no tallow to make a candle, no fire to light one,
no lantern to shelter it from the wind. In the sloop and among the rocks
all was confused and indistinct. He could hear the water lapping against
the wounded hull, but he could not even see the crack. It was with his
hands that he had ascertained the bulging of the tarpaulin. In that
darkness it was impossible to make any useful search for rags of canvas
or pieces of tow scattered among the breakers. Who could glean these
waifs and strays without being able to see his path? Gilliatt looked
sorrowfully at the sky; all those stars, he thought, and yet no light!

The water in the bark having diminished, the pressure from without
increased. The bulging of the canvas became larger, and was still
increasing, like a frightful abscess ready to burst. The situation,
which had been improved for a short time, began to be threatening.

Some means of stopping it effectually was absolutely necessary. He had
nothing left but his clothes, which he had stretched to dry upon the
projecting rocks of the Little Douvre.

He hastened to fetch them, and placed them upon the gunwale of the
sloop.

Then he took his tarpaulin overcoat, and kneeling in the water, thrust
it into the crevice, and pushing the swelling of the sail outward,
emptied it of water. To the tarpaulin coat he added the sheepskin, then
his Guernsey shirt, and then his jacket. The hole received them all. He
had nothing left but his sailor's trousers, which he took off, and
pushed in with the other articles. This enlarged and strengthened the
stuffing.

The stopper was made, and it appeared to be sufficient.

These clothes passed partly through the gap, the sail-cloth outside
enveloping them. The sea making an effort to enter, pressed against the
obstacle, spread it over the gap, and blocked it. It was a sort of
exterior compression.

Inside, the centre only of the bulging having been driven out, there
remained all around the gap and the stuffing just thrust through a sort
of circular pad formed by the tarpaulin, which was rendered still firmer
by the irregularities of the fracture with which it had become
entangled.

The leak was staunched, but nothing could be more precarious. Those
sharp splinters of the gap which fixed the tarpaulin might pierce it and
make holes, by which the water would enter; while he would not even
perceive it in the darkness. There was little probability of the
stoppage lasting until daylight