rely tepid became
hot.

The rigid and naked body remained still without movement; but the skin
seemed less livid.

The sun, approaching the zenith, shone almost perpendicularly upon the
plateau of the Douvres. A flood of light descended from the heavens; the
vast reflection from the glassy sea increased its splendour: the rock
itself imbibed the rays and warmed the sleeper.

A sigh raised his breast.

He lived.

The sun continued its gentle offices. The wind, which was already the
breath of summer and of noon, approached him like loving lips that
breathed upon him softly.

Gilliatt moved.

The peaceful calm upon the sea was perfect. Its murmur was like the
droning of the nurse beside the sleeping infant. The rock seemed cradled
in the waves.

The sea-birds, who knew that form, fluttered above it; not with their
old wild astonishment, but with a sort of fraternal tenderness. They
uttered plaintive cries: they seemed to be calling to him. A sea-mew,
who no doubt knew him, was tame enough to come near him. It began to caw
as if speaking to him. The sleeper seemed not to hear. The bird hopped
upon his shoulder, and pecked his lips softly.

Gilliatt opened his eyes.

The birds dispersed, chattering wildly.

Gilliatt arose, stretched himself like a roused lion, ran to the edge
of the platform, and looked down into the space between the two Douvres.

The sloop was there, intact; the stoppage had held out; the sea had
probably disturbed it but little.

All was saved.

He was no longer weary. His powers had returned. His swoon had ended in
a deep sleep.

He descended and baled out the sloop, emptied the hold, raised the
leakage above the water-line, dressed himself, ate, drank some water,
and was joyful.

The gap in the side of his vessel, examined in broad daylight, proved to
require more labour than he had thought. It was a serious fracture. The
entire day was not too much for its repair.

At daybreak on the morrow, after removing the barrier and re-opening the
entrance to the defile, dressed in the tattered clothing which had
served to stop the leak, having about him Clubin's girdle and the
seventy-five thousand francs, standing erect in the sloop, now repaired,
by the side of the machinery which he had rescued, with a favourable
breeze and a good sea, Gilliatt pushed off from the Douvres.

He put the sloop's head for Guernsey.

At the moment of his departure from the rocks, any one who had been
th