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CHAPTER XII.
FACE TO FACE WITH THE ROCK.
The wretched people in distress on board the Matutina understood at
once the mysterious derision which mocked their shipwreck. The
appearance of the lighthouse raised their spirits at first, then
overwhelmed them. Nothing could be done, nothing attempted. What has
been said of kings, we may say of the waves--we are their people, we are
their prey. All that they rave must be borne. The nor'-wester was
driving the hooker on the Caskets. They were nearing them; no evasion
was possible. They drifted rapidly towards the reef; they felt that they
were getting into shallow waters; the lead, if they could have thrown it
to any purpose, would not have shown more than three or four fathoms.
The shipwrecked people heard the dull sound of the waves being sucked
within the submarine caves of the steep rock. They made out, under the
lighthouse, like a dark cutting between two plates of granite, the
narrow passage of the ugly wild-looking little harbour, supposed to be
full of the skeletons of men and carcasses of ships. It looked like the
mouth of a cavern, rather than the entrance of a port. They could hear
the crackling of the pile on high within the iron grating. A ghastly
purple illuminated the storm; the collision of the rain and hail
disturbed the mist. The black cloud and the red flame fought, serpent
against serpent; live ashes, reft by the wind, flew from the fire, and
the sudden assaults of the sparks seemed to drive the snowflakes before
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