appearance of the lighthouse raised their spirits at first, then
overwhelmed them. Nothing could be done, nothing attempted. What has
been said of kings, we may say of the waves--we are their people, we are
their prey. All that they rave must be borne. The nor'-wester was
driving the hooker on the Caskets. They were nearing them; no evasion
was possible. They drifted rapidly towards the reef; they felt that they
were getting into shallow waters; the lead, if they could have thrown it
to any purpose, would not have shown more than three or four fathoms.
The shipwrecked people heard the dull sound of the waves being sucked
within the submarine caves of the steep rock. They made out, under the
lighthouse, like a dark cutting between two plates of granite, the
narrow passage of the ugly wild-looking little harbour, supposed to be
full of the skeletons of men and carcasses of ships. It looked like the
mouth of a cavern, rather than the entrance of a port. They could hear
the crackling of the pile on high within the iron grating. A ghastly
purple illuminated the storm; the collision of the rain and hail
disturbed the mist. The black cloud and the red flame fought, serpent
against serpent; live ashes, reft by the wind, flew from the fire, and
the sudden assaults of the sparks seemed to drive the snowflakes before
them. The breakers, blurred at first in outline, now stood out in bold
relief, a medley of rocks with peaks, crests, and vertebrae. The angles
were formed by strongly marked red lines, and the inclined planes in
blood-like streams of light. As they neared it, the outline of the reefs
increased and rose--sinister.

One of the women, the Irishwoman, told her beads wildly.

In place of the skipper, who was the pilot, remained the chief, who was
the captain. The Basques all know the mountain and the sea. They are
bold on the precipice, and inventive in catastrophes.

They neared the cliff. They were about to strike. Suddenly they were so
close to the great north rock of the Caskets that it shut out the
lighthouse from them. They saw nothing but the rock and the red light
behind it. The huge rock looming in the mist was like a gigantic black
woman with a hood of fire.

That ill-famed rock is called the Biblet. It faces the north
side the reef, which on the south is faced by another ridge,
L'Etacq-aux-giulmets. The chief looked at the Biblet, and shouted,--

"A man with a will to take a rope to the rock! Who can swim?