About three o'clock
The men at home , pale and frowning , bit nervously at the ends of their cigars , and , from the lee of the boats drawn up on the sand , studied the lowering horizon with the tense penetrating gaze of sailormen , or nervously watched the harbor entrance beyond the Breakwater on whose red rocks the first storm waves were breaking . What was happening to so many husbands and fathers caught with their nets down off shore ? Each succeeding squall , as it sent the terrified watchers staggering along the beach , called up the thought of strong masts snapping at the level of the deck and triangular sails torn to shreds , perhaps at that very moment ! About three o'clock on the black horizon a line of sails appeared , driving before the gale like puffs of foam that vanished suddenly in the troughs of the waves to dart back into view again on the crests succeeding . The fleet was returning like a frightened herd in stampede , each boat plunging in the combers with the bellow of the tempest upon its heels . Would they make the lee of the Breakwater ? The wind in devilish playfulness would here tear off a shred of canvas , there a yard , and there a mast or a tiller , till a rudderless craft , caught abeam by a mountain of greenish water , would seem surely to be swallowed up .