir's sont arrives Charges d'avoin', charges de ble.
Charges d'avoin', charges de ble: Trois dam's s'en vont les marchander." And so on through many verses, with a heartiness that was a good antidote to melancholy, even though it was no specific for a shipwreck.
It played its part, however; and when Jean Jacques finished it, he plunged into that other outburst of the habitant's gay spirits, 'Bal chez Boule': "Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule, The vespers o'er, we'll away to that; With our hearts so light, and our feet so gay, We'll dance to the tune of 'The Cardinal's Hat' The better the deed, the better the day Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule!" And while Jean Jacques worked "like a little French pony," as they say in Canada of every man with the courage to do hard things in him, he did not stop to think that the scanty life-belts had all been taken, and that he was a very poor swimmer indeed: for, as a child, he had been subject to cramp, and so had made the Beau Cheval River less his friend than would have been useful now.
He realized it, however, soon after daybreak, when, within a few hundred yards of the shores of Gaspe, to which the good Basque captain had been slowly driving the Antoine all night, there came the cry, "All hands on deck!" and "Lower the boats!" for the Antoine's time had come, and within a hand-reach of shore almost she found the end of her rickety life.

Not more than three-fourths of the passengers and crew were got into the boats.

Jean Jacques was not one of these; but he saw Carmen Dolores and her father safely bestowed, though in different boats.