"She had such a droll way of speaking, of laughing, of understanding and of not understanding, of raising her eyes to ask a question (eyes blue as the deep ocean), of stopping her drawing a moment to make a guess at what you meant, of returning once more to work, of saying 'yes' or 'no'—that I could have listened and looked indefinitely.
"Suddenly she murmured:
"'I hear a little movement on this boat.'
"I lent an ear; and I immediately distinguished a low, steady, curious sound. I rose and looked out of the crack, and I uttered a violent cry. The sea had come back; it had already surrounded us!
"We were on deck in an instant. It was too late. The water circled us about, and was running towards the coast with awful swiftness. No, it did not run, it raced, it grew longer, like a kind of great limitless blot. The water on the sands was barely a few centimeters deep; but the rising flood had gone so far that we no longer saw the flying line of its edge.
"The Englishman wanted to jump. I held him back. Flight was impossible because of the deep places which we had been obliged to go round on our way out, and through which we could not pass on our return.
"There was a minute of horrible anguish in our hearts. Then the little English girl began to smile, and murmured:
"'So we too are shipwrecked?'
"I tried to laugh; but fear caught me tight, a fear which was cowardly and horrid and base and mean, like the tide. All the dangers which we ran appeared to me at once. I wanted to shriek 'Help!' But to whom?
"The two younger girls were clinging to their father, who regarded, with a look of consternation, the measureless sea which hedged us round about.