ORTACH.
The reef reappeared. After the Caskets comes Ortach. The storm is no
artist; brutal and all-powerful, it never varies its appliances. The
darkness is inexhaustible. Its snares and perfidies never come to an
end. As for man, he soon comes to the bottom of his resources. Man
expends his strength, the abyss never.
The shipwrecked men turned towards the chief, their hope. He could only
shrug his shoulders. Dismal contempt of helplessness.
A pavement in the midst of the ocean--such is the Ortach rock. The
Ortach, all of a piece, rises up in a straight line to eighty feet above
the angry beating of the waves. Waves and ships break against it. An
immovable cube, it plunges its rectilinear planes apeak into the
numberless serpentine curves of the sea.
At night it stands an enormous block resting on the folds of a huge
black sheet. In time of storm it awaits the stroke of the axe, which is
the thunder-clap.
But there is never a thunder-clap during the snowstorm. True, the ship
has the bandage round her eyes; darkness is knotted about her; she is
like one prepared to be led to the scaffold. As for the thunderbolt,
which makes quick ending, it is not to be hoped for.
The _Matutina_, nothing better than a log upon the waters, drifted
towards this rock as she had drifted towards the other. The poor
wretches on board, who had for a moment believed themselves saved,
relapsed into their agony. The destruction they had left behind faced
them again. The reef reappeared from the bottom of the sea. Nothing had
been gained.
The Caskets are a figuring iron[7] with a thousand compartments. The
Ortach is a wall. To be wrecked on the Caskets is to be cut into
ribbons; to strike on the Ortach is to be crushed into powder.
Nevertheless, there was one chance.
On a straight frontage such as that of the Ortach neither the wave nor
the cannon ball can ricochet. The operation is simple: first the flux,
then the reflux; a wave advances, a billow returns.
In such cases the question of life and death is balanced thus: if the
wave carries the vessel on the rock, she breaks on it and is lost; if
the billow retires before the ship has touched, she is carried back, she
is saved.
It was a moment of great anxiety; those on board saw through the gloom
the great decisive wave bearing down on them. How far was it going to
drag them? If the wave broke upon the ship, they were carried on the
rock and dashed to pieces. If it passed under the ship....
The wave _did_ pass under.
They breathed again.
But what of the recoil? What would the surf do with them? The surf
carried them back. A few minutes later the _Matutina_ was free of the
breakers. The Ortach faded from their view, as the Caskets had done. It
was their second victory. For the second time the hooker had verged on
destruction, and had drawn back in time.