struck off the nails and relieved the sloop of this encumbrance of
planks and beams; which fell over on to the rocks--a great assistance in
lightening it.

For the rest, the sloop, as has been foreseen, behaved well under the
burden of the machinery. It had sunk in the water, but only to a good
water-line. Although massive, the engine of the Durande was less heavy
than the pile of stones and the cannon which he had once brought back
from Herm in the sloop.

All then was ended; he had only to depart.

IX

A SLIP BETWEEN CUP AND LIP

All was not ended.

To re-open the gorge thus closed by the portion of the Durande's
bulwarks, and at once to push out with the sloop beyond the rocks,
nothing could appear more clear and simple. On the ocean every minute is
urgent. There was little wind; scarcely a wrinkle on the open sea. The
afternoon was beautiful, and promised a fine night. The sea, indeed, was
calm, but the ebb had begun. The moment was favourable for starting.
There would be the ebb-tide for leaving the Douvres; and the flood
would carry him into Guernsey. It would be possible to be at St.
Sampson's at daybreak.

But an unexpected obstacle presented itself. There was a flaw in his
arrangements which had baffled all his foresight.

The machinery was freed; but the chimney was not.

The tide, by raising the sloop to the wreck suspended in the air, had
diminished the dangers of the descent, and abridged the labour. But this
diminution of the interval had left the top of the funnel entangled in
the kind of gaping frame formed by the open hull of the Durande. The
funnel was held fast there as between four walls.

The services rendered by the sea had been accompanied by that
unfortunate drawback. It seemed as if the waves, constrained to obey,
had avenged themselves by a malicious trick.

It is true that what the flood-tide had done, the ebb would undo.

The funnel, which was rather more than three fathoms in height, was
buried more than eight feet in the wreck. The water-level would fall
about twelve feet. Thus the funnel descending with the falling tide
would have four feet of room to spare, and would clear itself easily.

But how much time would elapse before that release would be completed?
Six hours.

In six hours it would be near midnight. What means would there be of
attempting to start at such an hour? What channel could he find among
all those breakers, so full of dangers even by day? How