"But why?" grumbled Marie. "Listen," was all the answer he gave her. And as he spoke, the storm rushed upon them like a train, with the roar and whirl of a locomotive. Loo jumped aft to the tiller. In the rush of the hail, they heard him give a sharp order to Jean, who must have had some knowledge of the sea, for he obeyed at once, and the boat, set free, lurched forward with a flap of her sail, which was like the report of a cannon. For a moment, all seemed confusion and flapping chaos, then came a sense of tenseness, and the boat heeled over with a swish, which added a hundred-weight of solid water to the beating of the hail on the spare sail, beneath which the women crouched. "What? Did you speak?" shouted Loo, putting his face close to the canvas. "It is only Marie calling on the saints," was the answer, in Juliette's laughing voice. In a few minutes it was over; and, even at the back of the winds, could be heard the retreat of the hail as it crashed onward toward the valleys of which every slope is a named vineyard, to beat down in a few wild moments the result of careful toil and far-sighted expenditure; to wipe out that which is unique, which no man can replace--the vintage of a year. When the hail ceased beating on it, Juliette pushed back the soaked canvas, which had covered them like a roof, and lifted her face to the cooler air. The boat was rushing through the water, and close to Juliette's cheek, just above the gunwale, rose a curved wave, green and white, and all shimmering with phosphorescence, which seemed to hover like a hawk above its prey. The aftermath of the storm was flying overhead in riven ribbons of cloud, through which the stars were already peeping. To the westward the sky was clear, and against the last faint glow of the departed sun the lightning ran hither and thither, skipping and leaping, without sound or cessation, like fairies dancing. Immediately overhead, the sail creaked and tugged at its earings, while the wind sang its high clear song round mast and halliards.