"'This is bad for us, this—'
"Of course it was bad, it was certain death if any breakers, however feeble, should attack and shake the wreck, which was already so loose and broken that the first big sea would carry it off.
"So our anguish increased momentarily as the squalls grew stronger and stronger. Now the sea broke a little, and I saw in the darkness white lines appearing and disappearing, which were lines of foam; while each wave struck the Marie Joseph, and shook her with a short quiver which rose to our hearts.
"The English girl was trembling; I felt her shiver against me. And I had a wild desire to take her in my arms.
"Down there before and behind us, to left and right, lighthouses were shining along the shore—lighthouses white and yellow and red, revolving like the enormous eyes of giants who were staring at us, watching us, waiting eagerly for us to disappear. One of them in especial irritated me. It went out every thirty seconds and it lit up again as soon. It was indeed an eye, that one, with its lid ceaselessly lowered over its fiery look.
"From time to time the Englishman struck a match to see the hour; then he put his watch back in his pocket. Suddenly he said to me, over the heads of his daughters, with a gravity which was awful:
"'I wish you a Happy New Year, Môsieu.'
"It was midnight. I held out my hand, which he pressed. Then he said something in English, and suddenly he and his daughters began to sing 'God Save the Queen,' which rose through the black and silent air and vanished into space.
"At first I felt a desire to laugh; then I was seized by a strong, fantastic emotion.
"It was something sinister and superb, this chant of the shipwrecked, the condemned, something like a prayer, and also something grander, something comparable to the ancient 'Ave Cæsar morituri te salutamus.'