rescue; the slightest pause in the storm's
threats is sufficient; they tell themselves that they are out of danger.
After believing themselves buried, they declare their resurrection; they
feverishly embrace what they do not yet possess; it is clear that the
bad luck has turned; they declare themselves satisfied; they are saved;
they cry quits with God. They should not be in so great a hurry to give
receipts to the Unknown.

The sou'-wester set in with a whirlwind. Shipwrecked men have never any
but rough helpers. The _Matutina_ was dragged rapidly out to sea by the
remnant of her rigging--like a dead woman trailed by the hair. It was
like the enfranchisement granted by Tiberius, at the price of violation.

The wind treated with brutality those whom it saved; it rendered service
with fury; it was help without pity.

The wreck was breaking up under the severity of its deliverers.

Hailstones, big and hard enough to charge a blunderbuss, smote the
vessel; at every rotation of the waves these hailstones rolled about the
deck like marbles. The hooker, whose deck was almost flush with the
water, was being beaten out of shape by the rolling masses of water and
its sheets of spray. On board it each man was for himself.

They clung on as best they could. As each sea swept over them, it was
with a sense of surprise they saw that all were still there. Several had
their faces torn by splinters.

Happily despair has stout hands. In terror a child's hand has the grasp
of a giant. Agony makes a vice of a woman's fingers. A girl in her
fright can almost bury her rose-coloured fingers in a piece of iron.
With hooked fingers they hung on somehow, as the waves dashed on and
passed off them; but every wave brought them the fear of being swept
away.

Suddenly they were relieved.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE PROBLEM SUDDENLY WORKS IN SILENCE.

The hurricane had just stopped short. There was no longer in the air
sou'-wester or nor'-wester. The fierce clarions of space were mute. The
whole of the waterspout had poured from the sky without any warning of
diminution, as if it had slided perpendicularly into a gulf beneath.
None knew what had become of it; flakes replaced the hailstones, the
snow began to fall slowly. No more swell: the sea flattened down.

Such sudden cessations are peculiar to snowstorms. The electric
effluvium exhausted, all becomes still, even the wave, which in ordinary
storms often remains agitated for a long ti