ves little entrance, the waves,
driven against it violently, rebound and roar, and a tremendous surf
beats the two sides of the gorge. Thus the Douvres, during the slightest
wind from the west, present the singular spectacle of a sea
comparatively calm without, while within the rocks a storm is raging.
This tumult of waters, altogether confined and circumscribed, has
nothing of the character of a tempest. It is a mere local outbreak among
the waves, but a terrible one. As regards the winds from the north and
south, they strike the rocks crosswise, and cause little surf in the
passage. The entrance by the east, a fact which must be borne in mind,
was close to "The Man Rock." The dangerous opening to the west was at
the opposite extremity, exactly between the two Douvres.

It was at this western entrance that Gilliatt found himself with the
wrecked Durande, and the sloop made fast beneath it.

A catastrophe seemed inevitable. There was not much wind, but it was
sufficient for the impending mischief.

Before many hours, the swell which was rising would be rushing with full
force into the gorge of the Douvres. The first waves were already
breaking. This swell, and eddy of the entire Atlantic, would have behind
it the immense sea. There would be no squall; no violence, but a simple
overwhelming wave, which commencing on the coasts of America, rolls
towards the shores of Europe with an impetus gathered over two thousand
leagues. This wave, a gigantic ocean barrier, meeting the gap of the
rocks, must be caught between the two Douvres, standing like
watch-towers at the entrance, or like pillars of the defile. Thus
swelled by the tide, augmented by resistance, driven back by the shoals,
and urged on by the wind, it would strike the rock with violence, and
with all the contortions from the obstacles it had encountered, and all
the frenzy of a sea confined in limits, would rush between the rocky
walls, where it would reach the sloop and the Durande, and, in all
probability, destroy them.

A shield against this danger was wanting. Gilliatt had one.

The problem was to prevent the sea reaching it at one bound; to obstruct
it from striking, while allowing it to rise; to bar the passage without
refusing it admission; to prevent the compression of the water in the
gorge, which was the whole danger; to turn an eruption into a simple
flood; to extract as it were from the waves all their violence, and
constrain the furies to be gentl