Page:The Great Secret.djvu/107

Rh against heat and concussion, otherwise with the vessel the Anarchists would have been sent in detached pieces to the top of those lofty cliffs, at the bottom of which they were being butted to death.

It was a fit and terrible retribution for the sanguinary crimes which they had committed under the sacred names of Liberty and Equality, a rapid and fearful termination to their adventure.

The engines had stopped now, so that the giant breakers had the victim all in their own grasp, and ruthlessly they played their game with this new toy, this noble creation of art and science. Backward they sucked her as they broke, and fled themselves before the shock of those bulwarks of ages. Forwards they dashed her like a stone from a catapult, rushing with her and over her with savage roaring, like merry white witches in their demoniac joy over the work of destruction.

She was no longer a stately object as she was tossed to and fro with gaping sides and twisted plates. Her bows had shrivelled up at the first touch, and now her air compartments were being broken one after the other. Her masts were quickly shaken out of her, and now helped the cruel waves in the fell work—a helpless and shapeless mass of still floating iron this noble Rockhampton would have appeared, had those heavenly flakes not mercifully covered her from all eyes.

Captain Anatole sprang to his feet almost as soon as the doctor, while some of the others began to recover their senses. The princess, the baroness and the countess were up first, with all their wits sharpened by the imminent danger, for although they were luxurious wantons in the hours of rest and peace, they were tigresses in battle and resolute in moments of peril.