The Toilers of the Sea

by Victor Hugo

  Mess Lethierry stopped, raised his eyes in the kind of glance that sees the heavens through the ceiling, and said between his teeth: "Yes, there is one."

  Then he laid the middle finger of his right hand between his eyebrows, with the nail resting on the root of the nose--an action that indicates a project passing through the mind--and went on: "All the same, to let me begin again on a large scale, a little ready money would have been a great help. Ah, if I only had my three banknotes, the seventy-five thousand francs which that brigand Rantaine returned to me and that other brigand Clubin stole from me!"

  Gilliatt, in silence, felt in his pocket for something and put it down in front of him. It was the leather belt he had brought back with him. He opened it up and spread it out on the table. In the moonlight the name Clubin could be picked out on the inside of the belt. Then he drew a box out of the pocket in the belt and extracted from it three folded slips of paper, which he unfolded and passed to Mess Lethierry.

  Mess Lethierry examined the three slips of paper. There was enough light to make out the figure 1,000 and the word thousand. Mess Lethierry took the three banknotes, put them down on the table one beside the other, looked at them, looked at Gilliatt, and for a moment seemed dumbfounded. Then he burst out, in an eruption following his earlier explosion: "You've got them, too! What a fellow you are! All three of my banknotes! My seventy-five thousand francs! So you must have gone down to hell to get them. It is Clubin's belt. Of course! I can read his accursed name. Gilliatt brings back both the engines and the money! Here's a fine story for the newspapers! I'll buy top-quality wood. I suppose you found his carcass--Clubin rotting in some corner. We'll get the fir wood in Danzig and the oak in Bremen; we'll have first-rate planking, oak inside and fir outside. In the past they didn't build ships so well, but they lasted longer: the timber was better seasoned, because they didn't build so many. Perhaps we should make the hull of elm. Elm is good for the parts under water. When timber is sometimes dry and sometimes wet it tends to rot; but elm likes being always wet, it feeds on water. What a fine Durande we're going to have! They're not going to lay down the law to me! I shan't need to get credit: I have the money. Was there ever such a man as this Gilliatt! I was struck to the ground, laid low, a dead man; and he has set me up again on my two feet. And I wasn't even thinking about him! He'd passed completely out of my mind. It all comes back to me now. Poor fellow! And now, of course, you'll marry Deruchette."

  Gilliatt sank back against the wall, like a man who is unsteady on his feet, and in a low voice, but very distinctly, said: "No."

  Mess Lethierry started up.

  "What do you mean, No?"

  Gilliatt replied:

  "I do not love her."

  Mess Lethierry went to the window, opened it and closed it again, returned to the table, took the three banknotes, folded them, put the iron box on top of them, scratched his head, seized Clubin's belt, threw it violently against the wall, and said: "There's something funny here."

  Thrusting his hands in his pockets, he went on: "You don't love Deruchette! So when you played your bagpipes you were playing for me?"

  Gilliatt, still leaning against the wall, paled like a man about to expire. As he grew pale, Mess Lethierry grew red.

  "Here's a fine fool! He doesn't love Deruchette! Well, just make up your mind to love her, for she's not going to marry anyone but you. What sort of a cock-and-bull story is this of yours? You're not going to get me to believe it! Are you ill? Then send for the doctor, but don't talk such nonsense! You haven't had time to quarrel and fall out with her. Lovers, of course, are so silly! Come now: have you any reasons? If you have, tell me what they are. There must be some reason for behaving so foolishly. After the shock I have had there is cotton wool in my ears: perhaps I didn't hear properly. Tell me again what you said just now."

  Gilliatt replied:

  "I said No."

  "You said No! He sticks to it, the brute! There's something wrong with you, that's for sure! This is stupidity beyond belief! People get ducked for a lot less than this! So you don't love Deruchette! Then it must have been for love of the old man that you've done what you've done? It was for his sake that you went to the Douvres, that you put up with cold and heat, that you were tormented by hunger and thirst, that you ate the vermin of the rocks, that you slept at night in fog, rain, and wind, that you managed to bring me back my engines, as you might bring back to a pretty woman a canary that had escaped from its cage! And just think of the storm we had the other day! Don't imagine that I don't realize what it was like. You must have had a rough time all right! It was for the sake of my old noddle that you cut and hacked away and shaped and twisted and dragged about and glued and sawed and nailed together and worked out what to do and scratched around and worked more miracles, all on your own, than all the saints in paradise? Oh, what a fool you must be! And you were such a torment to me with your bagpipes, too! They call them biniou in Brittany. Always the same tune, God help me! And so you don't love Deruchette! I don't know what's wrong with you! I remember it all perfectly well now: I was in the corner over there, and Deruchette said, 'I'll marry him.' And she will marry you! You don't love her, you say. I still don't understand. Either you are mad or I am. And he still doesn't say a word! You can't do all that you have done and then come back and say: 'I don't love Deruchette.' People don't do services to others in order to put them in a rage. Very well: if you don't marry her, then she'll remain a spinster. Besides, I need you. You will be the Durande's pilot. You don't imagine I'm going to let you go off like that? No, no, my fine fellow, I've got you and I'm not going to let you go. I won't hear of it. Where is a seaman like you to be found? You're the man for me. But for God's sake say something!"

  Meanwhile the harbor bell had awakened the household and the whole neighborhood.

  Douce and Grace had got up and had just come into the room, struck dumb with astonishment. Grace had a candle in her hand. A group of neighbors, townspeople, seamen, and countryfolk had rushed out of their houses and were standing on the quay, gazing in wonderment at the funnel of the Durande in the paunch. Some of them, hearing Mess Lethierry's voice in the ground-floor room, were slipping silently into the room through the half-open door. Between the faces of two gossips could be seen the head of Sieur Landoys, who had the good fortune always to be there when something was happening that he would have been sorry to miss.

  In moments of great joy people are glad to have an audience. They like a crowd for the platform it offers; it gives them a fresh boost. Mess Lethierry suddenly realized that he had people around him, and at once welcomed his audience.

  "Ah, there you are, my friends. That's good. You have heard the news. This fellow here has been there, and has brought the thing back. How d'you do, Sieur Landoys? When I awoke just now I saw the funnel. It was under my window. There's not a screw missing in the whole thing. They produce prints of Napoleon's feats; but I prefer this to the Battle of Austerlitz. You are just out of your beds, good people. The Durande arrived while you were still asleep. While you are putting on your nightcaps and blowing out your candles there are others who are heroes. We are a lot of faint-hearts and do-nothings, coddling our rheumatism; but thankfully there are other daredevil characters who go out to where they are needed and do what has to be done. The man who lives at the Bu de la Rue is just back from the Douvres reef. He has rescued the Durande from the bottom of the sea and fished out my money from Clubin's pockets, still deeper down.--But how did you manage it? All the devil's works were against you, the wind and the tide, the tide and the wind. It's true that you're a warlock. Those who say so are not far wrong. The Durande is back! The storms can rage, but they've been put in their place smartly! I tell you, my friends, there has been no shipwreck. I've examined the engines: they are as good as new, complete and undamaged. The pistons work easily, as if they were made yesterday. You know that waste water from the engines is discharged in a tube that is inside the tube feeding water in, so as to use the heat: well, bo
th tubes are still there. She's all there, including the paddle wheels. Ah, you shall marry her!"

  "Marry whom--the engines?" asked Sieur Landoys.

  "No, the girl. Yes, the engines. Both. He'll be my son-in-law twice over. He'll be captain. Welcome on board, Captain Gilliatt! There's going to be a new Durande! We're going to do good business, with passengers and goods and cargoes of cattle and sheep! I wouldn't exchange St. Sampson for London itself! And here's the man who did it. I tell you, what a deed it was! You'll read about it on Saturday in old Mauger's Gazette. Gilliatt the Cunning One is cunning, all right!--But what are these louis d'or I see?"

  Mess Lethierry had just noticed, under the half-open lid of the box holding down the banknotes, that the box contained a number of gold coins. He took up the box, opened it fully, emptied it into his hand, and put the handful of guineas on the table.

  "These are for the poor. Sieur Landoys, give this money from me to the constable of St. Sampson. You know about Rantaine's letter: I showed it to you, Well, now I've got the banknotes. They'll allow us to buy oak and fir and set to work. Just look! You remember the weather we had three days ago? What a battering of wind and rain! The heavens were firing all they had at us! Gilliatt was faced with all that on the Douvres reef, but he still managed to pick up the Durande as easily as I would pick up my watch. Thanks to him I am on my legs again. Old Lethierry's galliot is going to sail again. A walnut shell with two wheels and a funnel--I've always had my heart set on that. I've always said to myself, I'll make one of these! The idea first came to me in Paris, in the cafe at the corner of Rue Christine and Rue Dauphine, when I read about it in a newspaper. I tell you, Gilliatt could have put the Marly waterworks213 in his pocket and gone for a walk with them! He's made of wrought iron, that man--of tempered steel, of diamond; he's a seaman that hasn't his like anywhere, a blacksmith, a tremendous fellow, a more astonishing character than the prince of Hohenlohe.214 That's what I call a man of spirit! None of the rest of us are up to much: old sea dogs we--you or I--may call ourselves, but the lion of the sea is this man here. Hurrah for Gilliatt! I don't know how he did it, but certainly he's a devil of a fellow all right; and what can I do but give him Deruchette!"

  A few moments ago Deruchette had come into the room. She had said nothing and made no noise, but had glided in like a shadow. She had sat down, almost unnoticed, on a chair behind Mess Lethierry, who was still standing, in a most joyful mood, pouring out a storm of words in a loud voice and gesturing vigorously. Soon after her arrival there was another silent apparition. A man dressed in black, with a white cravat, holding his hat in his hand, had stopped in the doorway. The number of people in the room had slowly increased, and several of them were holding candles. They illuminated the profile of the man in black, which was of a charming, youthful whiteness and stood out against the dark background with the sharpness of a figure on a medal. He was leaning his elbow against one corner of a panel on the door and holding his forehead in his right hand, in an attitude of unconscious grace, the smallness of his hand bringing out the height of his brow. His lips were pursed in an expression of anguish. He watched and listened with profound attention. The people in the room, recognizing the Reverend Mr. Caudray, rector of the parish, had drawn aside to let him through, but he had remained standing on the threshold. There was an air of hesitation in his posture and of decision in his glance. Now and then his eyes met Deruchette's.

  Gilliatt, meanwhile, whether by chance or design, was in shadow and could not be seen clearly.

  Mess Lethierry did not at first notice the rector, but he saw Deruchette. He went up to her and kissed her with all the passion that a kiss on the forehead can contain, at the same time extending his arm toward the dark corner of the room where Gilliatt was standing.

  "Deruchette," he said, "now you are rich again, and there is your husband."

  Deruchette looked up in bewilderment and gazed into the obscurity.

  Mess Lethierry went on:

  "We'll have the marriage right away, tomorrow if possible. We'll have the necessary dispensations; in any case, the formalities here are not troublesome; the dean can do what he pleases, people are married before they can turn around--it's not like France, where you have to have banns and publications and delays and all the rest of it. Then you will be able to boast of having a good husband, and there's no question about it, he's a first-class seaman: I've thought that ever since the day when he brought back the little cannon from Herm. Now he's back from the Douvres, with his fortune, and mine, and the fortune of the whole district. He's a man the world will hear a deal more of one of these days. You said once, 'I will marry him'; and so you shall. And you will have children, and I shall be a grandfather, and you'll have the good fortune to be the wife of an honest fellow, a hard worker, a handy man, a character full of surprises who's worth a hundred others, a man who saves the inventions of other people, who is a real providence. At least you won't be like almost all the shrews in the neighborhood who have married soldiers or priests, the men who kill and the men who lie. But what are you doing in that corner, Gilliatt? We can't see you. Douce! Grace! Everybody! Let us have some light, so that we can see my son-in-law by the light of day. I betroth you to each other, my children. Here is your husband, and here is my son-in-law: it is Gilliatt of the Bu de la Rue, that good fellow, that great seaman. I shall have no other son-in-law, and you will have no other husband, I pledge my word before God again. Ah, there you are, rector: you will marry these two young people for me." His eye had just fallen on the Reverend Ebenezer Caudray.

  Douce and Grace had carried out their master's order. The two candles they had set on the table lit up Gilliatt from head to foot.

  "How handsome he is!" cried Lethierry.

  Gilliatt was a hideous sight. He was still in the condition he had been in when he left the Douvres reef that morning--in rags, out at elbow, his beard long, his hair shaggy, his eyes bloodshot, the skin on his face peeling, his hands bleeding, his feet bare. Some of the pustules from the devilfish could still be seen on his hairy arms.

  Lethierry looked at him.

  "He's the right son-in-law for me. How he fought with the sea! He's all in rags! What shoulders! What hands! What a handsome fellow you are!"

  Grace ran up to Deruchette and supported her head. She had fainted.

  II

  THE LEATHER TRUNK

  St. Sampson was up at dawn, and people from St. Peter Port were beginning to make their way there. The resurrection of the Durande caused as much excitement on the island as did the apparition at La Salette215 in the south of France. There was a crowd on the quay looking at the funnel emerging from the paunch. They would have liked to see and touch the engines; but Lethierry, after another triumphant examination of them in daylight, had posted two men in the paunch to keep people off. They were quite content, however, to be able to contemplate the funnel. It was a great cause of wonder. All the talk was of Gilliatt. They made great play with the name he was known by, Gilliatt the Cunning, and their admiration was often followed up by the reflection that it wasn't always agreeable to have people on the island who could achieve feats like this.

  From outside the house Mess Lethierry could be seen sitting at his table by the window and writing, with one eye on the paper and the other on the engines. He was so deeply absorbed in his work that he interrupted it only once to call Douce and ask about Deruchette. Douce had replied that she was up and had gone out. Lethierry had said: "It's good for her to get some fresh air. She was a little unwell last night because of the heat. There were a lot of people in the room; and then the surprise, the joy! Besides, the windows had been closed. She's going to have a husband to be proud of!" And he had returned to his writing. He had already signed and sealed two letters to the leading shipbuilders of Bremen and had just wafered the third.

  He looked up at the sound of a wheel on the quay, leaned out of the window, and saw a boy pushing a wheelbarrow coming out of the lane leading to the Bu de la Rue and making fo
r the road to St. Peter Port. In the barrow was a trunk of yellow leather studded with copper and pewter nails. He called to the boy: "Where are you off to, lad?"

  The boy stopped and replied: "To the Cashmere."

  "What for?"

  "To put this trunk on board."

  "Well then, you can take these three letters as well."

  Mess Lethierry opened the drawer in the table, took out a piece of string, tied his three letters together, and threw the packet to the boy, who caught it in both hands.

  "Tell the captain of the Cashmere that they are from me, and to take care of them. They are for Germany. Bremen via London."

  "I can't tell the captain that, Mess Lethierry."

  "Why not?"

  "Because the Cashmere is not at the quay."

  "Oh?"

  "She is at anchor in the roads."

  "I see: because of the sea."

  "I can only speak to the boatman who takes things out to the ship."

  "Well, tell him to look to my letters."

  "Yes, Mess Lethierry."

  "When does the Cashmere sail?"

  "At noon."

  "By then the tide will be coming in. She'll have the tide against her."

  "But she'll have the wind with her."

  "Boy," said Mess Lethierry, pointing to the Durande's funnel, "do you see that? It doesn't have to worry about winds and tides."

  The boy put the letters in his pocket, took up the shafts of the barrow, and continued on his way to the town. Mess Lethierry called out: "Douce! Grace!"

  Grace appeared in the half-open door.