But the very next night a terrible tempest arose. In the midst of midnight darkness, with howling winds and dashing waves, the Ariel barely escaped being wrecked on the rocks of Penmarque, a ledge which was the terror of all seamen, between L’Orient and Brest. The gale was so severe that the lower yard-arms were frequently plunged into the water. The peril was so great that it was necessary to cut away the fore-mast. This seemed in some degree to relieve the ship from the terrible strain, so that her head was brought to the wind. But in the terrible plungings of the heavily laden ship over the billows, the main-mast had got out of the step, and reeled to and fro in the most threatening manner. The danger was imminent that the mast would either break off below the gun-deck, or that it would crush its way through the bottom of the ship. Commodore Jones gave orders for the main-mast to be cut away. But before this could be done the chain plates parted, and the main-mast, breaking off at the gun-deck, fell with a terrible crash, carrying with it the mizzenmast, and the quarter-gallery. In that deplorable situation, the Ariel, rolling like a log upon the tempest-lashed sea, by rare good luck floated in midnight darkness, to the windward of the ledge generally deemed the most dangerous in the world. For two days and three nights this autumnal storm raged, covering the shore with wrecks, and with the bodies of the drowned. Even in the port of L’Orient many ships were torn from their anchorage, and were dashed on the shore. Probably nothing saved the Ariel but the loss of her masts. Had they remained standing, to receive the force of the gale, no anchor could have held her from being thrown upon the rocks. Jury-masts were rigged, and the shattered Ariel, after the gale, was taken back to L’Orient. On the 16th, he wrote to Lady D’Ormoy, in reply to a letter from her. In this communication, he said: “I have returned without laurels, and, what is worse, without being able to render service to the glorious cause of liberty. I know not why Neptune was in such anger, unless he thought it an affront in me to appear on his ocean, with so insignificant a force. It is certain that till the night of the 8th, I did not fully conceive the awful majesty of tempest and of shipwreck. I can give you no just idea of the tremendous scene that nature then presented, which surpassed the reach even of poetic fancy and the pencil. I believe no ship was ever before saved from an equal danger off the point of the Penmarque rocks.