e. The granite of the Little Douvre was rounded at the surface,
and, to the feel at least, soft like touchstone; but this feeling
detracted nothing from its durability. The Little Douvre terminated in a
point like a horn. The Great Douvre, polished, smooth, glossy,
perpendicular, and looking as if cut out by the builder's square, was in
one piece, and seemed made of black ivory. Not a hole, not a break in
its smooth surface. The escarpment looked inhospitable. A convict could
not have used it for escape, nor a bird for a place for its nest. On the
summit there was a horizontal surface as upon "The Man Rock;" but the
summit of the Great Douvre was inaccessible.

It was possible to scale the Little Douvre, but not to remain on the
summit; it would have been possible to rest on the summit of the Great
Douvre, but impossible to scale it.

Gilliatt, having rapidly surveyed the situation of affairs, returned to
the barge, landed its contents upon the largest of the horizontal
cornice rocks, made of the whole compact mass a sort of bale, which he
rolled up in tarpaulin, fitted a sling rope to it with a hoisting block,
pushed the package into a corner of the rocks where the waves could not
reach it, and then clutching the Little Douvre with his hands, and
holding on with his naked feet, he clambered from projection to
projection, and from niche to niche, until he found himself level with
the wrecked vessel high up in the air.

Having reached the height of the paddles, he sprang upon the poop.

The interior of the wreck presented a mournful aspect.

Traces of a great struggle were everywhere visible. There were plainly
to be seen the frightful ravages of the sea and wind. The action of the
tempest resembles the violence of a band of pirates. Nothing is more
like the victim of a criminal outrage than a wrecked ship violated and
stripped by those terrible accomplices, the storm-cloud, the thunder,
the rain, the squall, the waves, and the breakers.

Standing upon the dismantled deck, it was natural to dream of the
presence of something like a furious stamping of the spirits of the
storm. Everywhere around were the marks of their rage. The strange
contortions of certain portions of the ironwork bore testimony to the
terrific force of the winds. The between-decks were like the cell of a
lunatic, in which everything has been broken.

No wild beast can compare with the sea for mangling its prey. The waves
are full of talons. The