frightful
gust of wind dispelled the fog which covered the isle of Amber and its
channel. The Saint-Geran then presented herself to our view, her deck
crowded with people, her yards and topmasts lowered down, and her flag
half-mast high, moored by four cables at her bow and one at her stern.
She had anchored between the isle of Amber and the main land, inside
the chain of reefs which encircles the island, and which she had passed
through in a place where no vessel had ever passed before. She presented
her head to the waves that rolled in from the open sea, and as each
billow rushed into the narrow strait where she lay, her bow lifted to
such a degree as to show her keel; and at the same moment her stern,
plunging into the water, disappeared altogether from our sight, as if it
were swallowed up by the surges. In this position, driven by the winds
and waves towards the shore, it was equally impossible for her to return
by the passage through which she had made her way; or, by cutting her
cables, to strand herself upon the beach, from which she was separated
by sandbanks and reefs of rocks. Every billow which broke upon the coast
advanced roaring to the bottom of the bay, throwing up heaps of shingle
to the distance of fifty feet upon the land; then, rushing back, laid
bare its sandy bed, from which it rolled immense stones, with a hoarse
and dismal noise. The sea, swelled by the violence of the wind, rose
higher every moment; and the whole channel between this island and the
isle of Amber was soon one vast sheet of white foam, full of yawning
pits of black and deep billows. Heaps of this foam, more than six feet
high, were piled up at the bottom of the bay; and the winds which swept
its surface carried masses of it over the steep sea-bank, scattering it
upon the land to the distance of half a league. These innumerable white
flakes, driven horizontally even to the very foot of the mountains,
looked like snow issuing from the bosom of the ocean. The appearance of
the horizon portended a lasting tempest; the sky and the water seemed
blended together. Thick masses of clouds, of a frightful form, swept
across the zenith with the swiftness of birds, while others appeared
motionless as rocks. Not a single spot of blue sky could be discerned in
the whole firmament; and a pale yellow gleam only lightened up all the
objects of the earth, the sea, and the skies.

From the violent rolling of the ship, what we all dreaded happened at