looking at the burning vessel, as well as at the daughter who stood by
her husband's side on the stern of the _Othello_. He saw Helene's white
dress flutter like one more sail in the breeze; he saw the tall, noble
figure against a background of sea, queenly still even in the presence
of Ocean; and so many memories crowded up in his mind, that, with a
soldier's recklessness of life, he forgot that he was being borne over
the grave of the brave Gomez.

A vast column of smoke rising spread like a brown cloud, pierced here
and there by fantastic shafts of sunlight. It was a second sky, a murky
dome reflecting the glow of the fire as if the under surface had been
burnished; but above it soared the unchanging blue of the firmament, a
thousand times fairer for the short-lived contrast. The strange hues
of the smoke cloud, black and red, tawny and pale by turns, blurred
and blending into each other, shrouded the burning vessel as it flared,
crackled and groaned; the hissing tongues of flame licked up the
rigging, and flashed across the hull, like a rumor of riot flashing
along the streets of a city. The burning rum sent up blue flitting
lights. Some sea god might have been stirring the furious liquor as
a student stirs the joyous flames of punch in an orgy. But in the
overpowering sunlight, jealous of the insolent blaze, the colors were
scarcely visible, and the smoke was but a film fluttering like a thin
scarf in the noonday torrent of light and heat.

The _Othello_ made the most of the little wind she could gain to fly
on her new course. Swaying first to one side, then to the other, like a
stag beetle on the wing, the fair vessel beat to windward on her zigzag
flight to the south. Sometimes she was hidden from sight by the straight
column of smoke that flung fantastic shadows across the water, then
gracefully she shot out clear of it, and Helene, catching sight of her
father, waved her handkerchief for yet one more farewell greeting.

A few more minutes, and the _Saint-Ferdinand_ went down with a bubbling
turmoil, at once effaced by the ocean. Nothing of all that had been
was left but a smoke cloud hanging in the breeze. The _Othello_ was far
away, the long-boat had almost reached land, the cloud came between
the frail skiff and the brig, and it was through a break in the swaying
smoke that the General caught the last glimpse of Helene. A prophetic
vision! Her dress and her white handkerchief stood out against the murky
ba