me. In snowstorms it is not
so. No prolonged anger in the deep. Like a tired-out worker it becomes
drowsy directly, thus almost giving the lie to the laws of statics, but
not astonishing old seamen, who know that the sea is full of unforeseen
surprises.

The same phenomenon takes place, although very rarely, in ordinary
storms. Thus, in our time, on the occasion of the memorable hurricane of
July 27th, 1867, at Jersey the wind, after fourteen hours' fury,
suddenly relapsed into a dead calm.

In a few minutes the hooker was floating in sleeping waters.

At the same time (for the last phase of these storms resembles the
first) they could distinguish nothing; all that had been made visible in
the convulsions of the meteoric cloud was again dark. Pale outlines
were fused in vague mist, and the gloom of infinite space closed about
the vessel. The wall of night--that circular occlusion, that interior of
a cylinder the diameter of which was lessening minute by
minute--enveloped the _Matutina_, and, with the sinister deliberation of
an encroaching iceberg, was drawing in dangerously. In the zenith
nothing--a lid of fog closing down. It was as if the hooker were at the
bottom of the well of the abyss.

In that well the sea was a puddle of liquid lead. No stir in the
waters--ominous immobility! The ocean is never less tamed than when it
is still as a pool.

All was silence, stillness, blindness.

Perchance the silence of inanimate objects is taciturnity.

The last ripples glided along the hull. The deck was horizontal, with an
insensible slope to the sides. Some broken planks were shifting about
irresolutely. The block on which they had lighted the tow steeped in
tar, in place of the signal light which had been swept away, swung no
longer at the prow, and no longer let fall burning drops into the sea.
What little breeze remained in the clouds was noiseless. The snow fell
thickly, softly, with scarce a slant. No foam of breakers could be
heard. The peace of shadows was over all.

This repose succeeding all the past exasperations and paroxysms was, for
the poor creatures so long tossed about, an unspeakable comfort. It was
as though the punishment of the rack had ceased. They caught a glimpse
about them and above them of something which seemed like a consent, that
they should be saved. They regained confidence. All that had been fury
was now tranquillity. It appeared to them a pledge of peace. Their
wretched hearts dilate