the sea, under which some one wandered with a star in his hand.

A storm threatened in the air; the child took no account of it, but a
sailor would have trembled. It was that moment of preliminary anxiety
when it seems as though the elements are changing into persons, and one
is about to witness the mysterious transfiguration of the wind into the
wind-god. The sea becomes Ocean: its power reveals itself as Will: that
which one takes for a thing is a soul. It will become visible; hence the
terror. The soul of man fears to be thus confronted with the soul of
nature.

Chaos was about to appear. The wind rolling back the fog, and making a
stage of the clouds behind, set the scene for that fearful drama of wave
and winter which is called a Snowstorm. Vessels putting back hove in
sight. For some minutes past the roads had no longer been deserted.
Every instant troubled barks hastening towards an anchorage appeared
from behind the capes; some were doubling Portland Bill, the others St.
Alban's Head. From afar ships were running in. It was a race for refuge.
Southwards the darkness thickened, and clouds, full of night, bordered
on the sea. The weight of the tempest hanging overhead made a dreary
lull on the waves. It certainly was no time to sail. Yet the hooker had
sailed.

She had made the south of the cape. She was already out of the gulf, and
in the open sea. Suddenly there came a gust of wind. The _Matutina_,
which was still clearly in sight, made all sail, as if resolved to
profit by the hurricane. It was the nor'-wester, a wind sullen and
angry. Its weight was felt instantly. The hooker, caught broadside on,
staggered, but recovering held her course to sea. This indicated a
flight rather than a voyage, less fear of sea than of land, and greater