III.

Rain and a blind sky and a bursting sea Feliu and his men, Miguel
and Mateo, looked out upon the thundering and flashing of the
monstrous tide. The wind had fallen, and the gray air was full
of gulls. Behind the cheniere, back to the cloudy line of low
woods many miles away, stretched a wash of lead-colored water,
with a green point piercing it here and there--elbow-bushes or
wild cane tall enough to keep their heads above the flood. But
the inundation was visibly decreasing;--with the passing of each
hour more and more green patches and points had been showing
themselves: by degrees the course of the bayou had become
defined--two parallel winding lines of dwarf-timber and bushy
shrubs traversing the water toward the distant cypress-swamps.
Before the cheniere all the shell-beach slope was piled with
wreck--uptorn trees with the foliage still fresh upon them,
splintered timbers of mysterious origin, and logs in multitude,
scarred with gashes of the axe. Feliu and his comrades had saved
wood enough to build a little town,--working up to their waists
in the surf, with ropes, poles, and boat-hooks. The whole sea
was full of flotsam. Voto a Cristo!--what a wrecking there must
have been! And to think the Carmencita could not be taken out!

They had seen other luggers making eastward during the
morning--could recognize some by their sails, others by their
gait,--exaggerated in their struggle with the pitching of the
sea: the San Pablo, the Gasparina, the Enriqueta, the Agueda,
the Constanza. Ugly water, yes!--but what a chance for wreckers!
... Some great ship must have gone to pieces;--scores of casks