It was a dangerous manoeuvre. To strike at a mountain is audacity
indeed. The six men might well have been thrown into the water by the
shock.

There is variety in struggles with storms. After the hurricane, the
shoal; after the wind, the rock. First the intangible, then the
immovable, 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, like
a culprit, awaited the blow.

A resistless wave rushed in; it ended the respite. It caught the vessel
underneath, raised it, and swayed it for an instant as the sling swings
its 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 tore
their 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 such
catastrophes.

When this cloud fell back into the sea, when the waves rolled back from