The waves hurled themselves with fury against the girdle of rocks through which opened the narrow passage which led into the road of Tolari.
About eleven o’clock in the morning, Captain Simon, mounted on the platform of the rambade, was talking with Captain Hugues about the punishment which occurred the day before, and of the courage of the Moor.
Suddenly they saw a polacre, her sails almost torn away, flying before the tempest with the rapidity of an arrow, and about to enter the dangerous pass of which we have spoken.
Sometimes the frail vessel, rising on the crest of the towering waves, would show the edge of her keel running with foam like the breast of a race-horse.
Again, sinking in the hollow of the waves, she would plunge with such violence that her stem would be almost perpendicular.
Soon they could distinguish on the deluged deck two men enveloped in brown mantles with hoods, who were employing every possible effort to hold the whip-staff of the rudder.
Five other sailors, squatting at the prow, or holding on to the rigging, awaited the moment to aid in the manoeuvre.
So, by turns carried to the top of the waves and plunged in their depths, the polacre was hastening with frightful speed to tie narrow entrance of the channel, where the waves were dashing with fury.
“By St Elmo!” cried Captain Simon, “there’s a ship gone to destruction!”
“She is lost,” replied Hugues, coldly; “in a few minutes her rigging and hull will be nothing but a wreck, and her sailors will be corpses. May the Lord save the souls of our brothers!”