And with unrivalled speed the Blanche Navire sped on. A long black line stretches before her bow, dotting the silvery surface with ragged and fantastic shades; but not one eye has marked it! On she goes, swifter yet and swifter, and still the fatal shout is ringing from her decks: “Give way, men of Cotentin! give more way!” Now they are close upon it, and now the dashing of the surf about the broken ledges--for that black line is the dread Raz de Gatteville, the most tremendous reef of all that bar the iron coast of Normandy! The hoarse and hollow roar must reach the ears even of those who sleep. But no! the clangor of the exulting trumpets, and the deep booming of the Norman nakir, and that ill-omened shout, “Give way--yet more--more way!” has drowned even the all-pervading roar of the wild breakers. On, on she goes, fleet as the gazehound darting upon its antlered prey; and now her bows are bathed by the upflashing spray; and now--hark to that hollow shock, that long and grinding crash!--hark to that wild and agonizing yell sent upward by two hundred youthful voices, up to the glorious stars that smiled as if in mockery of their ruin. There rang the voice of the strong, fearless men; the knight who had spurred oft his destrier amid the shivering of lances and the rending clash of blades, without a thought unless of high excitement and fierce joy; the mariner who, undismayed, had reefed his sail, and steered his bark aright, amid the wildest storm that ever lashed the sea to fury--now utterly unnerved and paralyzed by the appalling change from mirth and revelry to imminent and instant death. So furious was the rate at which the galley was propelled, that, when she struck upon the sharp and jagged rocks, her prow was utterly stove inward, and the strong tide rushed in, foaming and roaring like a mill-stream! Ten seconds’ space she hung upon the perilous ledge, while the waves made a clear breach over her, sweeping not only every living being, but every fixture--spars, bulwarks, shrouds, and the tall masts themselves--from her devoted decks. At the first shock, with the instinctive readiness that characterizes, in whatever peril, the true mariner, Fitz-Stephen, rallying to his aid a dozen of the bravest of his men, had cleared away and launched a boat; and, even as the fated bark went down, bodily sucked into the whirling surf, had seized the prince and dragged him with a stalwart arm into the little skiff, which had put off at once, to shun the drowning hundreds who must have crowded in and sunk her on the instant.