d by all the movement around it at the same
moment, regulated the slowness of the descent by the slow rise of the
sea.

There was no jerk given by the waters, no slip among the tackle. It was
a strange collaboration of all the natural forces subdued. On one side,
gravitation lowering the huge bulk, on the other the sea raising the
bark. The attraction of heavenly bodies which causes the tide, and the
attractive force of the earth, which men call weight, seemed to conspire
together to aid his plans. There was no hesitation, no stoppage in their
service; under the dominance of mind these passive forces became active
auxiliaries. From minute to minute the work advanced; the interval
between the wreck and the sloop diminished insensibly. The approach
continued in silence, and as in a sort of terror of the man who stood
there. The elements received his orders and fulfilled them.

Nearly at the moment when the tide ceased to raise it, the cable ceased
to slide. Suddenly, but without commotion, the pulleys stopped. The vast
machine had taken its place in the bark, as if placed there by a
powerful hand. It stood straight, upright, motionless, firm. The iron
floor of the engine-room rested with its four corners evenly upon the
hold.

The work was accomplished.

Gilliatt contemplated it, lost in thought.

He was not the spoiled child of success. He bent under the weight of his
great joy. He felt his limbs, as it were, sinking; and contemplating
his triumph, he, who had never been shaken by danger, began to tremble.

He gazed upon the sloop under the wreck and at the machinery in the
sloop. He seemed to feel it hard to believe it true. It might have been
supposed that he had never looked forward to that which he had
accomplished. A miracle had been wrought by his hands, and he
contemplated it in bewilderment.

His reverie lasted but a short time.

Starting like one awakening from a deep sleep, he seized his saw, cut
the eight cables, separated now from the sloop, thanks to the rising of
the tide, by only about ten feet; sprang aboard, took a bunch of cord,
made four slings, passed them through the rings prepared beforehand, and
fixed on both sides aboard the sloop the four chains of the funnel which
only an hour before had been still fastened to their places aboard the
Durande.

The funnel being secured, he disengaged the upper part of the machinery.
A square portion of the planking of the Durande was adhering to it; he