But the cables were no sooner taut than the numerous anchors
resisted, and brought the bark head to wind. Maso felt the yielding of the
vessel's stern, as she swung furiously round, and he cheered aloud. The
trembling of the timbers, the dashing against the pointed beak, and that
high jet of water, which shot up over the bows and fell heavily on the
forecastle, washing aft in a flood, were so many evidences that the cables
were true. Advancing from his post, with some such dignity as a master of
fence displays in the exercise of his art, he shouted for his dog.
"Nettuno!--Nettuno!--where art thou, brave Nettuno?"
The faithful animal was whining near him, unheard in that war of the
elements. He waited only for this encouragement to act. No sooner was his
master's voice heard, than, barking bravely, he snuffed the gale, dashed
to the side of the vessel, and leaped into the boiling lake.
When Melchior de Willading and his friend returned to the surface, after
their plunge, it was like men making their appearance in a world abandoned
to the infernal humors of the fiends of darkness.
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