ruin. The rebound was so violent that it had shattered the
rudder pendants; the rudder itself hung unhinged and flapping. The rock
had driven in her keel. Round about the vessel nothing was visible
except a thick, compact fog, now become sombre. Night was gathering
fast.

The Durande plunged forward. It was like the effort of a horse pierced
through the entrails by the horns of a bull. All was over with her.

Tangrouille was sobered. Nobody is drunk in the moment of a shipwreck.
He came down to the quarter-deck, went up again, and said:

"Captain, the water is gaining rapidly in the hold. In ten minutes it
will be up to the scupper-holes."

The passengers ran about bewildered, wringing their hands, leaning over
the bulwarks, looking down in the engine-room, and making every other
sort of useless movement in their terror. The tourist had fainted.

Clubin made a sign with his hand, and they were silent. He questioned
Imbrancam:

"How long will the engines work yet?"

"Five or six minutes, sir."

Then he interrogated the Guernsey passenger:

"I was at the helm. You saw the rock. On which bank of the Hanways are
we?"

"On the Mauve. Just now, in the opening in the fog, I saw it clearly."

"If we're on the Mauve," remarked Clubin, "we have the Great Hanway on
the port side, and the Little Hanway on the starboard bow; we are a mile
from the shore."

The crew and passengers listened, fixing their eyes anxiously and
attentively on the captain.

Lightening the ship would have been of no avail, and indeed would have
been hardly possible. In order to throw the cargo overboard, they would
have had to open the ports and increase the chance of the water
entering. To cast anchor would have been equally useless: they were
stuck fast. Besides, with such a bottom for the anchor to drag, the
chain would probably have fouled. The engines not being injured, and
being workable while the fires were not extinguished, that is to say,
for a few minutes longer, they could have made an effort, by help of
steam and her paddles, to turn her astern off the rocks; but if they had
succeeded, they must have settled down immediately. The rock, indeed, in
some degree stopped the breach and prevented the entrance of the water.
It was at least an obstacle; while the hole once freed, it would have
been impossible to stop the leak or to work the pumps. To snatch a
poniard from a wound in the heart is instant death to the victim. To
free the