The Toilers of the Sea

by Victor Hugo

  There were no remains of clothing around the skeleton. The man must have been naked when he was caught.

  Gilliatt, examining the remains carefully, set about removing the crabs from the remains of the man. Who had he been? The corpse had been skillfully dissected, like a cadaver prepared for an anatomy lesson. All the flesh had been removed; not a muscle was left; not a bone was missing. Had Gilliatt been a doctor he would have been able to confirm this. The periostea, denuded of their covering, were white, polished, as if specially furbished. But for some green patches left by confervae, they might have been ivory. The cartilaginous septa were delicately thinned down and smoothed. The tomb can create such sinister pieces of jewelry.

  The corpse had been, in effect, buried under the dead crabs. Gilliatt was unearthing it.

  Suddenly he bent forward quickly. He had seen something encircling the spinal column. It was a leather belt that had evidently been buckled around the man's waist. The leather was mildewed and the buckle was rusty.

  Gilliatt drew the belt toward him. The vertebrae resisted, and he had to break them in order to remove it. The belt was intact, though a crust of shells was beginning to form on it. He felt it: inside it was a hard, square object. There was no question of undoing the buckle, and he split the leather with his knife.

  The belt contained a small iron box and a few gold coins. Gilliatt counted twenty guineas. The iron box was an old sailor's tobacco box, with a spring catch. It was much rusted and very firmly closed. The spring was completely oxidized and no longer worked. Once again Gilliatt's knife served him well. A little pressure with the point and the lid flew open.

  There was nothing in the box but paper: a few very thin pieces of paper, folded in four. They were damp, but not damaged. The hermetically sealed box had preserved them. Gilliatt unfolded them.

  They were three banknotes, each for a thousand pounds sterling, amounting in total to seventy-five thousand francs.

  Gilliatt folded them up again and put them back in the box, taking advantage of the remaining space to add the twenty guineas, and closed the box as best he could.

  Then he examined the belt. The outer surface had originally been varnished, but the other side was rough. On this yellow-brown background were some letters in thick black ink. Gilliatt deciphered them and read the name Sieur Clubin.

  V

  IN THE GAP BETWEEN SIX INCHES AND TWO FEET THERE IS ROOM FOR DEATH

  Gilliatt put the box back in the belt and the belt in his trouser pocket. He left the skeleton to the crabs, with the dead devilfish beside it.

  While Gilliatt had been engaged with the devilfish and the skeleton the rising tide had engulfed the entrance passage, and he could get out only by diving under the arch. This gave him no trouble: he knew the way out, and he was a master of these sea gymnastics.

  The drama that had taken place ten weeks before can now be pictured. One monster had seized the other. The devilfish had taken Clubin to his death. It had been, in the inexorable darkness, what might almost be called an encounter between two hypocrisies. There had been a meeting in the depths of the abyss between these two existences of watchfulness and darkness, and one, which was the animal, had executed the other, which was the soul. A sinister act of justice.

  The crab feeds on carrion, the devilfish on crabs. The devilfish seizes any animal that swims by--an otter, a dog, a man if it is able to--drinks its blood, and leaves the dead body on the sea bottom. Crabs are the burying beetles of the sea. The putrefying flesh attracts them; they make for the corpse; they eat it, and the devilfish eats them. The dead things disappear into the crab, and the crab disappears into the devilfish. We have already noted this law.

  Clubin had been the bait that attracted the devilfish. It had seized hold of him and drowned him, and the crabs had devoured him. Some wave had then swept him into the cavern and the crevice where Gilliatt had found him.

  Gilliatt retraced his footsteps, hunting among the rocks for sea urchins and limpets. He no longer wanted crabs: it would have been like eating human flesh.

  Now he was thinking only about getting the best supper he could before leaving. There was nothing to hold him back. Great storms are always followed by a calm that sometimes lasts several days. There was now no danger from the sea. Gilliatt was determined to leave the next morning. It would be necessary, because of the rising tide, to keep the barrier between the two Douvres during the night; but Gilliatt planned to remove it at daybreak, push the paunch out from between the Douvres, and set sail for St. Sampson. The gentle breeze that was blowing from the southeast was exactly the wind he needed. The May moon was just entering its first quarter, and the days were long.

  By the time Gilliatt returned to the channel between the two Douvres where the paunch was moored, his hunt for shellfish among the rocks over and his stomach more or less satisfied, the sun had set and the twilight was accompanied by that dim moonlight that might be called crescent light; the tide had reached full and was beginning to ebb. The funnel of the Durande, rising erect out of the paunch, had been covered by the foam of the storm with a coating of salt that shone white in the moonlight. This reminded Gilliatt that a great deal of rainwater and seawater had been thrown into the paunch by the tempest and that if he wanted to leave the following morning, he would have to bale it out.

  On leaving the paunch to hunt for crabs he had noticed that there was about six inches of water in the bottom of the boat, which he would have no difficulty in emptying out with his baling scoop.

  Returning to the boat, he was struck with terror. There was almost two feet of water in her. This was an alarming discovery: the paunch was leaking. She had gradually been filling during his absence. Heavily laden as she was, twenty inches of water was a dangerous addition. It would take only a little more to sink her. If Gilliatt had come back an hour later he would probably have found only the funnel and the mast above water.

  He could not take even a minute to think what to do. He must find the leak, stop it, and then empty the boat, or at least lighten it. The Durande's pumps had been lost in the shipwreck: all he had was the paunch's baling scoop.

  The most urgent thing was to find the leak. Without giving himself time to get dressed, Gilliatt set to work at once, quivering with anxiety. He no longer felt hunger or cold. The paunch was still taking in water. Fortunately there was no wind. The least wave would have sunk the boat.

  The moon now set. Gilliatt, feeling his way, crouching down, more than half under water, searched for a long time before finally discovering where the mischief lay. During the storm, at the critical moment when the paunch had been thrown up into the air, the sturdy vessel, falling back, had struck the rock with some violence, and a projection on the Little Douvre had ripped a hole in the hull on the starboard side.

  Unfortunately--it almost seemed maliciously--the hole was at the meeting point of two riders. This, combined with the confusion caused by the squall, had prevented Gilliatt from seeing the damage in his very cursory inspection at the height of the storm.

  The alarming thing about the break was that it was so wide; the reassuring thing was that, although the paunch was floating lower than usual because of the increasing weight of water in the hull, she was still above the normal waterline.

  At the moment when the damage had been done the water in the channel was violently disturbed and there was no waterline; the sea had entered through the hole, and under this overload the paunch had sunk several inches. Even after the waves had calmed down the weight of liquid that had found its way in, by raising the waterline, had kept the hole under water. Hence the imminence of the danger. The height of water in the boat had risen from six inches to twenty. But if the leak could be stopped it would be possible to empty the paunch; and once she had been made watertight she would rise to her normal waterline, the hole would be out of the water, and the necessary repair would be easy, or at least possible. As we have seen, Gilliatt still had his carpenter's tools in reasonably good condition.

&nb
sp; But how many uncertainties there were before that stage could be reached! how many dangers! how many unlucky chances! Gilliatt heard the water inexorably trickling in. The slightest shock, and the paunch would founder. It was a wretched situation. Perhaps, indeed, it was already too late.

  Gilliatt bitterly reproached himself. He should have seen the damage at once. The six inches of water in the hull should have warned him. He had been foolish to attribute these six inches to the rain and the foam. He blamed himself for having slept, for having eaten; he blamed himself for his tiredness; he almost blamed himself for the storm and the darkness. It was all his fault.

  While he was heaping these reproaches on himself he still went about his work, which did not prevent him from considering what had to be done.

  The leak had been located: that was the first step. The second was to stop it. That was all that could be done for the moment. You cannot do carpentry under water.

  One favorable circumstance was that the damage to the hull was in the space between the two chains that made the Durande's funnel fast on the starboard side. The oakum used to stop the hole could be fixed to these chains.

  Meanwhile the water was gaining. It was now over two feet deep, reaching above Gilliatt's knees.

  VI

  DE PROFUNDIS AD ALTUM206

  Among the stores in the paunch Gilliatt had a fair-sized tarpaulin with long lanyards at the four corners.

  He took the tarpaulin, fastened the lanyards on two of the corners to the two rings of the chains holding the Durande's funnel on the side where the leak was, and threw it overboard. It fell between the paunch and the Little Douvre and sank into the water, where it was held over the hole in the hull by the pressure of the water seeking to enter through the hole. The greater the pressure, the more firmly the tarpaulin adhered to the hull, being held in place over the hole by the waves themselves. The wound in the vessel's side was stanched, and, with the tarpaulin interposed between the interior of the hull and the water outside, not a drop could enter.

  The leak was blocked but not closed. It was at any rate a respite.

  Gilliatt took the baling scoop and began to empty water out of the paunch. It was high time to lighten her. The work warmed him up a little, but he was extremely tired. He was compelled to admit to himself that he might not be able to complete the task and make the hull watertight. He had had very little to eat and was humiliated to feel himself exhausted. He measured the progress of his work by the falling of the water level below his knees; but the fall was very slow.

  Besides, the leak was only temporarily stopped: the mischief had been alleviated but not put right. The tarpaulin, driven into the hole by the pressure of the water, was beginning to swell into the hull like a tumor. It looked as if a fist were thrusting into the canvas and trying to burst through it. Strong and thickly coated with tar, it was holding out, but the swelling and the pressure were increasing and it was by no means certain that it would not give way: at any moment the tumor might burst, and water would again surge in.

  In such a case, as the crews of vessels in distress know, the only solution is to stop the hole with whatever scraps of canvas and oakum are available and force as much as possible of this material into the hole to reduce the tumor. But Gilliatt had no material of this kind. All that he had salvaged from the wreck and stored up had either been used in his work or scattered by the storm. As a last chance he might have been able to find some fragments of material by scavenging among the rocks. The paunch was now sufficiently lightened to allow him to leave it for a quarter of an hour; but how could he look for anything without any light? He was in utter darkness: there was no moon--nothing but a somber sky studded with stars. Gilliatt had no dry rope to make a wick, no tallow to make a candle, no fire to light it, no lantern to shelter it. In the paunch and on the reef everything was confused and indistinct. He could hear the water swirling around the wounded hull; he could not even see the hole, and could only feel the growing pressure on the tarpaulin with his hands. There could be no question of looking for fragments of canvas and rope among the rocks in the prevailing darkness. How could he glean such scraps without seeing what he was doing? Gilliatt looked gloomily into the night. All these stars, and not a single candle!

  Now that there was less water in the hull the pressure from outside was increasing. The swelling in the tarpaulin was growing in size: it was increasingly ballooning into the interior of the hull. The situation, after a brief improvement, was again becoming threatening.

  It was of the utmost importance to plug the hole. Gilliatt's only remaining resource was his clothes, which he had laid out to dry on projecting rocks on the Little Douvre. He went to pick them up and laid them on the bulwarks of the paunch. He took his oilskins and, kneeling in the water, thrust them into the hole, pushing out the tumor in the tarpaulin and emptying it. The oilskins were followed by the sheepskin, the sheepskin by the woolen shirt, the shirt by the pea jacket. All these went into the hole. He had only one item of clothing left, his trousers: he took them off and used them to enlarge and strengthen the plug. This seemed sufficient to stop the hole.

  The plug went right through the hole, enclosed within the tarpaulin. The water seeking to find a way into the hull pressed against this obstacle and spread it out over the hole, strengthening the plug. It was like an external compress.

  Inside the boat only the center of the swelling had been pushed out, and there remained all around the hole and the plug a circular pad of tarpaulin that the very inequalities of the breach held firm.

  The leak was sealed; but the position was still extremely precarious. The sharp edges of the breach that held the tarpaulin in place might cut through it and let the water in. In the darkness Gilliatt would not even see it happening. It was unlikely that the plug would hold out until daylight. Gilliatt's anxiety was changing in form, but he felt it growing at the same time as he felt his strength failing. He had returned to his work of emptying out the water, but his arms were so exhausted that he could hardly raise the scoop when it was full of water. He was naked and shivering with cold. He felt the sinister approach of the last extremity.

  One possible chance occurred to him. There might be another vessel out at sea. Perhaps some fisherman sailing in the waters off the Douvres might come to his aid. The moment had come when it was absolutely necessary to have someone to help him. One man and a lantern, and the situation could still be saved. Two men could easily bale out the paunch, and when she was empty she would rise to her normal waterline, the hole in the hull would be above the water, and it would be possible to make good the damage. The plug could be replaced by a piece of planking, the makeshift arrangement for stopping the leak by a permanent repair. But if there was no hope in that direction it would be necessary to wait until daylight--to wait throughout the whole long night: a delay that could be fatal. Gilliatt was in a fever of impatience. If by chance some vessel's light were within sight he could signal to it from the top of the Great Douvre. The weather was calm; there was no wind and the sea was quiet. A man waving against the background of the starlit sky had a good chance of being noticed. The captain of a ship or the skipper of a fishing boat sailing at night in these waters would certainly, as a necessary precaution, keep his telescope trained on the Douvres. Gilliatt hoped that he would be seen.

  He climbed onto the wreck, seized hold of the knotted rope, and scaled the Great Douvre. Not a sail on the horizon. Not a light anywhere. As far as the eye could reach, the sea was empty. There was no hope of assistance, no hope of further resistance. For the first time Gilliatt felt helpless and at a loss. An obscure fatality was now his mistress. With his boat, with the engines of the Durande, with all his toil, with all his success, with all his courage, he was now at the mercy of the abyss. He had no means of continuing the struggle; he was now purely passive. How could he stop the incoming tide, stop the water from rising and the night from continuing? His only hope now lay in the temporary plug he had constructed, exhausting himself and strip
ping himself naked in the process. He could neither strengthen it nor make it any firmer; such as it was, it must stay that way; there was nothing further to be done. The makeshift contrivance for stopping the leak was now within the power of the sea. How would this inert obstacle behave? The fight was now to be carried on by this contrivance, not by Gilliatt; by a scrap of material, not by human will. The swelling of a wave could reopen the breach. It all now turned on a greater or lesser degree of pressure.

  The matter was now to be determined by a struggle between two mechanical quantities. Gilliatt could no longer either help his ally or resist his enemy. He was now merely a spectator of his fate--his life or his death. He had hitherto been the directing intelligence; now, at this supreme moment, he had given place to a mindless resistance. None of the trials and the terrors he had passed through was the equal of this.

  When he had arrived at the Douvres he had found himself surrounded and, as it were, caught up by solitude, which not only encompassed him but enveloped him. He had been confronted by a thousand threats, all at the same time. The wind was there, ready to blow; the sea was there, ready to roar. There was no means of gagging that mouth, the wind; no means of blunting those jaws, the sea. And yet he had struggled; a man, he had fought hand to hand with the ocean; he had wrestled with the storm.

  He had faced up to other anxieties and still other necessities. He had coped with every kind of distress. He had had to work without tools, move heavy weights without aid, solve problems without the necessary knowledge, eat and drink without food supplies, sleep without a bed and without a roof over him. On the reef--that tragic torturer's rack--he had been successively put to the question by the various fatalities of nature, henchmen in the service of that nature who is a mother when she wills, an executioner when she thinks fit.

  He had vanquished isolation, vanquished hunger, vanquished thirst, vanquished cold, vanquished fever, vanquished toil, vanquished sleep. He had encountered a variety of obstacles leagued against him to bar his progress. After lack of resources there had been the sea; after the sea, the storm; after the tempest, the devilfish; after the monster, the specter. And now there was this final lugubrious irony. On this reef from which Gilliatt had hoped to depart in triumph Clubin's skull had stared at him with a sardonic grin. The grin on the specter's face was justified. Gilliatt realized that he was lost; he was no less dead than Clubin.