the sky
with masses of rock, blocks of lava and flying masses of spray, which
fell back into a circle of foaming breakers and yawning whirlpools.
And a wind of hurricane force gyrated above this chaos, bellowing like
a bull.

Suddenly silence fell upon the paralysed crowd, the deathly silence
that precedes an inevitable catastrophe. Then, yonder, a rattle of
thunder that rent the air. Then the voice of the captain at his post,
roaring out his orders, trying to shout down the monster's myriad
voices.

For a moment there seemed some hope of salvation. The vessel put forth
so great an effort that she appeared to be gliding along a tangent
away from the infernal circle into which she was on the point of being
drawn. But it was a vain hope! The circle seemed to be increasing in
size. Its outer waves were approaching. A mass of rock crushed one of
the funnels.

And again there were shrieks, followed by a panic and an insane rush
for the life-boats; already some of the passengers were fighting for
places. . . .

Simon did not hesitate. Isabel was a good swimmer. They must make the
attempt.

"Come!" he said. The girl, standing beside him, had flung her arms
about him. "We can't stay here! Come!"

And, when she struggled, instinctively resisting the course which he
had proposed, he took a firmer hold of her.

She entreated him:

"Oh, it's horrible . . . all these children . . . the little girl
crying! . . . Couldn't we save them?"

"Come!" he repeated, in a masterful tone.

She still resisted him. Then he took her head in his two hands and
kissed her on the lips:

"Come, my darling, come!"

The girl fainted. He lifted her in his arms and threw one leg over the
rail:

"Don't be afraid!" he said. "I will answer for your life!"

"I am not afraid," she said. "I am not afraid with you. . . ."

They leapt into the water.

CHAPTER III

GOOD-BYE, SIMON

Twenty minutes later, they were picked up by the _Castor_, the yacht
which by this time had passed the _Queen Mary_. As for the _Pays de
Caux_, the steamer sailing from Dieppe, subsequent enquiries proved
that the passengers and the crew had compelled the captain to flee
from the scene of the disaster. The sight of the huge waterspout, the
spectacle of the ship lifting her stern out of the waves, rearing up
bodily and falling back as though into the mouth of a funnel, the
upheaval of the sea, which seemed to have given way beneath the
assault of mania