"Why?" objected her husband. "The other boat hasn't signalled anything extraordinary. The danger is altering its position, moving farther away. . . ."
The mother made no reply. Her face retained the same piteous expression. The little girl at her knee was still silently crying.
The captain passed Simon and saluted.
And a few more minutes elapsed.
Simon was whispering words of love which Isabel did not catch very distinctly. The little girl's constant tears were causing her some distress.
Shortly after, a gust of wind made the waves leap higher. Here and there streaks of white, seething foam appeared. There was nothing remarkable in this, as the wind was gaining in force and lashing the crests of the waves. But why did these foaming billows appear only in one part and that precisely the part which they were about to cross?
The father and mother had risen to their feet. Other passengers were leaning over the rails. The captain was seen running up the poop-steps.
And it came suddenly, in a moment.
Before Isabel and Simon, sitting self-absorbed, had the least idea of what was happening, a frightful clamour, made up of a thousand shrieks, rose from all parts of the boat, from port and starboard, from stem to stern, even from below; from every side, as though the minds of all had been obsessed by the possibility of disaster, as though all eyes, from the moment of departure, had been watching for the slightest premonitory sign.
A monstrous sight. Three hundred yards ahead, as though in the centre of a target at which the bows of the vessel were aimed, a hideous fountain had burst from the surface of the sea, bombarding the sky with masses of rock, blocks of lava and flying masses of spray, which fell back into a circle of foaming breakers and yawning whirlpools. And a wind of hurricane force gyrated above this chaos, bellowing like a bull.