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Optimization Techniques for Solving Complex Problems
Wiley Series on Parallel and Distributed Computing 1st
Edition Enrique Alba Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Enrique Alba, Christian Blum, Pedro Asasi, Coromoto Leon, Juan
Antonio Gomez
ISBN(s): 9780470293324, 0470293322
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 11.42 MB
Year: 2009
Language: english
OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
FOR SOLVING COMPLEX
PROBLEMS
OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
FOR SOLVING COMPLEX
PROBLEMS

Edited by

Enrique Alba
University of Málaga

Christian Blum
Technical University of Catalonia

Pedro Isasi
University Carlos III of Madrid

Coromoto León
University of La Laguna

Juan Antonio Gómez

University of Extremadura

A JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC., PUBLICATION

Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Optimization techniques for solving complex problems / [edited by] Enrique Alba,
Christian Blum, Pedro Isasi, Coromoto León, Juan Antonio Gómez

Includes bibliographic references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-29332-4 (cloth)

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Enrique Alba, To my family

Christian Blum, To Marı́a and Marc

Pedro Isasi, To my family

Coromoto León, To Juana

Juan Antonio Gómez, To my family

 CONTENTS

CONTRIBUTORS xv
FOREWORD xix
PREFACE xxi

PART I METHODOLOGIES FOR COMPLEX PROBLEM

SOLVING 1

1 Generating Automatic Projections by Means of Genetic

Programming 3
C. Estébanez and R. Aler
1.1 Introduction 3
1.2 Background 4
1.3 Domains 6
1.4 Algorithmic Proposal 6
1.5 Experimental Analysis 9
1.6 Conclusions 11
References 13

2 Neural Lazy Local Learning 15

J. M. Valls, I. M. Galván, and P. Isasi
2.1 Introduction 15
2.2 Lazy Radial Basis Neural Networks 17
2.3 Experimental Analysis 22
2.4 Conclusions 28
References 30

3 Optimization Using Genetic Algorithms with Micropopulations 31

Y. Sáez
3.1 Introduction 31
3.2 Algorithmic Proposal 33
3.3 Experimental Analysis: The Rastrigin Function 40
3.4 Conclusions 44
References 45
vii
viii CONTENTS

4 Analyzing Parallel Cellular Genetic Algorithms 49

G. Luque, E. Alba, and B. Dorronsoro
4.1 Introduction 49
4.2 Cellular Genetic Algorithms 50
4.3 Parallel Models for cGAs 51
4.4 Brief Survey of Parallel cGAs 52
4.5 Experimental Analysis 55
4.6 Conclusions 59
References 59

5 Evaluating New Advanced Multiobjective Metaheuristics 63

A. J. Nebro, J. J. Durillo, F. Luna, and E. Alba
5.1 Introduction 63
5.2 Background 65
5.3 Description of the Metaheuristics 67
5.4 Experimental Methodology 69
5.5 Experimental Analysis 72
5.6 Conclusions 79
References 80

6 Canonical Metaheuristics for Dynamic Optimization Problems 83

G. Leguizamón, G. Ordóñez, S. Molina, and E. Alba
6.1 Introduction 83
6.2 Dynamic Optimization Problems 84
6.3 Canonical MHs for DOPs 88
6.4 Benchmarks 92
6.5 Metrics 93
6.6 Conclusions 95
References 96

7 Solving Constrained Optimization Problems with Hybrid

Evolutionary Algorithms 101
C. Cotta and A. J. Fernández
7.1 Introduction 101
7.2 Strategies for Solving CCOPs with HEAs 103
7.3 Study Cases 105
7.4 Conclusions 114
References 115

8 Optimization of Time Series Using Parallel, Adaptive,

and Neural Techniques 123
J. A. Gómez, M. D. Jaraiz, M. A. Vega, and J. M. Sánchez
8.1 Introduction 123
8.2 Time Series Identification 124
 CONTENTS ix

8.3 Optimization Problem 125

8.4 Algorithmic Proposal 130
8.5 Experimental Analysis 132
8.6 Conclusions 136
References 136

9 Using Reconfigurable Computing for the Optimization

of Cryptographic Algorithms 139
J. M. Granado, M. A. Vega, J. M. Sánchez, and J. A. Gómez
9.1 Introduction 139
9.2 Description of the Cryptographic Algorithms 140
9.3 Implementation Proposal 144
9.4 Expermental Analysis 153
9.5 Conclusions 154
References 155

10 Genetic Algorithms, Parallelism, and Reconfigurable Hardware 159

J. M. Sánchez, M. Rubio, M. A. Vega, and J. A. Gómez
10.1 Introduction 159
10.2 State of the Art 161
10.3 FPGA Problem Description and Solution 162
10.4 Algorithmic Proposal 169
10.5 Experimental Analysis 172
10.6 Conclusions 177
References 177

11 Divide and Conquer: Advanced Techniques 179

C. León, G. Miranda, and C. Rodrı́guez
11.1 Introduction 179
11.2 Algorithm of the Skeleton 180
11.3 Experimental Analysis 185
11.4 Conclusions 189
References 190

12 Tools for Tree Searches: Branch-and-Bound and A∗ Algorithms 193

C. León, G. Miranda, and C. Rodrı́guez
12.1 Introduction 193
12.2 Background 195
12.3 Algorithmic Skeleton for Tree Searches 196
12.4 Experimentation Methodology 199
12.5 Experimental Results 202
12.6 Conclusions 205
References 206
x CONTENTS

13 Tools for Tree Searches: Dynamic Programming 209

C. León, G. Miranda, and C. Rodrı́guez
13.1 Introduction 209
13.2 Top-Down Approach 210
13.3 Bottom-Up Approach 212
13.4 Automata Theory and Dynamic Programming 215
13.5 Parallel Algorithms 223
13.6 Dynamic Programming Heuristics 225
13.7 Conclusions 228
References 229

PART II APPLICATIONS 231

14 Automatic Search of Behavior Strategies in Auctions 233

D. Quintana and A. Mochón

14.1 Introduction 233

14.2 Evolutionary Techniques in Auctions 234
14.3 Theoretical Framework: The Ausubel Auction 238
14.4 Algorithmic Proposal 241
14.5 Experimental Analysis 243
14.6 Conclusions 246
References 247

15 Evolving Rules for Local Time Series Prediction 249

C. Luque, J. M. Valls, and P. Isasi

15.1 Introduction 249

15.2 Evolutionary Algorithms for Generating Prediction Rules 250
15.3 Experimental Methodology 250
15.4 Experiments 256
15.5 Conclusions 262
References 263

16 Metaheuristics in Bioinformatics: DNA Sequencing

and Reconstruction 265
C. Cotta, A. J. Fernández, J. E. Gallardo, G. Luque, and E. Alba

16.1 Introduction 265

16.2 Metaheuristics and Bioinformatics 266
16.3 DNA Fragment Assembly Problem 270
16.4 Shortest Common Supersequence Problem 278
16.5 Conclusions 282
References 283
 CONTENTS xi

17 Optimal Location of Antennas in Telecommunication Networks 287

G. Molina, F. Chicano, and E. Alba
17.1 Introduction 287
17.2 State of the Art 288
17.3 Radio Network Design Problem 292
17.4 Optimization Algorithms 294
17.5 Basic Problems 297
17.6 Advanced Problem 303
17.7 Conclusions 305
References 306
18 Optimization of Image-Processing Algorithms Using FPGAs 309
M. A. Vega, A. Gómez, J. A. Gómez, and J. M. Sánchez
18.1 Introduction 309
18.2 Background 310
18.3 Main Features of FPGA-Based Image Processing 311
18.4 Advanced Details 312
18.5 Experimental Analysis: Software Versus FPGA 321
18.6 Conclusions 322
References 323
19 Application of Cellular Automata Algorithms to the Parallel
Simulation of Laser Dynamics 325
J. L. Guisado, F. Jiménez-Morales, J. M. Guerra, and F. Fernández
19.1 Introduction 325
19.2 Background 326
19.3 Laser Dynamics Problem 328
19.4 Algorithmic Proposal 329
19.5 Experimental Analysis 331
19.6 Parallel Implementation of the Algorithm 336
19.7 Conclusions 344
References 344
20 Dense Stereo Disparity from an Artificial Life Standpoint 347
G. Olague, F. Fernández, C. B. Pérez, and E. Lutton
20.1 Introduction 347
20.2 Infection Algorithm with an Evolutionary Approach 351
20.3 Experimental Analysis 360
20.4 Conclusions 363
References 363
21 Exact, Metaheuristic, and Hybrid Approaches
to Multidimensional Knapsack Problems 365
J. E. Gallardo, C. Cotta, and A. J. Fernández
21.1 Introduction 365
xii CONTENTS

21.2 Multidimensional Knapsack Problem 370

21.3 Hybrid Models 372
21.4 Experimental Analysis 377
21.5 Conclusions 379
References 380
22 Greedy Seeding and Problem-Specific Operators for GAs
Solution of Strip Packing Problems 385
C. Salto, J. M. Molina, and E. Alba
22.1 Introduction 385
22.2 Background 386
22.3 Hybrid GA for the 2SPP 387
22.4 Genetic Operators for Solving the 2SPP 388
22.5 Initial Seeding 390
22.6 Implementation of the Algorithms 391
22.7 Experimental Analysis 392
22.8 Conclusions 403
References 404
23 Solving the KCT Problem: Large-Scale Neighborhood Search
and Solution Merging 407
C. Blum and M. J. Blesa
23.1 Introduction 407
23.2 Hybrid Algorithms for the KCT Problem 409
23.3 Experimental Analysis 415
23.4 Conclusions 416
References 419
24 Experimental Study of GA-Based Schedulers in Dynamic
Distributed Computing Environments 423
F. Xhafa and J. Carretero
24.1 Introduction 423
24.2 Related Work 425
24.3 Independent Job Scheduling Problem 426
24.4 Genetic Algorithms for Scheduling in Grid Systems 428
24.5 Grid Simulator 429
24.6 Interface for Using a GA-Based Scheduler
with the Grid Simulator 432
24.7 Experimental Analysis 433
24.8 Conclusions 438
References 439
25 Remote Optimization Service 443
J. Garcı́a-Nieto, F. Chicano, and E. Alba
25.1 Introduction 443
 CONTENTS xiii

25.2 Background and State of the Art 444

25.3 ROS Architecture 446
25.4 Information Exchange in ROS 448
25.5 XML in ROS 449
25.6 Wrappers 450
25.7 Evaluation of ROS 451
25.8 Conclusions 454
References 455
26 Remote Services for Advanced Problem Optimization 457
J. A. Gómez, M. A. Vega, J. M. Sánchez, J. L. Guisado,
D. Lombraña, and F. Fernández
26.1 Introduction 457
26.2 SIRVA 458
26.3 MOSET and TIDESI 462
26.4 ABACUS 465
References 470

INDEX 473
 CONTRIBUTORS

E. Alba, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Com-

putación, Málaga (Spain)
R. Aler, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Dpto. de Informática, Escuela
Politécnica Superior, Madrid (Spain)
M. J. Blesa, Universitat Politècnia de Catalunya, Dpto. de Llenguatges i Sis-
temes Informàtics, Barcelona (Spain)
C. Blum, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Dpto. de Llenguatges i Sistemes
Informàtics, Barcelona (Spain)
J. Carretero, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Dpto. dArquitectura de Com-
putadors, Barcelona (Spain)
F. Chicano, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Com-
putación, Málaga (Spain)
C. Cotta, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Com-
putación, Málaga (Spain)
B. Dorronsoro, Université de Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
J. J. Durillo, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. dé Lenguajes y Ciencias de la
Computación, Málaga (Spain)
C. Estébanez, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Dpto. de Informática, Escuela
Politécnica Superior, Madrid (Spain)
A. J. Fernández, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la
Computación, Málaga (Spain)
F. Fernández, Universidad de Extremadura, Dpto. de Tecnologı́as de Computa-
dores y Comunicaciones, Centro Universitario de Mérida, Mérida (Spain)
J. E. Gallardo, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la
Computación, Málaga (Spain)
I. M. Galván, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Dpto. de Informática, Escuela
Politécnica Superior, Madrid (Spain)
J. Garcı́a-Nieto, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la
Computación, Málaga (Spain)
xv
xvi CONTRIBUTORS

A. Gómez, Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tec-

nológicas (CIEMAT), Centro Extremeño de Tecnologı́as Avanzadas, Trujillo
(Spain)
J. A. Gómez, Universidad de Extremadura, Dpto. de Tecnologı́as de Computa-
dores y Comunicaciones, Escuela Politécnica, Cáceres (Spain)
J. M. Granado, Universidad de Extremadura, Dpto. de Ingenierı́a de Sistemas
Informáticos y Telemáticos, Escuela Politécnica, Cáceres (Spain)
J. M. Guerra, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Dpto. de Optica, Madrid
(Spain)
J. L. Guisado, Universidad de Sevilla, Dpto. de Arquitectura y Tecnologı́a de
Computadors, Sevilla (Spain)
P. Isasi, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Dpto. de Informática, Escuela
Politécnica Superior, Madrid (Spain)
M. D. Jaraiz, Universidad de Extremadura, Dpto. de Tecnologı́as de Computa-
dores y Comunicaciones, Escuela Politécnica, Cáceres (Spain)
F. Jiménez-Morales, Universidad de Sevilla, Dpto. de Fı́sica de la Materia Con-
densada, Sevilla (Spain)
G. Leguizamón, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, Laboratorio de Inves-
tigación y Desarrollo en Inteligencia Computacional (LIDIC), San Luis
(Argentina)
C. León, Universidad de La Laguna, Dpto. de Estadı́stica, I.O. y Computación,
La Laguna (Spain)
D. Lombraña, Universidad de Extremadura, Cátedra CETA-CIEMAT, Centro
Universitario de Mérida, Mérida (Spain)
F. Luna, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Com-
putación, Málaga (Spain)
C. Luque, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Dpto. de Informática, Escuela
Politécnica Superior, Madrid (Spain)
G. Luque, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Com-
putación, Málaga (Spain)
E. Lutton, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique
(INRIA), Orsay (France)
G. Miranda, Universidad de La Laguna, Dpto. de Estadı́stica, I.O. y Com-
putación, La Laguna (Spain)
G. Molina, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Com-
putación, Málaga (Spain)
J. M. Molina, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la
Computación, Málaga (Spain)
 CONTRIBUTORS xvii

S. Molina, Universided de Nacional San Luis, Laboratorio de Investigación y

Desarrollo en Inteligencia Computacional (LIDIC), San Luis (Argentina)
A. Mochón, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Dpto. de
Economı́a Aplicada e Historia Económica, Madrid (Spain)
A. J. Nebro, Universidad de Málaga, Dpto. de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Com-
putación, Málaga (Spain)
G. Olague, Centro de Investigación Cientifica y de Educación Superior de Ense-
nada (CICESE), Dpto. de Ciencias Informáticas, Ensenada (México)
G. Ordóñez, Universidad Nacional de San Luis, Laboratorio de Investigación y
Desarrollo en Inteligencia Computacional (LIDIC), San Luis (Argentina)
C. B. Pérez, Centro de Investigación Cientifica y de Educación Superior de
Ensenada (CICESE), Dpto. de Ciencias Informáticas, Ensenada (México)
D. Quintana, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Dpto. de Informática, Escuela
Politécnica Superior, Madrid (Spain)
C. Rodrı́guez, Universidad de La Laguna, Dpto. de Estadı́stica, I. O. y Com-
putación, La Laguna (Spain)
M. Rubio, Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tec-
nológicas (CIEMAT), Centro Extremeño de Tecnologı́as Avanzadas, Trujillo
(Spain)
Y. Sáez, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Dpto. de Informática, Escuela
Politécnica Superior, Madrid (Spain)
C. Salto, Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, Facultad de Ingenierı́a, General
Pico (Argentina)
J. M. Sánchez, Universidad de Extremadura, Dpto. de Tecnologı́as de Computa-
dores y Comunicaciones, Escuela Politécnica, Cáceres (Spain)
J. M. Valls, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Dpto. de Informática, Escuela
Politécnica Superior, Madrid (Spain)
M. A. Vega, Universidad de Extremadura, Dpto. de Tecnologı́as de Computa-
dores y Comunicaciones, Escuela Politécnica, Cáceres (Spain)
F. Xhafa, Universitat Politècnia de Catalunya, Dpto. de Llenguatges i Sistemes
Informàtics, Barcelona (Spain)
 FOREWORD

The topic of optimization, especially in the context of solving complex problems,

is of utmost importance to most practitioners who deal with a variety of opti-
mization tasks in real-world settings. These practitioners need a set of new tools
for extending existing algorithms and developing new algorithms to address a
variety of real-world problems. This book addresses these very issues.
The first part of the book covers many new ideas, algorithms, and techniques.
These include modern heuristic methods such as genetic programming, neural net-
works, genetic algorithms, and hybrid evolutionary algorithms, as well as classic
methods such as divide and conquer, branch and bound, dynamic programming,
and cryptographic algorithms. Many of these are extended by new paradigms
(e.g., new metaheuristics for multiobjective optimization, dynamic optimization)
and they address many important and practical issues (e.g., constrained optimiza-
tion, optimization of time series).
The second part of the book concentrates on various applications and indi-
cates the applicability of these new tools for solving complex real-world prob-
lems. These applications include DNA sequencing and reconstruction, location
of antennas in telecommunication networks, job scheduling, cutting and packing
problems, multidimensional knapsack problems, and image processing, to name
a few.
The third and final part of the book includes information on the possibility of
remote optimization through use of the Internet. This is definitely an interesting
option, as there is a growing need for such services.
I am sure that you will find this book useful and interesting, as it presents a
variety of available techniques and some areas of potential applications.

Zbigniew Michalewicz
University of Adelaide, Australia
February 2008

xix
 PREFACE

This book is the result of an ambitious project to bring together various visions
of many researchers in both fundamental and applied issues of computational
methods, with a main focus on optimization. The large number of such techniques
and their wide applicability make it worthwhile (although difficult) to present in
a single volume some core ideas leading to the creation of new algorithms and
their application to new real-world tasks.
In addition to researchers interested mainly in algorithmic aspects of
computational methods, there are many researchers whose daily work is rather
application-driven, with the requirement to apply existing techniques efficiently
but having neither the time, the resources, nor the interest in algorithmic
aspects. This book is intended to serve all of them, since these two points
of view are addressed in most of the chapters. Since the book has these two
parts (fundamentals and applications), readers may use chapters of either part
to enhance their understanding of modern applications and of optimization
techniques simultaneously.
Since this is an edited volume, we were able to profit from a large number
of researchers as well as from new research lines on related topics that have
begun recently; this is an important added value that an authored book would
probably not provide to such an extent. This can easily be understood by listing
the diverse domains considered: telecommunications, bioinformatics, economy,
cutting, packing, cryptography, hardware, laser industry, scheduling, and many
more.
We express our profound appreciation to all who have contributed a chapter
to this book, since any merit the work deserves must be credited to them. Also,
we thank the research groups that contributed to the book for their efforts and
for their help in making this project successful. We also appreciate the support
received from Wiley during the entire editing process, as well as the decisive
endorsement by Professor A. Zomaya that made this idea a reality. To all, thank
you very much.

Enrique Alba
Christian Blum
Pedro Isasi
Coromoto León
Juan Antonio Gómez
February 2008
xxi
 PART I

METHODOLOGIES FOR COMPLEX

PROBLEM SOLVING

1
 CHAPTER 1

Generating Automatic Projections

by Means of Genetic Programming
C. ESTÉBANEZ and R. ALER
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The aim of inductive machine learning (ML) is to generate models that can
make predictions from analysis of data sets. These data sets consist of a number
of instances or examples, each example described by a set of attributes. It is
known that the quality or relevance of the attributes of a data set is a key issue
when trying to obtain models with a satisfactory level of generalization. There
are many techniques of feature extraction, construction, and selection [1] that
try to improve the representation of data sets, thus increasing the prediction
capabilities of traditional ML algorithms. These techniques work by filtering
nonrelevant attributes or by recombining the original attributes into higher-quality
ones. Some of these techniques were created in an automatic way by means of
genetic programming (GP).
GP is an evolutionary technique for evolving symbolic programs [2]. Most
research has focused on evolving functional expressions, but the use of loops
and recursion has also been considered [3]. Evolving circuits are also among the
successes of GP [4]. In this work we present a method for attribute generation
based on GP called the GPPE (genetic programming projection engine). Our
aim is to evolve symbolic mathematical expressions that are able to transform
data sets by representing data on a new space, with a new set of attributes
created by GP. The goal of the transformation is to be able to obtain higher
accuracy in the target space than in the original space. The dimensions of the
new data space can be equal to, larger, or smaller than those of the original.
Thus, we also intend that GPPE be used as a dimension reduction technique as

Optimization Techniques for Solving Complex Problems, Edited by Enrique Alba, Christian Blum,
Pedro Isasi, Coromoto León, and Juan Antonio Gómez
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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slowly and earnestly. They were at the mouth of the inlet. As she
spoke, she luffed sharply and they entered it close-hauled.
"Yes," she repeated, speaking still more earnestly, "I am very glad of
that. It makes me feel much easier in my mind about what I am
going to do."
Her tone startled him. He looked up at her quickly and anxiously.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Drown you," she answered simply.
For an instant he did not take in the meaning of her words. Then his
face became very white, though he tried to smile. His voice shook as
he said: "I do not think that this is a good time for joking." The boat
was biting her way into the wind sharply, plunging and bucketing
through the partly spent waves which came in from outside.
"You know that I am not joking," Ulrica answered very quietly. "I am
going to drown you, and to drown myself too. I have thought it all
out, and this seems the best thing to do. It is the best for father,"
her voice trembled, "and it is the best," she went on again, firmly,
"for me. As for you, it does not matter whether it is the best for you
or not—it is what you deserve. For you are a liar and a traitor—a liar
and a traitor to me, and to that other woman too!" As she spoke
these last words her calmness left her, and there was the ring of
passionate anger in her tone. The fire that she had been
smothering, at last was in full blaze.
They were at the very mouth of the inlet. The white-capped surface
of the lake swelled and tossed before them. The boat was wallowing
heavily.
Maltham's paleness changed to a greenish-grey. He uttered a shrill
scream—a cry of weakly helpless terror. "Put about! For God's sake
put about!" he gasped. "We shall be drowned!"
For answer, she hauled the sheet a little and brought the boat still
closer into the wind—heading straight out into the lake. "I told you
once that the Nixie could sail into the wind's eye," she said, coolly.
"Now she is doing it. Does she not go well?"
At that, being desperate, he rallied a little. Springing to his feet, but
standing unsteadily, he grasped the tiller and tried to shift the helm.
Ulrica, standing firmly, laid her hand flat against his breast and
thrust him away savagely—with such force that he reeled backward
and fell, striking against the combing and barely missing going over
the side.
"You fool!" she exclaimed. "Do you not see that it is too late?" She
did not trouble herself to look at him. Her gaze was fixed in a keen
ecstasy on the great oncoming waves.
What she said was true—it was too late. They were fairly out on the
open lake, and all possibility of return was gone. To try to go about
would be to throw the Nixie into the trough of the sea—and so send
her rolling over like a log. At the best, the little boat could live in that
surge and welter for only a very few minutes more.
Maltham did not attempt to rise. His fall had hurt him, and what little
was left of his spirit was cowed. He lay in a miserable heap, uttering
little whimpering moans. The complaining noise that he made
annoyed her. For the last time she looked at him, burning him for an
instant with her glowing eyes. "Silence, you coward!" she cried,
fiercely—and at her strong command he was still. Then her look was
fixed on the great oncoming waves again, and she cast him out from
her mind.
Even in her rage—partly because of it—Ulrica felt in every drop of
her Norse blood the glow and the thrill of this glorious battle with
great waters. The sheer delight of it was worth dying for—and so
richly worth living through to the very last tingling instant that she
steered with a strong and a steady hand. And again—as she stood
firmly on the tossing boat, her draperies blown close about her, her
loosened hair streaming out in golden splendour—she was Aslauga's
very self. Sorrow and life together were ending well for her—in high
emotion that filled and satisfied her soul. Magnificent, commanding,
defiant, she sailed on in joyful triumph: glad and eager to give
herself strongly to the strong death-clasp of the waves.
 The Death-Fires of Les Martigues

"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep
desire!"
That is one of our old sayings here in Provence. I used to laugh at it
when I was young. I do not laugh at it now. When those words
come into my heart, and they come often, I go by the rough hard
way that leads upward to Notre Dame de la Garde until I come to
the Crime Cross—it is a wearying toil for me to get up that steep hill-
side, I am so stiff and old now—and there I cast fresh stones upon
the heap at the foot of the cross. Each stone cast there, you know,
is a prayer for forgiveness for some hidden crime: not a light fault,
but a crime. The stones must be little stones, yet the heap is very
wide and high—though every winter, when the great mistrals are
blowing across the Étang de Berre, the little stones are whirled away
down the hill-side. I do not know how this custom began, nor when;
but it is a very old custom with us here in Les Martigues.
Once in every year I go up to the Crime Cross by night. This is on All
Souls Eve. First I light the lamp over Magali's breast where she lies
sleeping in the graveyard: going to the graveyard at dusk, as the
others do, in the long procession that creeps up thither from the
three parts of our town—from Jonquières, and the Isle, and Ferrières
—to light the death-fires over the dear dead ones' graves. I go with
the very first, as soon as the sun is down. I like to be alone with
Magali while I light the little lamp that will be a guide for her soul
through that night when souls are free; that will keep it safe from
the devils who are free that night too. I do not like the low buzzing
of voices which comes later, when the crowd is there, nor the broken
cries and sobs. And when her lamp is lit, and I have lit my mother's
lamp, I hurry away from the graveyard and the moaning people—
threading my steps among the graves on which the lights are
beginning to glimmer, and through the oncoming crowd, and then by
the lonely path through the olive-orchards, and so up the stony
height until I come at last to the Crime Cross—panting, aching—and
my watch begins.
MARIUS
Up on that high hill-side, open to the west, a little of the dying
daylight lingers. Eastward, like a big black mirror, lies the great
étang; and far away across its still waters the mountain chain above
Berre and Rognac rises purple-grey against the darker sky. In the
west still are faint crimson blotches, or dashes of dull blood-red—
reflected again, and made brighter, in the Étang de Caronte: that
stretches away between the long downward slopes of the hills, on
which stone-pines stand out in black patches, until its gleaming
waters merge into the faint glow upon the waters of the
Mediterranean. Above me is the sanctuary of Notre Dame de la
Garde, a dark mass on the height above the olive-trees: of old a
refuge for sinful bodies, and still a refuge where sinful souls may
seek grace in prayer from their agony. And below me, on the slope
far downward, is the graveyard: where the death-fires multiply each
moment, as more and more lamps are lighted, until at last it is like a
little fallen heaven of tiny stars. Only in its midst is an island of
darkness where no lamps are. That is where the children lie
together: the blessed innocents who have died sinless, and who
wander not on All Souls Eve because when sweet death came to
them their pure spirits went straight home to God. And beyond the
graveyard, below it, is the black outspread of the town: its blackness
deepened by a bright window here and there, and by the few street
lamps, and by the bright reflections which shine up from the waters
of its canals.
Seeing all this—yet only half seeing it, for my heart is full of other
things—I sit there at the foot of the Crime Cross in the darkness,
prayerful, sorrowful, while the night wears on. Sometimes I hear
footsteps coming up the rocky path, and then the shadowy figure of
a man or of a woman breaks out from the gloom and suddenly is
close beside me—and I hear the rattle of little stones cast upon the
heap behind me, on the other side of the cross. Presently, the rite
ended, whoever it is fades back into the gloom again and passes
away. And I know that another sinful soul has been close beside my
sinful soul for a moment: seeking in penitent supplication, as I am
seeking, rest in forgiveness for an undiscovered crime. But I am sure
that none of them sees—as I see in the gloom there always—a
man's white face on which the moonlight is shining, and beyond that
white face the glint of moonlight on a raging sea; and I am sure that
on none of their blackened souls rests a burden as heavy as that
which rests on mine.
I am very weary of my burden, and old and broken too. It is my
comfort to know that I shall die soon. But, also, the thought of that
comfort troubles me. For I am a lone man, and childless. When I go,
none of Magali's race, none of my race, will be left alive here in Les
Martigues. Our death-fires will not be lighted. We shall wander in
darkness on All Souls Eve.

II

"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep
desire!"
My old mother, God rest her, said that to me when first she began to
see that my love was set on Magali—and saw, too, that I was
winning from Magali the love that belonged to Jan, who had her
promise.
"It is an old man's lifetime, mother," I said, "since a wolf has been
seen near Les Martigues." And I laughed and kissed her.
"Worse than a wolf is a heart that covets what it may not have,
Marius," she answered. "Magali is as good as Jan's wife, and you
know it. For a year she has been promised to him. She is my dead
sister's child, and she is in my care—and in your care too, because
you and she and I are all that is left of us, and you are the head of
our house, the man. You are doing wickedness in trying to take her
away from Jan—and Jan your own close friend, who saved your life
out of the sea. The match is a good match for Magali, and she was
contented with it until you—living here close beside her in your own
house—began to steal away her heart from him. It is rascal work,
Marius, that you are doing. You are playing false as a house-father
and false as a friend—and God help me that I must speak such
words to my own son! That is why I say, and I say it solemnly, 'God
keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!' That
desire has no right to be in your heart, Marius. Drag it out of your
heart and cast it away!"
But I only laughed and kissed her again, and told her that I would
take good care of myself if a she-wolf tried to eat me—and so I went
away, still laughing, to my fishing in the Gulf of Fos.
But I did not laugh when I was alone in my boat, slipping down the
Étang de Caronte seaward. What she had said had made me see
things clearly which until then had been half hid in a haze. We had
slipped into our love for each other, Magali and I, softly and easily—
just as my boat was slipping down the étang. Every day of our lives
we were together, in the close way that housemates are together in
a little house of four rooms. Before I got up in the morning I could
hear her moving near me, only a thin wall between us; and her
movements, again, were the last sounds that I heard at night. She
waited on me at my meals. She helped my mother to mend my
clothes—the very patches on my coat would bring to my mind the
sight of her as she sat sewing at night beside the lamp. We were as
close together as a brother and a sister could be; and in my dulness
I had fancied for a long while that what I had felt for her was only
what a brother would feel.
What first opened my eyes a little was the way that I felt about it
when she gave her promise to Jan. For all our lives Jan and I had
been close friends: and most close since that day when the squall
struck our boats, as we lay near together, and I went overboard, and
Jan—letting his own boat take its chances—came overboard after
me because he knew that I could not swim. It was by a hair's-
breadth only that we were not drowned together. After we were safe
I told him that my life was his. And I meant it, then. Until Magali
came between us I would have died for him with a right good will.
After that I was ready enough that he should do the dying—and so
be gone out of my way.
When he got Magali's promise, I say, my ugly feeling against him
began. But it was not very strong at first, and I was not clear about
it in my own mind. All that I felt was that, somehow, he had got
between me and the sun. For one thing, I did not want to be clear
about it. Down in the roots of me I knew that I had no right to that
sunshine, and that Jan had—and I could not help thinking about
how he had come overboard after me and had held me up there in
the tumbling sea, and how I had told him that my life was his. But
with this went a little thin thought, stirring now and then in the
bottom of my mind though I would not own to it, that in giving him
my life—which still was his if he wanted it—I had not given him the
right to spoil my life for me while leaving me still alive. And I did my
best not to think one way or the other, and was glad that it all was a
blur and a haze.
And all the while I was living close beside Magali in that little house,
with the sound of her steps always near me and the sound of her
voice always in my ears. She had a very sweet voice, with a
freshness and a brightness in it that seemed to me like the
brightness of her eyes—and Magali's great black eyes were the
brightest eyes that ever I saw. Even in Arles, where all the women
are beautiful, there would be a buzz among the people lining Les
Lices when Magali walked there of a feast-day, wearing the beautiful
dress that our women wear here in Provence. To look at her made
you think of an Easter morning sun.

III

"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep
desire!"
My mother's words kept on ringing in my ears after I had left her.
Suddenly the haze was gone and I saw clearly—and I knew that my
heart's deep desire was to have Magali for my very own. And with
that sudden coming of clear sight I knew, too, that I could have her.
Out of the past came a crowd of memories which proved it to me. In
my dull way, I say, I had fancied that I loved Magali as a sister, and I
had tried to keep that fancy always by me in my haze. But with the
haze gone—swept away by my mother's words as the mistral
sweeps away our Mediterranean fogs—I knew that Magali never had
been the fool that I had been.
I remembered her looks and her ways with me from the very day
when she came to us, when she was just turned of sixteen: how she
used sometimes to lay her hand lightly on my shoulder, how she
would bend over to look at the net that I was mending until her hair
brushed against my cheek or my forehead, how she always was
bringing things to show me that I could not see rightly unless she
stood very close at my side, and most of all how a dozen times a day
she would be flashing at me her great black eyes. And I
remembered how moody and how strange in her ways she was just
before Jan got his promise from her; and how, when she told me
that her promise was given, she gave me a look like none that ever I
had from her, and said slowly: "The fisherman who will not catch any
fish at all because he cannot catch the fish he wants most—is a fool,
Marius!"
Yet even then I did not understand; though, as I say, my eyes were
opened a little and I had the feeling that Jan had got between me
and the sun. That feeling grew stronger because of the way that she
treated him and treated me. Jan was for hurrying the marriage, but
she kept him dangling and always was putting him off. As for me, I
got all sides of her moods and tempers. Sometimes she scarcely
would speak to me. Sometimes she would give me looks from those
big black eyes of hers that thrilled me through! Sometimes she
would hang about me in a patient sad way that made me think of a
dog begging for food. And the colour so went out of her face that
her big black eyes looked bigger and blacker still.
Then it was that I began to find in the haze that was about me a
refuge—because I did not want to see clear. I let my thoughts go
out to Magali, and stopped them before they got to Jan. It would be
time enough, I reasoned—though I did not really reason it: I only
felt it—to think about him when I had to. For the passing hours it
was enough to have the sweetness of being near Magali—and that
grew to be a greater sweetness with every fresh new day. Presently
I noticed that her colour had come back again; and it seemed to me
—though that may have been only because of my new love of her—
that she had a new beauty, tender and strange. Certainly there was
a new brightness, a curiously glowing brightness, in her eyes.
For Jan, things went hardly in those days. Having her promise, he
had rights in her—as we say in Provence. But he did not get many of
his rights. Half the time when he claimed her for walks on the hill-
sides among the olive-orchards, she would not go with him—
because she had her work to do at home, she said. And there was I,
where her work was, at home! For a while Jan did not see beyond
the end of his nose about it. I do not think that ever it crossed his
mind to think of me in the matter—not, that is, until some one with
better eyes than his eyes helped him to see. For he knew that I was
his friend, and I suppose that he remembered what I had told him
about my life being his. And even when his eyes were helped, he
would not at first fully believe what he must plainly have seen. But
he soon believed enough to make him change his manner toward
me, and to make him watch sharp for something that would give
him the right to speak words to me which would bring matters to a
fair settlement by blows. And I was ready, as I have said—though I
would not fairly own it to myself—to come to blows with him. For I
wanted him dead, and out of my way.
And so my mother's words, which had made me at last see clearly,
stayed by me as I went sailing in my boat softly seaward down the
étang. And they struck deeper into me because Jan's boat was just
ahead of mine; and the sight of him, and the thought of how he had
saved my life only to cross it, made me long to run him down and
drown him, and so be quit of him for good and all. I made up my
mind then that, whether I killed him or left him living, it would be I
who should have Magali and not he.

IV

"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep
desire!"
My mother said that again to me when I came home that night from
my fishing; and she said it to me often as the days went on. She
saw the change that had come to me, and she knew what was in my
soul. It is not wonderful, when you stop to think about it, that a
man's mother should know what is in his soul: for the body in which
that soul is, the living home of it, is a part of her own. And she grew
sad and weary-looking when she found that her words had no hold
on me, and there came into her eyes the sorrowful look that comes
into the eyes of old people who are soon to die.
But Magali's eyes were the only eyes that I cared for then, and they
seemed to me to grow brighter and brighter every day. When she
and I walked in the olive-orchards together in the starlight the glow
of them outshone the star-glow. It seemed to light up my heart.
I do not think that we talked much in those walks. I do not seem to
remember our talking. But we understood each other, and we were
agreed about what we were to do. I was old enough to marry as I
pleased, but Magali was not—she could not marry without my
mother's word. We meant to force that word. Some day we would
go off in my boat together—over to Les Saintes Maries, perhaps; or
perhaps to Marseille. It did not matter where we went. When we
came back again, at the end of two or three days, my mother no
longer could deny us—she would have to give in. And no one would
think the worse of Magali: for that is our common way of settling a
tangled love-matter here in Provence.
But I did not take account of Jan in my plans, and that was where I
made a mistake. Jan had just as strong a will as I had, and every bit
of his will was set upon keeping Magali for himself. I wanted her to
break with him entirely, but that she would not do. She was a true
Provençale—and I never yet knew one of our women who would rest
satisfied with one lover when she could have two. If she can get
more than two, that is better still. While I hung back from her,
Magali was more than ready to come to me; but when she found me
eager after her, and knew that she had a grip on me, she danced
away.
And so, before long, Jan again had his walks with her in the olive-
orchards by starlight just as I did, and likely enough her eyes glowed
for him just as they did for me. When they were off that way
together I would get into a wild-beast rage over it. Sometimes I
would follow them, fingering my knife. I suppose that he felt like
that when the turn was mine. Anyhow, the love-making chances
which she gave him—even though in my heart I still was sure of her
—kept me always watching him; and I could see that he always was
watching me. Very likely he felt sure of her too, and that was his
reason—just as it was my reason—for not bringing our matter to a
fighting end. I was ready enough to kill him, God knows. Unless his
eyes lied when he looked at me, he was ready to kill me.
And in that way the summer slipped past and the autumn came, and
neither of us gained anything. I was getting into a black rage over it
all. Down inside of me was a feeling like fire in my stomach that
made me not want to eat, and that made what I did eat go wrong.
My poor mother had given up trying to talk to me. She saw that she
could not change my way—and, too, I suppose that she pretty well
understood it all: for she had lived her life, and she knew the ways
of our men and of our women when love stings them here in
Provence. Only, her sadness grew upon her with her hopelessness.
What I remember most clearly as I think of her in those last days is
her pale old face and the dying look in her sorrowful eyes.
But seeing her in that way grief-struck only made my black rage
blacker and the fire in my stomach burn hotter. I had the feeling that
there was a devil down there who all the time was getting bigger
and stronger: and that before long he and I would take matters in
hand together and settle them for good and all. As for keeping on
with things as they were, it was not to be thought of. Better than
much more of such a hell-life would be ending everything by killing
Jan.
What made me hang back from that was the certainty that if I did
kill him—even in a fair fight, with his chance as good as mine—I
would lose Magali beyond all hope: for the gendarmes would have
me away in a whiff to jail—and then off would go my head, or, what
would be just as bad, off I would go head and all to Cayenne. It was
no comfort to me to know that Magali would almost cry her eyes out
over losing me. Of course she would do that, being a Provençale.
But before her eyes were quite out she would stop crying; and then
in a moment she would be laughing again; and in another moment
she would be freshly in love once more—with some man who was
not murdered and who was not gone for his lifetime over seas. And
all that, also, would be because she was a Provençale.

All the devils are let loose on earth on All Souls Eve—that is a fact
known to everybody here in Provence. But whether it was one of
those loosed devils, or the devil that had grown big in my own
inside, that made me do what I did I do not know. What I do know,
certainly, is that about dusk on All Saints Day the thought of how I
could force things to be as I wanted them to be came into my heart.
My thought was not a new thought, exactly. It was only that I would
do what we had planned to do to make my mother give in to us: get
Magali into my boat and carry her off with me for a day or two to
Les Saintes. But it came to me with the new meaning that in that
way I could make Magali give in to me too. When we came back she
would be ready enough to marry me, and my mother would be for
hurrying our marrying along. It all was as plain and as sure as
anything could be. And, as I have said, nobody would think the
worse of Magali afterward; because that way of cutting through such
difficulties is a common way with us in Provence.
And All Souls Eve was the time of all times for doing it. The whole
town is in commotion then. In the churches, when the Vespers of All
Saints are finished, the Vespers of the Dead are said. Then, just
after sunset, the streets are crowded with our people hurrying to the
graveyard with their lanterns for the graves. Nothing is thought
about but the death-fires. From all the church towers—in Jonquières,
in the Isle, in Ferrières—comes the sad dull tolling of bells. After
that, for an hour or more, the town is almost deserted. Only the very
old, and the very young, and the sick with their watchers, and the
bell-ringers in the towers, are left there. Everybody else is in the
graveyard, high up on the hill-side: first busied in setting the lights
and in weeping over dead loved ones; and then, when the duty to
the dead ones is done with, in walking about through the graveyard
to see the show. In Provence we take a great interest in every sort
of show.
Magali and I had no death-fires to kindle, for in the graveyard were
no dead of ours. Our people were of Les Saintes Maries, and there
their graves were—and my father, who was drowned at his fishing,
had no grave at all. But we went always to the graveyard on All
Souls Eve, and most times together, that we might see the show
with the others and enjoy the bustle of the crowd. And so there was
nothing out of the common when I asked her to come with me; and
off we started together—leaving my old mother weeping at home for
my dead father, who could have no death-fire lit for him because his
bones were lying lost to us far away in the depths of the sea.
Our house was in the eastern quarter of the town, in Jonquières. To
reach the graveyard we had to cross the Isle, and go through
Ferrières, and then up the hill-side beyond. But I did not mean that
we should do that; and when we had crossed the Canal du Roi I said
to Magali that we would turn, before we went onward, and walk
down past the Fish-market to the end of the Isle—that from there
we might see the lights glowing in the dusk on the slope rising
above us black against the western sky. We had done that before—it
is a pretty sight to see all those far-off glittering points of light
above, and then to see their glittering reflections near by in the
water below—and she willingly came with me.
But I had more in view. Down at the end of the Isle, along with the
other boats moored at the wharf there to be near the Fish-market,
my boat was lying; and when we were come close to her I said
suddenly, as though the thought had entered my head that minute,
that we would go aboard of her and run out a little way—and so see
the death-fires more clearly because they would be less hidden by
the shoulder of the hill. I did not have to speak twice. Magali was
aboard of the boat on the instant, and was clapping her hands at the
notion—for she had, as all our women have, a great pleasure in
following any sudden fancy which promises something amusing and
also a little strange. And I was quick after her, and had the lines cast
off and began to get up the sail.
"Oh," she said, "won't the oars do? Need we bother with the sail for
such a little way?"
But I did not answer her, and went on with what I was doing, while
the boat drifted quickly out from land before the gusts of wind which
struck us harder and harder as we cleared the point of the Isle. Until
then I had not thought about the weather—my mind had been full of
the other and bigger thought. The gusts of wind waked me up a
little, and as I looked at the sky I began to have doubts that I could
do what I wanted to do; for it was plain that a gale was rising which
would make ticklish work for me even out on the Gulf of Fos—and
would make pretty near impossible my keeping on to Les Saintes
over the open sea. And I had about made up my mind that we must
go back, and that I must carry out my plan some other time, when
there came a hail to us from the shore.
"Where are you going?" called a voice—and as we turned our looks
shoreward there was Jan. He had been following us, I suppose—just
as I sometimes had followed him.
Before I could answer him, Magali spoke. "We are going out on the
water to see the death-fires, Jan," she said. "We are going only a
very little way."
Her words angered me. There was something in them that seemed
to show that he had the right to question her. That settled me in my
purpose. Storm or no storm, on I would go. And I brought the boat
up to the wind, so as to lay our course straight down the Étang de
Caronte, and called out to him: "We are going where you cannot
follow. Good-bye!"
And then a gust of wind heeled us over, and we went on suddenly
with a dash—as a horse goes when you spur him—and the water
boiled and hissed under our bows. In another half-minute we were
clear of the shelter of the point, and then the wind came down on us
off the hills in a rush so strong that I had to ease off the sheet
sharply—and I had a queer feeling about what was ahead of me out
on the Gulf of Fos.
"Marius! Marius! What are you doing?" Magali cried in a shiver of
fright: for she knew by that time that something was back of it all in
my mind. As she spoke I could see through the dusk that Jan was
running up the sail of his boat, and in a minute more would be after
us.
"I am doing what I ought to have done long ago," I said. "I am
taking you for my own. There is nothing to fear, dear Magali. You
shall not be in danger. I had meant to take you to Les Saintes. But a
gale is rising and we cannot get to Les Saintes to-night. We will run
across the Gulf of Fos and anchor in the Grau de Gloria. There is a
shepherd's hut near the Grau. I will make a fire in it and you can
sleep there comfortably, while I watch outside. After all, it makes no
difference where we go. I shall have carried you off—when we go
back you must be my wife."
She did not understand at first. She was too much frightened with
the suddenness of it all, and with the coming of Jan, and with the
boat flying on through the rushing of the wind. I looked back and
saw that Jan had got away after us. Dimly I could make out his sail
through the dusk that lay thick upon the water. Beyond it and above
it was a broad patch of brightness where all the death-fires were
burning together in the graveyard. We had come too far to see any
longer those many points of light singly. In a mass, they made
against the black hill-side a great bright glow.

VI

"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep
desire!"
My mother's words seemed to sound in my ears loudly, coming with
the rush of wind that eddied around me out of the sail's belly. They
gave me a queer start, as the thought came with them that here at
last my heart's deep desire would be mine presently—if only I could
snatch it and keep it from the she-wolf of the sea.
Magali was silent—half standing, half sitting, against the weather
side of the boat, close in front of me as I stood at the tiller with the
sheet in my hand. She had got over her fright. I could tell that by
the brightness of her eyes, and by the warm colour in her cheeks
that I had a glimpse of as we flashed past the break in the hills
where the Mas Labillon stands. And in that moment while the dusk
was thinned a little I could see, too, that she was breathing hard. I
know what our women are, and I know what she was feeling. Our
women like to be fought for, and any one of them gladly would have
been in Magali's place—with the two strongest and handsomest men
in Les Martigues in a fair way to come to a death-grip for her in the
whirl of a rising storm.
Back in the dusk, against the faint glow of the death-fires, I could
see the sail of Jan's boat dipping and swaying with the thrusts of the
wind-gusts as it came on after me. It had gained a little; and I knew
that it would gain more, for Jan's boat was a speedier boat than
mine on the wind. Close-hauled, I could walk away from him; but in
running down the Étang de Caronte I had no choice in my sailing.
Out on the Gulf of Fos, if I dared take that chance, and if he dared
follow me, I could bear up to windward and so shake him off—
making for the Anse d'Auguette and taking shelter there. But even
my hot blood chilled a little at the thought of going out that night on
the Gulf of Fos. When we were down near the end of the étang—
close to the Salines, where it is widest—the wind that pelted down
on us from the hills was terribly strong. It was hard to stand against
even there, where the water was smooth. Outside, it would be still
stronger, and the water would be all in a boil. And at the end, to get
into the Anse d'Auguette, we should have to take the risk of a
roaring sea abeam.
But any risk was better than the risk of what might happen if Jan
overhauled me. Now that I fairly had Magali away from him, I did
not want to fight him. What might come in a fight in rough water—
where the winds and the waves would have to be reckoned with,
and with the most careful reckoning might play tricks on me—was
too uncertain; while if I could stand him off and get away from him,
so that even for one night I could keep Magali with me, the game
would be won. After that, if he wanted it, I would fight him as much
as he pleased.
The thought that I would win—in spite of Jan and in spite of the
storm, too—made all my blood tingle. More by habit than anything
else I sailed the boat: for my eyes were fixed on Magali's eyes,
shining there close to me, and my heart was full of her. We did not
speak, but once she turned and looked at me—bending forward a
little, so that her face was within a foot of mine. What she saw in my
eyes was so easy to read that she gave all at once a half-laugh and
a half-sob—and then turned away and peered through the blustering
darkness toward Jan's sail. Somehow, the way she did that made me
feel that she was holding the balance between us; that she was
waiting—as the she among wild beasts waits while the males are
fighting for her—for the stronger of us to win. After that I was ready
to face the Gulf of Fos.
The time for facing the gulf was close on me, too. We had run
through the canal of the Salines and were out in the open water of
Bouc—the great harbour at the mouth of the étang. The gale roared
down on us, now that there was little land to break it, and we began
to hear the boom of the waves pounding on the rocks outside. I
luffed well into the wind and bore up for the narrows opening
seaward where the Fort de Bouc light-house stands. The water still
was not rough enough to trouble us. It would not be rough until we
were at the very mouth of the narrows. Then, all at once, would
come the crush and fury of the wind and sea. I knew what it would
be like: and again a chill shot through me at the thought of risking
everything on that one great chance. But I had one thing to comfort
me: the moon had risen—and while the light came brokenly, as the
clouds thinned and thickened again, there was brightness enough
even at the darkest for me to lay a course when I got out among the
tumbling waves. Yet only a man half mad with passion would have
thought of fronting such a danger; and even I might have held back
at the last moment had I not been stung to go on.
Jan had so gained on me in the run down the étang that as we
came out from the canal of the Salines his boat was within less than
a dozen rods of mine; and as I hauled my sheet and bore up for the
narrows he shot down upon us and for a moment was almost under
our stern. And at that Magali gave a little jump and a half-gasp, and
laid her hand upon mine, crying: "Marius! Quick! Sail faster! He will
take me from you! Get me away! Get me away!"
And then I knew that she no longer balanced us, but that her heart
was for me. After that I would have faced not only the Gulf of Fos
but the open Mediterranean in the worst storm that ever blew.

VII

"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep
desire!"
The words were in my ears again as we went flying on toward the
narrows—with the reflection of the flame in the light-house making a
broad bright path for us, and the flame itself rising high before us
against the cloud-rack like a ball of fire. But God was not with me
then, and I gave those warning words no heed. I was drunk with the
gladness that came to me when Magali made her choice between
us; and all that I thought was that even if we did go down together,
out there in the Gulf of Fos, I still would be keeping her from Jan
and holding her for my own. That there might be any other ending
for us never crossed my mind.
Jan did not think, I suppose, that I would dare to go outside the
harbour. He was in a rage too, no doubt; but, still, he must have
been a good deal cooler than I was—for a rage of hate does not boil
in the very bones of a man, as a rage of love does—and so cool
enough to know that it was sheer craziness to take a boat out into
that sea. What I meant to do must have come to him with
suddenness—as we drew so close to the light-house that the flame
no longer was reflected ahead of us, and the narrows were open
over my starboard bow, and I let the boat fall off from the wind and
headed her into the broken water made by the inroll of half-spent
waves. In my run close-hauled I had dropped him, but not so much
as I thought I should, and as I came on the wind again—and hung
for a moment before gathering fresh headway—he ranged up once
more within hail.
"Where are you going? Are you crazy?" he called out—and though
he must have shouted with all the strength of his big lungs his voice
came thin through the wind to us, and broken by the pounding of
the sea.
"Where you won't dare to follow!" I called back to him—and we
went rushing on below the big old fort, that carries the light on its
tower, through the short passage between the harbour and the Gulf
of Fos.
Something he answered, but what it was I do not know: for as we
cleared the shelter of the fort—but while the tail of rock beyond it
still was to windward, so that I could not luff—down with a crash on
us came the gale. I could only let fly the sheet—but even with the
sheet all out over we went until the sail was deep in the water, and
over the leeward gunwale the waves came hissing in. I thought that
there was the end of it; but the boat had such way on her that even
on her beam ends and with the sail dragging she went on until we
had cleared the rocks; and then I luffed her and she rose slowly, and
for the moment was safe again with her nose in the wind.
Magali's face was dead white—like a dead woman's face, only for her
shining eyes. She fell to leeward as the boat went over—I could not
spare a hand to save her—and struck hard against the gunwale.
When the boat righted and she got up again her forehead was
bleeding. On her white face the blood was like a black stain. But she
put her hand on mine and said: "I am not frightened, Marius. I love
you!"
Jan was close aboard again. As our way had deadened he had
overhauled us; and because he saw what had happened to my boat
he was able to bring his boat through the narrows without going
over.
"Marius! Marius! For God's sake, for Magali's sake, put about!" he
shouted. "It is the only chance to save her. Put about, I say!"
He was only a little way to leeward of us, but I barely made out his
words. The wind was roaring past us, and the waves were banging
like cannon on the rocks close by.
What he said was the truth, and I knew it. I knew that the gale was
only just beginning, and that no boat could live through it for
another hour. And then one of the devils loose on that All Souls Eve,
or perhaps it was my own devil inside of me, put a new evil thought
into my heart: making clear to me how I might get rid of Jan for
good and all, and without its ending in my losing my head or in my
losing Magali by being sent overseas. It was a chance, to be sure,
and full of danger. But just then I was ready for any danger or for
any chance.

"THE OTHERS WERE UPCAST ON THE ROCKS"

"Lie down in the bottom of the boat, Magali," I called sharply. "That
is the safest place for you. We are going about."
I spoke the truth to Magali; but, also, I did not want her to see what
happened. She did what I told her to do, and then I began to wear
the boat around. How I did it without swamping, I do not know.
Perhaps the devils of All Souls Eve held up my mast through the
black moments while we lay wallowing in the trough of the sea. But
I did do it; and when I was come about I headed straight for Jan's
boat—lying dead to leeward of me, not twenty yards away. The
clouds thinned suddenly and almost the full light of the moon was
with us. We could see each other's faces plainly—and in mine he
saw what I meant to do.
"It will be all of us together, Marius!" he called to me. "Do you want
to murder Magali too?"
But I did not believe that it would be all of us together: for I knew
that his boat was an old one, and that mine was new and strong.
And, also, the devils had me in their hold. The gale was behind me,
driving me down upon him like a thunder-bolt. As I shot close to him
the moon shone out full for a moment through a rift in the clouds. In
that moment I saw his face clearly. The moonlight gleamed on it. It
was a ghastly dead white. But I do not suppose that it was for
himself that he was afraid. Jan was not a coward, or he would not
have jumped after me when I was drowning in the stormy sea.
Once more he called to me. "Marius! For the sake of Magali—"
And then there was a crashing and a rending of planks as I shot
against his boat, and a sudden upspringing of my own boat under
me. And after that, for a long while, a roaring of water about me,
and my own body tumbled and thrust hither and thither in it, and at
last a blow which seemed to dash me down into a vast black depth
that was all buzzing with little blazing stars.

But the others were upcast on the rocks dead.

 A Sea Upcast

When we East Anglians be set to do a thing, we be set firm. We

come at what we want by slow thinking, but when we know what
we want we hold fast by it—being born stubborn, and also being
born staunch. It is the same with our hating and with our loving: we
fire slowly, but when at last the fire is kindled it burns so strongly in
the very hearts of us—with a white glow, hotter than any flame—
that there is no putting it out again short of putting out our lives.
Men and women alike, we are born that way; and we fishermen of
the Suffolk and Norfolk coast likewise are bred that way: seeing that
from the time we go afloat as youngsters until the time that we are
drowned, or are grown so old and rusty that there is no more
strength for sea-fighting left in us, our lives for the most part are
spent in fighting the North Sea. That is a fight that needs
stubbornness to carry it through to a finish. Also, it needs knowledge
of the ocean's tricks and turns—because the North Sea can do what
we East Anglians can't do: it can smile at you and lie. A man must
have a deal of training before he can tell by the feel of it in his own
insides that close over beyond a still sea and a sun-bright sky a
storm is cooking up that will kill him if it can. And even when he
feels the coming of it—if he be well to seaward, or if he be tempted
by the fish being plenty and by the bareness of his own pockets to
hold on in the face of it—he must have more in his head than any
coast pilot has if he is to win home to Yarmouth Harbour or to
Lowestoft Roads.
For God in his cruelty has set more traps to kill seafarers off this
easterly outjut of England, I do believe, than He has set anywhere
else in all the world: there being from Covehithe Ness northward to
the Winterton Overfalls nothing but a maze of deadly shoals—all cut
up by channels in which there is no sea-room—that fairly makes you
queazy to think about when you are coming shoreward in a
northeast gale. And as if that were not enough to make sure of man-
food for the fishes, the currents that swirl and play among these
shoals are up to some fresh wickedness with every hour of the tide-
run and with every half shift of wind. Whether you make in for
Yarmouth by Hemesby Hole to the north, or by the Hewett Channel
to the south, or split the difference by running through Caister Road,
it is all one: twisting about the Overfalls and the Middle Cross Sand
and the South Scroby, there the currents are. What they will be
doing with you, or how they will be doing it, you can't even make a
good guess at; all that you can know for certain being that they will
be doing their worst by you at the half tide.
At least, though, the Lowestoft men and the Yarmouth men have a
good harbour when once they fetch it; and by that much are better
off than we Southwold men, who have no harbour at all. With
anything of a sea running there is no making a landing under
Southwold Cliff—though it is safe enough when once your boat is
beached and hauled up there; and so, if the storm gets ahead of us,
there is nothing left but to run for Lowestoft: and a nice time we
often have of it, with an on-shore gale blowing, working up into the
Covehithe Channel under the tail of the Barnard Bank! As for beating
up to seaward of the Barnard and running in through Pakefield Gat,
anybody can try for it who has a mind to—and who has a boat that
can eat the very heart out of the wind. Sometimes you do fetch it.
But what happens to you most times is best known to the Newcome
Shoal. When you have cleared the Barnard—if so be you do clear it—
the Newcome lies close under your lee for all the rest of the run.
What it has done for us fishermen you can see when the spring tides
bare it and show black scraps of old boats wrecked there, and
sometimes a gleam of sand-whitened bones.
For a good many years we had another chance, though a poor one,
and that was to make a longish leg off shore and then run in before
the wind and cross the Barnard into Covehithe Channel through
what we called the Wreck Gat—a cut in the bank that the currents
made striking against a wrecked ship buried there. The Wreck Gat is
gone now—closed by the same storm that nearly closed my life for
me—and you will not find it marked nowadays on the charts. Its
going was a good riddance. At the best it was a desperate bad place
to get through; and at its worst it was about the same as a sea
pitfall: and that nobody knows better than I do, seeing that I was
the last man to get through it alive. But when you happened to be to
windward of it, if it served at all, it served better than running down
a half mile farther and trying to round the tail of the bank.
Very many craft beside our own fisher-boats find their death-harbour
on our East Anglian sands. Our coast, as it has a right to be, is the
dread of every sailor man who sails the narrow seas. Great ships,
storm-swept on our sands, are sucked down into the depths of
them, or are hammered to pieces on the top of them, as light-
heartedly as though they were no more than cock-boats. And the
supply of ships to be wrecked there is unending—since the half of
the trade of the world, they say, sails past our shores. From every
land they come: and many and many a one of them comes but
never goes. Down on them bangs the northeast wind with a roar
and a rattle—and presently our sands have hold of them with a grip
that is to keep them fast there till the last day! Sometimes the dead
men who were living sailors aboard those ships come ashore to us,
though they are more like to find graves in the sands that murdered
them or to be swept out to sea; sometimes, by a twist of chance
that you may call a miracle, the sea has a fancy for casting one or
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