N, NOTHING LOST

It was time that he killed the devil-fish. He was almost suffocated. His
right arm and his chest were purple. Numberless little swellings were
distinguishable upon them; the blood flowed from them here and there.
The remedy for these wounds is sea-water. Gilliatt plunged into it,
rubbing himself at the same time with the palms of his hands. The
swellings disappeared under the friction.

By stepping further into the waters he had, without perceiving,
approached to the species of recess already observed by him near the
crevice where he had been attacked by the devil-fish.

This recess stretched obliquely under the great walls of the cavern, and
was dry. The large pebbles which had become heaped up there had raised
the bottom above the level of ordinary tides. The entrance was a rather
large elliptical arch; a man could enter by stooping. The green light of
the submarine grotto penetrated into it and lighted it feebly.

It happened that, while hastily rubbing his skin, Gilliatt raised his
eyes mechanically.

He was able to see far into the cavern.

He shuddered.

He fancied that he perceived, in the furthest depth of the dusky recess,
something smiling.

Gilliatt had never heard the word "hallucination," but he was familiar
with the idea. Those mysterious encounters with the invisible, which,
for the sake of avoiding the difficulty of explaining them, we call
hallucinations, are in nature. Illusions or realities, visions are a
fact. He who has the gift will see them. Gilliatt, as we have said, was
a dreamer. He had, at times, the faculty of a seer. It was not in vain
that he had spent his days in musing among solitary places.

He imagined himself the dupe of one of those mirages which he had more
than once beheld when in his dreamy moods.

The opening was somewhat in the shape of a chalk-burner's oven. It was a
low niche with projections like basket-handles. Its abrupt groins
contracted gradually as far as the extremity of the crypt, where the
heaps of round stones and the rocky roof joined.

Gilliatt entered, and lowering his head, advanced towards the object in
the distance.

There was indeed something smiling.

It was a death's head; but it was not only the head. There was the
entire skeleton. A complete human skeleton was lying in the cavern.

In such a position a bold man will continue his researches.

Gilliatt cast his eyes around. He was surrounded by a multitude of
crabs. The m