The hooker held wildly on her course. Her two mainsails especially were
doing fearful work. The sky and sea were as of ink with jets of foam
running higher than the mast. Every instant masses of water swept the
deck like a deluge, and at each roll of the vessel the hawse-holes, now
to starboard, now to larboard, became as so many open mouths vomiting
back the foam into the sea. The women had taken refuge in the cabin, but
the men remained on deck; the blinding snow eddied round, the spitting
surge mingled with it. All was fury.

At that moment the chief of the band, standing abaft on the stern
frames, holding on with one hand to the shrouds, and with the other
taking off the kerchief he wore round his head and waving it in the
light of the lantern, gay and arrogant, with pride in his face, and his
hair in wild disorder, intoxicated by all the darkness, cried out,--

"We are free!"

"Free, free, free," echoed the fugitives, and the band, seizing hold of
the rigging, rose up on deck.

"Hurrah!" shouted the chief.

And the band shouted in the storm,--

"Hurrah!"

Just as this clamour was dying away in the tempest, a loud solemn voice
rose from the other end of the vessel, saying,--

"Silence!"