rude than what the people of the Pyrenees
anciently called a "trompe."

He had some rye-meal, and he manufactured with it some paste. He had
also some white rope, which picked out into tow. With this paste and
tow, and some bits of wood, he stopped all the crevices of the rock,
leaving only a little air passage made of a powder-flask which he had
found aboard the Durande, and which had served for loading the signal
gun. This powder-flask was directed horizontally to a large stone, which
Gilliatt made the hearth of the forge. A stopper made of a piece of tow
served to close it in case of need.

After this, he heaped up the wood and coal upon the hearth, struck his
steel against the bare rock, caught a spark upon a handful of loose tow,
and having ignited it, soon lighted his forge fire.

He tried the blower: it worked well.

Gilliatt felt the pride of a Cyclops: he was the master of air, water,
and fire. Master of the air; for he had given a kind of lungs to the
wind, and changed the rude draught into a useful blower. Master of
water, for he had converted the little cascade into a "trompe." Master
of fire, for out of this moist rock he had struck a flame.

The cave being almost everywhere open to the sky, the smoke issued
freely, blackening the curved escarpment. The rocks which seemed
destined for ever to receive only the white foam, became now familiar
with the blackening smoke.

Gilliatt selected for an anvil a large smooth round stone, of about the
required shape and dimensions. It formed a base for the blows of his
hammer; but one that might fly and was very dangerous. One of the
extremities of this block, rounded and ending in a point, might, for
want of anything better, serve instead of a conoid bicorn; but the other
kind of bicorn of the pyramidal form was wanting. It was the ancient
stone anvil of the Troglodytes. The surface, polished by the waves, had
almost the firmness of steel.

He regretted not having brought his anvil. As he did not know that the
Durande had been broken in two by the tempest, he had hoped to find the
carpenter's chest and all his tools generally kept in the forehold. But
it was precisely the fore-part of the vessel which had been carried
away.

These two excavations which he had found in the rock were contiguous.
The warehouse and the forge communicated with each other.

Every evening, when his work was ended, he supped on a little biscuit,
moistened in water, a sea-urchin or