It was Gilliatt.  All eyes were turned towards him.  Lethierry had just before stood upright and gazed about him.  His eyes glittered with a strange light.  He took off his sailor’s cap, and threw it on the ground; then looked solemnly before him, and without seeing any of the persons present, said Derouchette should be his.  “I pledge myself to it in God’s name!”

II.—­The Prey of the Rocks

The two perpendicular forms called the Douvres held fast between them, like an architrave between two pillars, the wreck of the Durande.  The spectacle thus presented was a vast portal in the midst of the sea.  It might have been a titanic cromlech planted there in mid-ocean by hands accustomed to proportion their labours to the great deep.  Its wild outline stood well defined against the clear sky when Gilliatt approached in his sloop.

The rocks, thus holding fast and exhibiting their prey, were terrible to behold.  There was a menace in the attitude of the rocks.  They seemed to be biding their time.  Nothing could be more suggestive of haughtiness and arrogance:  the conquered vessel, the triumphant abyss.  The two rocks, still streaming with the tempest of the day before, were like two wrestlers sweating from a recent struggle.  Up to a certain height they were completely bearded with seaweed; above this their steep haunches glittered at points like polished armour.  They seemed ready to begin the strife again.  The imagination might have pictured them as two monstrous arms, reaching upwards from the gulf, and exhibiting to the tempest the lifeless body of the ship.  If Gilliatt had known how she came to be there, he might have been more awed by the tremendous spectacle.  The cause was an accident, and yet a purposed act.

Clubin, the captain, as smug a hypocrite as ever scuttled a ship, had intended to run the Durande on the Hanways.  His belt contained three thousand pounds.  He meant to lose the ship on the Hanways, a mile from shore, and when the passengers had rowed away, pretending that he would go down with the ship, Clubin purposed to swim to land, get on board a pirate ship, and be off to the East.  His little drama had been acted out; the boats had rowed away, everybody praising Captain Clubin, who would not abandon his ship.  But when the fog cleared—­horror of horrors!—­Clubin found himself not on the Hanways, but on the Douvres; not one mile from shore, but five miles!

Clubin saw a ship in the distance.  He determined to swim to a rock from which he could be seen, and make signals of distress.  He undressed, leaving his clothing on deck.  He retained nothing but his leather belt, and then, precipitating himself head first, plunged into the sea.  As he dived from a height, he plunged heavily.  He sank deep in the water, touched the bottom, skirted for a moment the submarine rocks, then struck out to regain the surface.  At that moment he felt himself seized by one foot.