The last hope of the shipwrecked was a rock half a mile away. By dint of efforts and of savage struggles for life, they reached the reef. It was not, however, the refuge they had longed for. The seas swept the greater part of it; a narrow excavation was the only sheltered spot. Lady Hester and her maid established themselves there as their right. Night came. No water, except the waterspouts which the sky cast down without counting, no provisions! At midnight, the wind having fallen a little, the master suggested that he should go with the crew to fetch help from Rhodes, adding that, if everyone wanted to come, he would answer for nothing. Willingly or unwillingly, Lady Hester and her friends allowed them to go, making them promise to light a fire so soon as they reached the land. In what bitter reflections did the unfortunates indulge as they shivered there in the darkness, rinsed by the waves, lashed by the rain, buffeted by the wind, stupefied by the moaning voices of the raging sea! The doctor, as he tightened his belt by a hole, did not rail against those brutes of Greeks. At last a flame perforated the night. Then nothing more. A timid sun succeeded in piercing the curtains of clouds, then declined towards the horizon. It was thirty hours since the shipwrecked had eaten anything. The doctor was sure that these brutes had abandoned them without remorse. Suddenly, the piercing sight of Lady Hester descried a black speck which finally became a boat. The calumniated crew, with the exception of the master, who had preferred to direct the rescue from a distance, was returning, bringing bread, cheese and water. But the sailors had consoled themselves abundantly on land with arrack; they were drunk, and their insolence increased every minute. All the alcohol which they had consumed rendered them indifferent to the squalls of wind and rain which had begun again. Deaf to the entreaties of the passengers, they decided to embark forthwith. Lady Hester and her friends preferred to run the risk of sudden death rather than perish slowly of inanition on that forlorn rock. They landed safe and sound, to the general astonishment, and took refuge in a neighbouring hamlet, miserable and leprous. Filthy houses! The English would not have been willing to use them as pigsties. The rain penetrated them, and the bed of manure spread on the ground exhaled a nauseating odour. And an increasing invasion of shaggy rats and of voracious fleas!