The wretched people in distress on board the Matutina understood at once the mysterious derision which mocked their shipwreck.  The 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?”

No answer.

No one on board knew how to swim, not even the sailors—­an ignorance not uncommon among seafaring people.

A beam nearly free of its lashings was swinging loose.  The chief clasped it with both hands, crying, “Help me.”

They unlashed the beam.  They had now at their disposal the very thing they wanted.  From the defensive, they assumed the offensive.