One saw nothing, one only felt the ascent and descent of the yacht over the dark and silently moving waters. Bernard said: "There has been a gale out at sea to-night, sir; we shall be lucky if we get in without accident." The day broke brightly over the wild crowding waves, and we all three looked anxiously seawards to see if the squall were returning. All this time the boat was running a great pace before the wind and with the tide. Already Agay appeared on our beam, and we held counsel whether we should make for Cannes, to escape the rough weather, or for Nice, running to seaward of the isles. Bernard would have preferred Cannes: but as the breeze did not freshen, I decided in favour of Nice. For three hours all went well; though the poor little yacht rolled like a cork in the awful swell. No one who is unacquainted with the open sea, that sea of mountains, moving with weighty and rapid strides, separated by valleys which change place from second to second, filled up and formed again incessantly, can guess, can imagine the mysterious, redoubtable, terrifying and superb force of the waves. Our little dingy followed far behind us, at the extremity of forty yards of hawser, through this liquid and dancing chaos. We lost sight of it every moment, then suddenly it would reappear perched on the summit of a wave, floating along like a great white bird. Here is Cannes in the depth of its bay, Saint-Honorat with its tower standing up among the waves, and before us the Cape d'Antibes. The breeze freshened little by little, and the crests of the waves became flocks of sheep, those snowy sheep which move so fast, and of which the countless troop careers along without dog or shepherd under the endless sky. Bernard said to me: "It will be all we shall do to make Antibes." And indeed seas began to break over us, with inexpressible and violent noise. The sharp squalls shook us, throwing us into yawning gulfs, whence as we emerged, we righted ourselves with terrible shocks. The gaff was lowered, but at every oscillation of the yacht, the boom touched the waves and seemed ready to tear away the mast, which if it should fly away with the sail, would leave us to float alone and lost upon the wild waves. Bernard cried out: "The dingy, sir." I turned to look. A huge wave filled it, rolled it over, enveloped it in foam as if it would devour it, and, breaking the hawser by which it was made fast to us, took possession of it, half sinking, drowned; a conquered prey which it will presently throw upon the rocks down there, below the headland. The minutes seem hours. Nothing can be done, we must go on, round the point in front of us, and when we have done that, we shall be sheltered, and in safety. At last we reach it! The sea is now calm and smooth, protected as it is by the long tongue of rocks and earth which forms the Cape of Antibes.