many times, when they reached the Breakwater, to let a wave go
by as it leapt over that obstruction into the inner harbor, leaving the
red granite shining with the angry sweat of the tempest.

On the farthest projection of the jetty, where the storm surf was
dashing highest against the outer rocks, stood Dolores, bareheaded, her
face pale, clinging to _sina_ Tona, who was wild with anguish for her
boy, her Pascualet, who was still out there! And the two women, with
others also, cursed heaven with the foulest blasphemies, afterwards,
suddenly, to bow their heads, crossing their hands over their breasts,
and suppliantly promising masses, candles, offerings, to the Virgin of
Rosario and the Holy Christ of the Grao, addressing those miraculous
beings pleadingly, intimately, as though the divinities were present in
the flesh there before them. Dolores finally drew her shawl about her
and crouched for shelter behind the outermost rock, the wash from the
surf climbing up around her legs, but her eyes she held seaward with the
fixed motionless stare of a sphinx. On a stone farther back _tia_
Picores towered on high with her massive bony frame. Anger writhing at
her mouth, and her fists clenched in threat, she faced the sea with the
sublimity of a tragic witch, insulting the wild turmoil with the gibes
of the Fishmarket: "Pig of a sea! Streetwalker! Sow! They call you a
woman, but you're a man, I say!"

The rain came in horizontal sheets before the gale, which caught
individuals not clinging to their neighbors and tossed them around like
reeds. All the anxious watchers were wet to the skin and their clothes
clung dripping to their bodies; but absorbed in the enthralling horror
of the spectacle, they were unconscious of the chill that was beginning
to make their teeth chatter. A curse on the Rector's head! That cuckold
was to blame for everything! He was the one responsible for the fleet's
going out. It would serve him right if he never got in! And Dolores and
_sina_ Tona caught such angry words, and lowered their heads in shame
under public condemnation.

But one by one the boats rounded the Breakwater, cheered by the crowd,
and greeted by sobs and cries of joy from the families of the crews who
ran off toward the Grao to meet their men. Soon so many of them were in
that the throng of the Breakwater was noticeably smaller. The harbor
entrance had turned to a veritable hell of wind and wave and whirlpool.
Three boats were stil