Then came stupor; like a man half under the influence of chloroform the man amidst the bushes, deafened, and blinded and stupefied by the torment around him, saw visions, and dreamt dreams in which the blinding lightning flashes lit blue seas and the voice of the wind was the voices of people.
How long he lay like this it would be impossible to say before raising himself on his elbow, he returned fully to consciousness.
The great fury of the hurricane had passed; it was still blowing hard and strong, but the worst was over and the moon was lighting the world through the rushing clouds. He rose to his feet, but fell on his knees again immediately. He had eaten nothing during the past twenty-four hours, and the drug was still weakening him; but in the moment of rising he had seen a sight surpassing in terror even the fury of the hurricane, and now amidst the bushes, on hands and knees, motionless and petrified by the drama before him, he looked.
_La Belle Arlésienne_ was coming ashore, now uplifted on the crest of a wave, now vanishing in a hollow, dismasted all but for the stump of the foremast, from which a rag of canvas was wildly flying. _La Belle Arlésienne_ was being driven to the lagoon by the merciless whip of the wind.
The hag of the sea had found her master at last; stealth and cunning could not save her now, nor trickery, nor subterfuge. She had flung them all away. Like some witch who had worked evil long in silence, dragged at last shrieking to the gallows, the old barquentine seemed fighting against her fate.
Her fluttering rags of canvas seemed clawing at the wind; she screamed, and Gaspard on his knees could hear her screams in the high-pitched wailing of her crew, the shrill pig-like screaming of negroes hurled and huddled together, animals waiting for inevitable death.
A moment he saw her held up strong in the moonlight on the crest of a vast wave; then a cloud drew a skirt of shadow over her and when the moon broke through again she was gone, deep in the pocket of the lagoon, over which the thirty-foot waves were rushing shoreward.
He must have fallen asleep as he knelt, for when he regained consciousness he had no memory of having lain down. Yet he was lying on his side amidst the bushes, the day was broad, the sun shining, the sky without a cloud, though still swept by the rushing wind.