the Star.
--"Christ!" he muttered,--"a dance! If that wind whips round

south, there'll be another dance! ... But I guess the Star will
stay." ...

Half an hour might have passed; still the lights flamed calmly,
and the violins trilled, and the perfumed whirl went on ... And

suddenly the wind veered!
Again the Star reeled, and shuddered, and turned, and began to

drag all her anchors. But she now dragged away from the great
building and its lights,--away from the voluptuous thunder of the

grand piano, even at that moment outpouring the great joy of
Weber's melody orchestrated by Berlioz: l'Invitation a la

Valse,--with its marvellous musical swing!
--"Waltzing!" cried the captain. "God help them!--God help us

all now! ... The Wind waltzes to-night, with the Sea for his
partner!" ...

O the stupendous Valse-Tourbillon! O the mighty Dancer!
One--two--three! From northeast to east, from east to southeast,

from southeast to south: then from the south he came, whirling
the Sea in his arms ...

... Some one shrieked in the midst of the revels;--some girl who
found her pretty slippers wet. What could it be? Thin streams

of water were spreading over the level planking,--curling about
the feet of the dancers ... What could it be? All the land had

begun to quake, even as, but a moment before, the polished floor
was trembling to the pressure of circling steps;--all the

building shook now; every beam uttered its groan. What could it
be? ...

There was a clamor, a panic, a rush to the windy night. Infinite
darkness above and beyond; but the lantern-beams danced far out

over an unbrokencircle of heaving and swirling black water.
Stealthily, swiftly, the measureless sea-flood was rising.

--" Messieurs--mesdames, ce n'est rien. Nothing serious, ladies,
I assure you ... Mais nous en avons vu bien souvent, les

inondations comme celle-ci; ca passe vite! The water will go down
in a few hours, ladies;--it never rises higher than this; il n'y

a pas le moindre danger, je vous dis! Allons! il n'y a--My God!
what is that?" ...

For a moment there was a ghastly hush of voices. And through
that hush there burst upon the ears of all a fearful and

unfamiliar sound, as of a colossal cannonade rolling up from the
south, with volleying lightnings. Vastly and swiftly, nearer and

nearer it came,--a ponderous and unbrokenthunder-roll, terrible
as the long muttering of an earthquake.

The nearest mainland,--across mad Caillou Bay to the
sea-marshes,--lay twelve miles north; west, by the Gulf, the

nearest solid ground was twenty miles distant. There were boats,
yes!--but the stoutest swimmer might never reach them now!

Then rose a frightful cry,--the hoarse, hideous, indescribable
cry of hopeless fear,--the despairing animal-cry man utters when

suddenly brought face to face with Nothingness, without
preparation, without consolation, without possibility of respite

... Sauve qui peut! Some wrenched down the doors; some clung to
the heavy banquet-tables, to the sofas, to the billiard.

tables:--during one terrible instant,--against fruitless
heroisms, against futile generosities,--raged all the frenzy of

selfishness, all the brutalities of panic. And then--then came,
thundering through the blackness, the giant swells, boom on boom!

... One crash!--the huge frame building rocks like a cradle,
seesaws, crackles. What are human shrieks now?--the tornado is

shrieking! Another!--chandeliers splinter; lights are dashed out;
a sweepingcataract hurls in: the immense hall

rises,--oscillates,--twirls as upon a
pivot,--crepitates,--crumbles into ruin. Crash again!--the

swirling wreck dissolves into the wallowing of another monster
billow; and a hundred cottages overturn, spin in sudden eddies,

quiver, disjoint, and melt into the seething.
... So the hurricane passed,--tearing off the heads of the

prodigious waves, to hurl them a hundred feet in air,--heaping up
the ocean against the land,--upturning the woods. Bays and

passes were swollen to abysses; rivers regorged; the sea-marshes
were changed to raging wastes of water. Before New Orleans the

flood of the mile-broad Mississippi rose six feet above highest
water-mark. One hundred and ten miles away, Donaldsonville

trembled at the towering tide of the Lafourche. Lakes strove to
burst their boundaries. Far-off river steamers tugged wildly at

their cables,--shivering like tethered creatures that hear by
night the approaching howl of destroyers. Smoke-stacks were

hurled overboard, pilot-houses torn away, cabins blown to
fragments.

And over roaring Kaimbuck Pass,--over the agony of Caillou
Bay,--the billowing tide rushed unresisted from the

Gulf,--tearing and swallowing the land in its course,--ploughing
out deep-sea channels where sleek herds had been grazing but a

few hours before,--rending islands in twain,--and ever bearing
with it, through the night, enormous vortex of wreck and vast wan

drift of corpses ...
But the Star remained. And Captain Abraham Smith, with a long,

good rope about his waist, dashed again and again into that awful
surging to snatch victims from death,--clutching at passing

hands, heads, garments, in the cataract-sweep of the
seas,--saving, aiding, cheering, though blinded by spray and

battered by drifting wreck, until his strength failed in the
unequal struggle at last, and his men drew him aboard senseless,

with some beautiful half-drowned girl safe in his arms. But
well-nigh twoscore souls had been rescued by him; and the Star

stayed on through it all.
Long years after, the weed-grown ribs of her graceful skeleton

could still be seen, curving up from the sand-dunes of Last
Island, in valiantwitness of how well she stayed.

VII.
Day breaks through the flying wrack, over the infinite heaving of

the sea, over the low land made vast with desolation. It is a
spectral dawn: a wan light, like the light of a dying sun.

The wind has waned and veered; the flood sinks slowly back to its
abysses--abandoning its plunder,--scattering its piteous waifs

over bar and dune, over shoal and marsh, among the silences of
the mango-swamps, over the long low reaches of sand-grasses and

drowned weeds, for more than a hundred miles. From the
shell-reefs of Pointe-au-Fer to the shallows of Pelto Bay the

dead lie mingled with the high-heaped drift;--from their cypress
groves the vultures rise to dispute a share of the feast with the

shrieking frigate-birds and squeaking gulls. And as the
tremendous tide withdraws its plunging waters, all the pirates of

air follow the great white-gleaming retreat: a storm of
billowing wings and screaming throats.

And swift in the wake of gull and frigate-bird the Wreckers come,
the Spoilers of the dead,--savage skimmers of the

sea,--hurricane-riders wont to spread their canvas-pinions in the
face of storms; Sicilian and Corsican outlaws, Manila-men from

the marshes, deserters from many navies, Lascars, marooners,
refugees of a hundred nationalities,--fishers and shrimpers by

name, smugglers by opportunity,--wild channel-finders from
obscure bayous and unfamiliar chenieres, all skilled in the

mysteries of these mysterious waters beyond the comprehension of
the oldest licensed pilot ...

There is plunder for all--birds and men. There are drowned sheep
in multitude, heaped carcasses of kine. There are casks of

claret and kegs of brandy and legions of bottles bobbing in the
surf. There are billiard-tables overturned upon the sand;--there

are sofas, pianos, footstools and music-stools, luxurious chairs,
lounges of bamboo. There are chests of cedar, and toilet-tables

of rosewood, and trunks of fine stamped leather stored with