For two days now, the great sinister voice had been groaning round us. The sky was very dark. It was like the sky in that picture in which Poussin has tried to paint the deluge; only all the clouds were moving, tormented by a wind that awakened fear. And this great voice continued to swell, growing deeper, incessant; it was like a fury which was becoming exasperated. In our progress we ran into enormous masses of water which came on in white-crested volutes and passed as if in pursuit one of another; they rushed upon us with their full force; and then there were mighty shocks and great dull sounds. Sometimes the _Médée_ reared, mounted over them, as if she, too, in turn, was seized with fury against them. And then she descended again, head first, into the treacherous hollows which lurked behind; she touched the bottom of these kinds of valleys which opened rapidly between high walls of water; and then made haste to climb once more, to escape from between these curved, glistening, greenish walls, which threatened to overwhelm her. An icy rain streaked the air with long white arrows, whipping, stinging, like the blows of a lash. We had drawn nearer the north, in advancing along the Chinese coast, and the unexpected cold bit into us. Aloft, in the rigging, they were trying to take in the topsails already close hauled; the stormsail was already hard to carry and now, it was necessary, at any cost, to make head against the wind, on account of the doubtful countries which lay behind us. For two long hours the topmen were at work, blinded, lashed, stung by all that fell over them, sheets of spray from the sea, sheets of rain and hail from the sky; trying, with hands cramped with cold and bleeding, to take in the stiff wet canvas which bellied in the furious wind. But one saw nothing, heard nothing. It was difficult enough merely to prevent oneself from being swept away, merely to hold fast to all these moving, wet and slippery things--but they had besides to work high up in the air on their yards which, swaying, had sudden, irregular movements, like the last beating of wings of a great wounded bird in its death-throes. Cries of pain came from aloft, from this kind of hanging bunch of human grapes. Cries of men, hoarse cries, more ominous than those of women, because one is less accustomed to hear them; cries of horrible suffering: a hand caught somewhere, fingers jammed, from which the flesh was torn as they were drawn away--or maybe, some unfortunate fellow, less strong than the others, numbed with cold, who felt that he could hold out no longer, that his head was beginning to swim, that he was about to let go and fall. And the others, out of pity, bound him and tried to lower him to the deck. For two hours this lasted; they were exhausted, beat; flesh and blood could do no more. Then they were ordered down, and in their place were sent up the men of the larboard watch, who had been resting and were not so cold.