"The sea, my lord," said the seneschal, "has burst the sand-banks; the castle stands on low ground. We are all dead men—the sea—the sea!"
The Baron Armand turned to Klosso: "Does he speak truth?"
"The worthy gentleman," said the imp, "is perfectly in the right; you are all dead men; and, Monseigneur le Baron, when you gave me last a year of your life, you gave me the last you had to give."
Up rose the water, and higher dashed the waves. Up, foot by foot, and yard by yard; and still the baron stood erect amid the raving of the elements—his face as white as his hair, but his eyes as bright and keen as ever.
"Klosso," he said, "I am yours; and the future is the future."
He looked at the iron lamp swinging above his head.
"It will soon be out," said Klosso.
Jacques Fort still steered to the light. It came nearer and nearer; and he saw, even through the gloom and the driving spray, that it shone from a castle-turret, and he seized the tiller to change the course of the vessel; but as he did so, the grand, triumphant, finishing blast of the hurricane fell upon the seething flood like iron—heaved up one bristling, foaming sea, which caught the Sainte Vierge upon its crest, and flung the ship almost into the air. The light gleamed for a moment almost beneath him; and Jacques, rushing to the bow, saw below it, as in a prison, a fierce convulsed face, and staring eyes, and flying white hair; and the eyes saw him. As Jacques recognised the sorcerer Armand of Chatel-morant, so did Armand recognise the face and form he had seen helping Toinette to cook the christening feast.
The next instant the Sainte Vierge was borne over and over the highest turret of the chateau, her keel a fathom good above the loftiest and the gaudiest of all the gilt weather-cocks.
The event foreshadowed in the crystal duly took place on the anniversary of the day which saw the chateau de Chatel-morant swallowed in the Bay of Arcachon.