tumbled at it, and the barque did not cease to go down until it
crashed and sank in the sand at the bottom of the sea.

"The night came, and with it a thousand darknesses fell from the
screeching sky. Not a round-eyed creature of the night might
pierce an inch of that multiplied gloom. Not a creature dared
creep or stand. For a great wind strode the world lashing its
league-long whips in cracks of thunder, and singing to itself,
now in a world-wide yell, now in an ear- dizzying hum and buzz;
or with a long snarl and whine it hovered over the world
searching for life to destroy.

"And at times, from the moaning and yelping blackness of the sea,
there came a sound-- thin-drawn as from millions of miles away,
distinct as though uttered in the ear like a whisper of
confidence--and I knew that a drowning man was calling on his God
as he thrashed and was battered into silence, and that a
blue-lipped woman was calling on her man as her hair whipped
round her brows and she whirled about like a top.

"Around me the trees were dragged from earth with dying groans;
they leaped into the air and flew like birds. Great waves whizzed
from the sea: spinning across the cliffs and hurtling to the
earth in monstrous clots of foam; the very rocks came trundling
and sidling and grinding among the trees; and in that rage, and
in that horror of blackness I fell asleep, or I was beaten into
slumber."