So they staggered along, dismantled and discomfited, and waited for the gale to blow itself out or them to perdition, and were worn so low at last that they did not much care which, so only an end to their misery. And the end came as unexpectedly as the beginning. From sheer weariness they slept at times, in chill discomfort and dankest wretchedness, just where they sat or lay. And Wulfrey was lying so, in a stupor of misery, caring neither for life nor death, when the final catastrophe came. Without any warning the ship struck something with a horrible shock that flung everything inside it ajee. Then she heeled over on her starboard side, baring her breast to the enemy. The great green waves leaped at her like wolves on a foundered deer. They had been chasing her for three days past and now they had got her. She was down and they proceeded to worry her to pieces. No ship ever built could stand against their fury. The 'Grace-à-Dieu' melted into fragments as though she had been built of cardboard. Wulfrey, jerked violently out of the corner where he had been lying, rolled down towards the door of the cabin as the ship heeled over. As he clawed himself up to look out, a green mountain of water caught him up and carried him high over the port bulwarks which towered like a house above him, and swept him along on its broken crest. He could swim, but no swimmer could hope to save himself by swimming in such a sea, and he was weak and worn with the miseries of the last three days. He had no hope of deliverance, but yet struck out mechanically to keep his head above water, and his thrashing arm struck wood. He gripped it with the grip of a drowning man and clung for dear life. It was a large square structure, planking braced with cross-pieces, almost a raft. He hung to the edge while the water ran out of his mouth and wits, and then, inch by inch, hauled himself cautiously further aboard, and, lying flat, looked anxiously about for signs of his shipmates, but with little hope. He could see but a yard or two on either side, and then only the threatening welter of the monstrous green seas, terrifyingly close and swelling with menace. Nothing? ... Stay!--a white gleam under the green, like a scrap of paper in a whirlpool, and a desperate face emerged a yard or so away and a wildly-seeking hand. The anguished eyes besought him, and, not knowing what else to do, he gripped two of the cross-pieces of his raft and launched his legs out towards the drowning man. They were seized as in a vice, and presently, inch by inch, the gripping hands crept up his body till the other could lay hold of the raft for himself. And Wulfrey, turning, saw that it was the mate, Sheumaish Macro, whose life he had saved. They drew themselves cautiously up into such further safety as the frail ark offered and lay there spent. And Wulfrey, for one, wondered if the quicker end had not been the greater gain. XV