Happy were those who, already choked by the water, had sunk down unconscious to the bed of the ocean, there to slumber undisturbed. The survivors were the prey of the monster. With its tail curled in horrid rage, its green eyes flashing, and its vast jaws gaping wide, it darted on every man whose powerful arm and stout heart would not give up the struggle with the waves, and in a moment his death-cry was lost in the sea serpent's horrid throat. With insatiable rage it glided from one to another till all had perished, and not one was left to carry home the dreadful tale. None would ever know the fate of the goodly vessel and its precious freight. Antonio had sunk on his knees, and his eyes had followed every motion of the sea serpent till the dreadful work was done. When all was over, the sea serpent rocked itself in horrid satisfaction on the waves, and let them drive it at their will. But the dark rock retained the power of motion, and sank slowly down into the deep, making the waves foam and toss as they parted right and left to let it pass. Then Antonio perceived that what at a distance he had taken for a rock was a gigantic kraken, one of those sea monsters which often lie quietly for years at the bottom of the ocean, then rise to the surface and lurk with deadly purpose in the path of unsuspecting men. He saw the supple, far-reaching polypus-arms, which, grasping at the masts, had cracked them like reeds, and torn the planks asunder with swifter and more complete destruction than the mere force of the waves could have accomplished. The snaky limbs were feeling aimlessly about the flood, groping down towards the soft sea-bed where the monster would now fasten itself for a long period of repose. Antonio involuntarily shrank back, although the ocean, with its billows and its still more dreadful monsters, could not break through the coral fence or disturb the sparkling waters of the Gulf Stream. He watched the kraken reach the bottom, settle down in its soft bed, and draw in its long arms as for sleep. Then all became peaceful as before. The wild waves sank to rest, and the ocean flowed still and clear; a deep blue sky arched overhead, the sun shot golden glances through the billows, piercing to the lowest depths, and dyeing with amber light the waves that flowed above the kraken, which lay like a long dark hill not far from the coral fence, and parted from it by a narrow current.