at the stranded wreck, which grew in size as I
approached, and came now to resemble an enormous shipwrecked whale.

"It seemed fairly to rise out of the ground, and on that great, flat,
yellow stretch of sand assumed wonderful proportions. After an hour's
walk I at last reached it. It lay upon its side, ruined and shattered,
its broken bones showing as though it were an animal, its bones of tarred
wood pierced with great bolts. The sand had already invaded it, entering
it by all the crannies, and held it and refused to let it go. It seemed
to have taken root in it. The bow had entered deep into this soft,
treacherous beach, while the stern, high in air, seemed to cast at
heaven, like a cry of despairing appeal, the two white words on the black
planking, Marie Joseph.

"I climbed upon this carcass of a ship by the lowest side; then, having
reached the deck, I went below. The daylight, which entered by the
stove-in hatches and the cracks in the sides, showed me dimly long dark
cavities full of demolished woodwork. They contained nothing but sand,
which served as foot-soil in this cavern of planks.

"I began to take some notes about the condition of the ship. I was seated
on a broken empty cask, writing by the light of a great crack, through
which I could perceive the boundless stretch of the strand. A strange
shivering of cold and loneliness ran over my skin from time to time, and
I would often stop writing for a moment to listen to the mysterious
noises in the derelict: the noise of crabs scratching the planking with
their crooked claws; the noise of a thousand little creatures of the sea
already crawling over this dead body or else boring into the wood.

"Suddenly, very near me, I heard human voices. I started as though I had
seen a ghost. For a second I really thought I was about to see drowned
men rise from the sinister depths of the hold, who would tell me about
their death. At any rate, it did not take me long to swing myself on
deck. There, standing by the bows, was a tall Englishman with three young
misses. Certainly they were a good deal more frightened at seeing this
sudden apparition on the abandoned three-master than I was at seeing
them. The youngest girl turned and ran, the two others threw their arms
round their father. As for him, he opened his mouth--that was the
only sign of emotion which he showed.

"Then, after several seconds, he spoke:

"'Mosieu, are you the owner of this ship?'

"'I am.'

"