the rock, the six men were tossing about the deck, but the _Matutina_
was floating alongside the rock--clear of it. The beam had stood and
turned the vessel; the sea was running so fast that in a few seconds she
had left the Caskets behind.

Such things sometimes occur. It was a straight stroke of the bowsprit
that saved Wood of Largo at the mouth of the Tay. In the wild
neighbourhood of Cape Winterton, and under the command of Captain
Hamilton, it was the appliance of such a lever against the dangerous
rock, Branodu-um, that saved the _Royal Mary_ from shipwreck, although
she was but a Scotch built frigate. The force of the waves can be so
abruptly discomposed that changes of direction can be easily managed, or
at least are possible even in the most violent collisions. There is a
brute in the tempest. The hurricane is a bull, and can be turned.

The whole secret of avoiding shipwreck is to try and pass from the
secant to the tangent.

Such was the service rendered by the beam to the vessel. It had done the
work of an oar, had taken the place of a rudder. But the manoeuvre once
performed could not be repeated. The beam was overboard; the shock of
the collision had wrenched it out of the men's hands, and it was lost in
the waves. To loosen another beam would have been to dislocate the hull.

The hurricane carried off the _Matutina_. Presently the Caskets showed
as a harmless encumbrance on the horizon. Nothing looks more out of
countenance than a reef of rocks under such circumstances. There are in
nature, in its obscure aspects, in which the visible blends with the
invisible, certain motionless, surly profiles, which seem to express
that a prey has escaped.