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 324 hard to reach the shore; but, in a few minutes, struck by a sea, it filled with water and disappeared.

One man only succeeded in reaching the shore, almost exhausted with cold and fatigue. He was the pilot Ventura. Paying no attention to the questions the people put to him, he unwound a line that was fastened round his body, and ordered them to hold on by the end so as to assist in saving the remaining sailors on board the schooner. A hundred hands immediately seized the rope, and held it with the strength of a capstan. That done, the pilot gave me the details of the dark and mysterious proceeding which I had just witnessed. The ship had been lost through a false light. The beacon-fire that had drawn her upon a reef of rocks had been lit by the perfidious hands of one of those wreckers to whom every ship wreck is a godsend. While telling a story which reflected so much credit upon himself for his courage, Ventura's eyes wandered about among the crowd, seeking to discover the malicious individual who had caused the loss of the schooner. I could hardly help thinking on the person whom I had seen in advance of me before my arrival at Bocca del Rio, and who, on the first signal of distress given by the ship, had galloped off so furiously in the direction of the sea.

"Curse them!" cried Ventura, on finishing his account; "to the devil with those wreckers whom the north wind brings to the coast to rob the shipwrecked and pillage the cargo! Above all, confound the rascal who led us ashore to gratify his own infernal cupidity!"

While he was speaking, the vibratory motion given to the cordage announced that the sailors of the ship were striving to reach the land by its assistance. In