style="font-size:15px;"> While the boat was in the gulf of Portland; the ocean was almost still, and the sky was yet clear. There were ten on board – three men in crew, and seven passengers, of whom two were women. The women were of no age. Of the five men who were with the two women, one was a Frenchman of Languedoc, one a Frenchman of Provence, one a Genoese; one, an old man, he who wore the sombrero, appeared to be a German. The fifth, the chief, was a Basque of the Landes from Biscarrosse. It was he who, just as the child was going on board the boat, had, with a kick of his heel, cast the plank into the sea.
This chief of the band, the captain and the two men of the crew, all four Basques, spoke sometimes Basque, sometimes Spanish, sometimes French. But generally speaking, excepting the women, all talked something like French, which was the foundation of their slang.
All the time the boat was in the gulf, the sky did not frown enough to cause the fugitives any uneasiness. They were flying, they were escaping, they were brutal. One laughed, another sang; the laugh was dry but free, the song was bad but careless.
From time to time the chief of the band came to the old man and whispered in his ear. The old man answered by a nod.
The captain passed every minute from the binnacle to the standard compass.
“We don’t even see the pointers, nor the star Antares. Nothing is distinct.”
No care troubled the other fugitives.
The skipper gave the helm to a sailor, crossed the gangway, and went on to the forecastle. He approached the old man, but not in front. He stood a little behind, with open eyes and arched eyebrows, and a smile in the corners of his mouth – an attitude of curiosity hesitating between mockery and respect.
The old man said,
“Too few stars, and too much wind. The breeze continually changes its direction and blows inshore; thence it rises perpendicularly. Skipper, have you often crossed the Channel?”
“This is the first time.”
“How is that?”
“My usual cruise is to Ireland. I sail from Fontarabia to Black Harbour or to the Achill Islands. I do not know this sea at all.”
“That’s serious. Woe to him who is inexperienced on the ocean! One ought to be familiar with the Channel – the Channel is the Sphinx. Look out for shoals.”
The wind and the sea were rising.
The dark punishment of the waters, eternally tortured, was commencing. A lamentation arose from the whole main.
The wind had just set due north[16]. Its violence was so favourable and so useful in driving them away from England that the captain had made up his mind to set all sail[17]. The boat slipped through the foam as at a gallop, bounding from wave to wave in a gay frenzy. The fugitives were delighted, and laughed; they clapped their hands, applauded the surf, the sea, the wind, the sails, the swift progress, the flight, all unmindful of the future.
Every vestige of day had faded away. This was the moment when the child, watching from the distant cliff, lost sight of the boat. The child went north and the ship went south. All were plunged in darkness.
SUPERHUMAN HORRORS
England disappeared. The fugitives had now nothing round them but the sea. All at once night grew awful.
The sky became blackness. The snow began to fall slowly; a few flakes appeared. A great muddy cloud, like to the belly of ahydra, hung over ocean.
The boreal storm hurled itself on the boat. A deep rumbling was brewing up in the distance. The roar of the abyss, nothing can be compared to it. It is the great brutish howl of the universe.
No thunderstrokes. The snowstorm is a storm blind and dumb; when it has passed, the ships also are often blind and the sailors dumb. To escape from such an abyss is difficult.
The howling of the wind became more and more frightful. The boat became a wreck, it was irrevocably disabled. The vessel drifted like a cork at the mercy of the waves. It sailed no longer – it merely floated, like a dead fish.
One of the women, the Irishwoman, told her beads[18] wildly. They neared the cliff. They were about to strike. The wave dashed the boat against the rock. Then came the shock. Nothing remained but the abyss.
But suddenly something terrible appeared to them in the darkness. On the port bow arose, standing stark, a tall, opaque mass, vertical a tower of the abyss. They watched it open-mouthed.
The storm was driving them towards it. They knew not what it was. It was the rock.
It was a moment of great anxiety. Meanwhile a thickening mist had descended on the drifting wretches. They were ignorant of their whereabouts.
Suddenly the boat was driven back. The wave reared up under the vessel. It was again on the open sea.
The hurricane had stopped. The fierce clarions of space were mute. None knew what had become of it; flakes replaced the hailstones, the snow began to fall slowly. No more swell: the sea flattened down. In a few minutes the boat was floating in sleeping waters.
All was silence, stillness, blindness. It was clear that they were delivered out of the storm, out of the foam, out of the wind, out of the uproar. In three or four hours it would be sunrise. Some passing ship would see them; they would be rescued. The worst was over. They said to themselves, “It is all over this time.”
Suddenly they found that all was indeed over.
One of the sailors, went down into the hold to look for a rope, then came above again and said, -
“The hold is full[19].”
“Of what?” asked the chief.
“Of water,” answered the sailor.
The chief cried out, -
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” replied the captain, “that in half an hour we shall founder.”
THE LAST RESOURCE
There was a hole in the keel. When it happened no one could have said. It was most probable that they had touched some rock. The other sailor, whose name was Ave Maria, went down into the hold, too, came on deck again, and said, -
“There are two varas of water in the hold.”
About six feet.
Ave Maria added, “In less than forty minutes we shall sink.”
The water, however, was not rising very fast.
The chief called out,
“We must work the pump.”
“We have no pump left.”
had just set due north – стал дуть прямо с севера
set all sail – поднять все паруса
told her beads – перебирала чётки
The hold is full. – Трюм полон.
