d with foam, if the wind wake, seven
Black helms, as of warriors that stir, not stand,
From the depths that abide and the waves that environ
Seven rocks rear heads that the midnight masks;
And the strokes of the swords of the storm are as iron
On the steel of the wave-worn casques.

"Be night's dark word as the word of a wizard,
Be the word of dawn as a god's glad word,
Like heads of the spirits of darkness visored
That see not for ever, nor ever have heard,
These basnets, plumed as for fight or plumeless,
Crowned by the storm and by storm discrowned,
Keep word of the lists where the dead lie tombless
And the tale of them is not found!"

Hither the boat had drifted in the course of the three days that had
elapsed since she had been first becalmed off Spithead, or rather
between the Nab and Warner lights; for, it was then that the wind had
dropped, leaving her at the mercy of the stream, going whither the
current willed.

She had pursued a most erratic course, however, to reach this point.

To commence with, she had floated on the ebb-tide, which for two hours
after high-water runs south by west, out into the Channel past the Isle
of Wight; the wind, slight as it was, that subsequently sprung up from
the eastward, to which point it had veered after the sea-fog had risen,
combined with the westward action of the tideway, making the little
vessel take almost a straight course across the stream of the current
towards the French coast.

When about midway, however, she got into a second channel current, which
swept her nearer and nearer to Cape La Hogue.

Then, again, when still some miles out from the land, yet another
current took charge of her, bringing her within the influence of the
strong indraught which runs into the Gulf of Saint Malo; by which,
finally, she was wafted, in a circular way, up to "the Caskets," or
"Casquettes," to adopt the proper French version.

Here she had arrived at the time of Bob's delirium, drifting in closer
and closer to the rocks, on which the cutter would probably have been
dashed to pieces and her fragments possibly picked up anon on the
opposite side of the Atlantic, had not fate intervened.

It was in this wise.

The little cutter drifted in near the rocks while it was still early
morning; and the reason for the bell on the lighthouse ringing was
because some of the mist, or fog, that had been blown across the
Channel, yet lingered in the vicinity,