CHAPTER XII.
FACE TO FACE WITH THE ROCK.
The wretched people in distress on board the _Matutina_ understood atonce the mysterious derision which mocked their shipwreck. Theappearance of the lighthouse raised their spirits at first, thenoverwhelmed them. Nothing could be done, nothing attempted. What hasbeen said of kings, we may say of the waves--we are their people, we aretheir prey. All that they rave must be borne. The nor'-wester wasdriving the hooker on the Caskets. They were nearing them; no evasionwas possible. They drifted rapidly towards the reef; they felt that theywere getting into shallow waters; the lead, if they could have thrown itto any purpose, would not have shown more than three or four fathoms.The shipwrecked people heard the dull sound of the waves being suckedwithin the submarine caves of the steep rock. They made out, under thelighthouse, like a dark cutting between two plates of granite, thenarrow passage of the ugly wild-looking little harbour, supposed to befull of the skeletons of men and carcasses of ships. It looked like themouth of a cavern, rather than the entrance of a port. They could hearthe crackling of the pile on high within the iron grating. A ghastlypurple illuminated the storm; the collision of the rain and haildisturbed the mist. The black cloud and the red flame fought, serpentagainst serpent; live ashes, reft by the wind, flew from the fire, andthe sudden assaults of the sparks seemed to drive the snowflakes beforethem. The breakers, blurred at first in outline, now stood out in boldrelief, a medley of rocks with peaks, crests, and vertebrae. The angleswere formed by strongly marked red lines, and the inclined planes inblood-like streams of light. As they neared it, the outline of the reefsincreased 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 wasthe captain. The Basques all know the mountain and the sea. They arebold on the precipice, and inventive in catastrophes.
They neared the cliff. They were about to strike. Suddenly they were soclose to the great north rock of the Caskets that it shut out thelighthouse from them. They saw nothing but the rock and the red lightbehind it. The huge rock looming in the mist was like a gigantic blackwoman with a hood of fire.
That ill-famed rock is called the Biblet. It faces the northside 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?"
No answer.
No one on board knew how to swim, not even the sailors--an ignorance notuncommon among seafaring people.
A beam nearly free of its lashings was swinging loose. The chief claspedit with both hands, crying, "Help me."
They unlashed the beam. They had now at their disposal the very thingthey wanted. From the defensive, they assumed the offensive.
It was a longish beam of heart of oak, sound and strong, useful eitheras a support or as an engine of attack--a lever for a burden, a ramagainst a tower.
"Ready!" shouted the chief.
All six, getting foothold on the stump of the mast, threw their weighton the spar projecting over the side, straight as a lance towards aprojection of the cliff.
It was a dangerous manoeuvre. To strike at a mountain is audacityindeed. The six men might well have been thrown into the water by theshock.
There is variety in struggles with storms. After the hurricane, theshoal; after the wind, the rock. First the intangible, then theimmovable, to be encountered.
Some minutes passed, such minutes as whiten men's hair.
The rock and the vessel were about to come in collision. The rock, likea culprit, awaited the blow.
A resistless wave rushed in; it ended the respite. It caught the vesselunderneath, raised it, and swayed it for an instant as the sling swingsits projectile.
"Steady!" cried the chief; "it is only a rock, and we are men."
The beam was couched, the six men were one with it, its sharp bolts toretheir arm-pits, but they did not feel them.
The wave dashed the hooker against the rock.
Then came the shock.
It came under the shapeless cloud of foam which always hides suchcatastrophes.
When this cloud fell back into the sea, when the waves rolled back fromthe rock, the six men were tossing about the deck, but the _Matutina_was floating alongside the rock--clear of it. The beam had stood andturned the vessel; the sea was running so fast that in a few seconds shehad left the Caskets behind.
Such things sometimes occur. It was a straight stroke of the bowspritthat saved Wood of Largo at the mouth of the Tay. In the wildneighbourhood of Cape Winterton, and under the command of CaptainHamilton, it was the appliance of such a lever against the dangerousrock, Branodu-um, that saved the _Royal Mary_ from shipwreck, althoughshe was but a Scotch built frigate. The force of the waves can be soabruptly discomposed that changes of direction can be easily managed, orat least are possible even in the most violent collisions. There is abrute in the tempest. The hurricane is a bull, and can be turned.
The whole secret of avoiding shipwreck is to try and pass from thesecant to the tangent.
Such was the service rendered by the beam to the vessel. It had done thework of an oar, had taken the place of a rudder. But the manoeuvre onceperformed could not be repeated. The beam was overboard; the shock ofthe collision had wrenched it out of the men's hands, and it was lost inthe waves. To loosen another beam would have been to dislocate the hull.
The hurricane carried off the _Matutina_. Presently the Caskets showedas a harmless encumbrance on the horizon. Nothing looks more out ofcountenance than a reef of rocks under such circumstances. There are innature, in its obscure aspects, in which the visible blends with theinvisible, certain motionless, surly profiles, which seem to expressthat a prey has escaped.
Thus glowered the Caskest while the _Matutina_ fled.
The lighthouse paled in distance, faded, and disappeared.
There was something mournful in its extinction. Layers of mist sank downupon the now uncertain light. Its rays died in the waste of waters; theflame floated, struggled, sank, and lost its form. It might have been adrowning creature. The brasier dwindled to the snuff of a candle; thennothing; more but a weak, uncertain flutter. Around it spread a circleof extravasated glimmer; it was like the quenching of: light in the pitof night.
The bell which had threatened was dumb. The lighthouse which hadthreatened had melted away. And yet it was more awful now that they hadceased to threaten. One was a voice, the other a torch. There wassomething human about them.
They were gone, and nought remained but the abyss.