d passed the
men looked behind them to see if the next to appear were higher; it
came upon them with furious contortions, and curling crests, over its
transparent emerald body, seeming to shriek: "Only let me catch you, and
I'll swallow you whole!"

But this never came to pass, for, as a feather, the billows softly bore
them up and then down so gently; they felt it pass under them, with all
its boiling surf and thunderous roar. And so on continually, but the sea
getting heavier and heavier. One after another rushed the waves, more
and more gigantic, like a long chain of mountains, with yawning valleys.
And the madness of all this movement, under the ever-darkening sky,
accelerated the height of the intolerable clamour.

Yann and Sylvestre stood at the helm, still singing, "Jean Francois de
Nantes"; intoxicated with the quiver of speed, they sang out loudly,
laughing at their inability to hear themselves in this prodigious wrath
of the wind.

"I say, lads, does it smell musty up here too?" called out Guermeur to
them, passing his bearded face up through the half-open hatchway, like
Jack-in-the-box.

Oh, no! it certainly did not smell musty on deck. They were not at all
frightened, being quite conscious of what men can cope with, having
faith in the strength of their barkey and their arms. And they
furthermore relied upon the protection of that china Virgin, which had
voyaged forty years to Iceland, and so often had danced the dance
of this day, smiling perpetually between her branches of artificial
flowers.

Generally speaking, they could not see far around them; a few hundred
yards off, all seemed entombed in the fearfully big billows, with their
frothing crests shutting out the view. They felt as if in an enclosure,
continually altering shape; and, besides, all things seemed drowned in
the aqueous smoke, which fled before them like a cloud with the greatest
rapidity over the heaving surface. But from time to time a gleam of
sunlight pierced through the north-west sky, through which a squall
threatened; a shuddering light would appear from above, a rather
spun-out dimness, making the dome of the heavens denser than before, and
feebly lighting up the surge. This new light was sad to behold; far-off
glimpses as they were, that gave too strong an understanding that the
same chaos and the same fury lay on all sides, even far, far behind the
seemingly void horizon; there was no limit to its expanse of storm, and
they