Behind him the village was beginning to awaken and, over the dark waters, the sails of the fishermen, fleeing the inner sea, were slipping past like ghostly shrouds.
Two vigorous strokes of the oar sent their boat out from the little wharf of stones, and soon he was untying the sails from the gunwales and preparing the ropes.

The unfurled canvas whistled and swelled in bellying whiteness.

"There we are! Now for a run!" The water was beginning to sing, slipping past both sides of the prow.
Between it and the edge of the sail could be seen a bit of black sea, and coming little by little over its line, a great red streak.

The streak soon became a helmet, then a hemisphere, then an Arabian arch confined at the bottom, until finally it shot up out of the liquid mass as though it were a bomb sending forth flashes of flame.

The ash-colored clouds became stained with blood and the large rocks of the coast began to sparkle like copper mirrors.