e who are
familiar with the ocean. To cite one example only:--On the 25th January
1840, in the Gulf of Stora, a tempest struck with its expiring force a
brig, and casting it almost intact completely over the broken wreck of
the corvette _La Marne_, fixed it immovable, bowsprit first, in a gap
between the cliffs.

The Douvres, however, held only a part of the Durande.

The vessel snatched from the waves had been, as it were, uprooted from
the waters by the hurricane. A whirlwind had wrenched it against the
counteracting force of the rolling waves, and the vessel thus caught in
contrary directions by the two claws of the tempest had snapped like a
lath. The after-part with the engine and the paddles, lifted out of the
foam and driven by all the fury of the cyclone into the defile of the
Douvres, had plunged in up to her midship beam, and remained there. The
blow had been well directed. To drive it in this fashion between the two
rocks, the storm had struck it as with an enormous hammer. The
forecastle carried away and rolled down by the sea, had gone to
fragments among the breakers.

The hold, broken in, had scattered out the bodies of the drowned cattle
upon the sea.

A large portion of the forward side and bulwarks still hung to the
riders by the larboard paddle-box, and by some shattered braces easy to
strike off with the blow of a hatchet.

Here and there, among beams, planks, rags of canvas, pieces of chains,
and other remains of wreck were seen lying about among the rugged
fragments of shattered rock.

Gilliatt surveyed the Durande attentively. The keel formed a roofing
over his head.

A serene sky stretched far and wide over the waters, scarcely wrinkled
with a passing breath. The sun rose gloriously in the midst of the vast
azure circle.

From time to time a drop of water was detached from the wreck and fell
into the sea.

II

A CATALOGUE OF DISASTERS

The Douvres differed in shape as well as in height.

Upon the Little Douvre, which was curved and pointed, long veins of
reddish-coloured rock, of a comparatively soft kind, could be seen
branching out and dividing the interior of the granite. At the edges of
these red dykes were fractures, favourable to climbing. One of these
fractures, situated a little above the wreck, had been so laboriously
worn and scooped out by the splashing of the waves, that it had become a
sort of niche, in which it would have been quite possible to place a
statu