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The reef reappeared. After the Caskets comes Ortach. The storm is no
artist; brutal and all-powerful, it never varies its appliances. The
darkness is inexhaustible. Its snares and perfidies never come to an
end. As for man, he soon comes to the bottom of his resources. Man
expends his strength, the abyss never.
The shipwrecked men turned towards the chief, their hope. He could only
shrug his shoulders. Dismal contempt of helplessness.
A pavement in the midst of the ocean--such is the Ortach rock. The
Ortach, all of a piece, rises up in a straight line to eighty feet above
the angry beating of the waves. Waves and ships break against it. An
immovable cube, it plunges its rectilinear planes apeak into the
numberless serpentine curves of the sea.
At night it stands an enormous block resting on the folds of a huge
black sheet. In time of storm it awaits the stroke of the axe, which is
the thunder-clap.
But there is never a thunder-clap during the snowstorm. True, the ship
has the bandage round her eyes; darkness is knotted about her; she is
like one prepared to be led to the scaffold. As for the thunderbolt,
which makes quick ending, it is not to be hoped for.
The Matutina, nothing better than a log upon the waters, drifted
towards this rock as she had drifted towards the other. The poor
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