.

In such a tempest, the wreck presented a considerable surface. It was
entirely out of the sea in the air, exposed. The breach which Gilliatt
had made, and which he had passed the engine through, had rendered the
hull still weaker. The keelson was snapped, the vertebral column of the
skeleton was broken.

The hurricane had passed over it. Scarcely more than this was needed to
complete its destruction. The planking of the deck had bent like an
opened book. The dismemberment had begun. It was the noise of this
dislocation which had reached Gilliatt's ears in the midst of the
tempest.

The disaster which presented itself as he approached appeared almost
irremediable.

The square opening which he had cut in the keel had become a gaping
wound. The wind had converted the smooth-cut hole into a ragged
fracture. This transverse breach separated the wreck in two. The
after-part, nearest to the sloop, had remained firm in its bed of rocks.
The forward portion which faced him was hanging. A fracture, while it
holds, is a sort of hinge. The whole mass oscillated, as the wind moved
it, with a doleful noise. Fortunately the sloop was no longer beneath
it.

But this swinging movement shook the other portion of the hull, still
wedged and immovable as it was between the two Douvres. From shaking to
casting down the distance is not far. Under the obstinate assaults of
the gale, the dislocated part might suddenly carry away the other
portion, which almost touched the sloop. In this case, the whole wreck,
together with the sloop and the engine, must be swept into the sea and
swallowed up.

All this presented itself to his eyes. It was the end of all. How could
it be prevented?

Gilliatt was one of those who are accustomed to snatch the means of
safety out of danger itself. He collected his ideas for a moment. Then
he hastened to his arsenal and brought his hatchet.

The mallet had served him well, it was now the turn of the axe.

He mounted upon the wreck, got a footing on that part of the planking
which had not given way, and leaning over the precipice of the pass
between the Douvres, he began to cut away the broken joists and the
planking which supported the hanging portion of the hull.

His object was to effect the separation of the two parts of the wreck,
to disencumber the half which remained firm, to throw overboard what the
waves had seized, and thus share the prey with the storm. The hanging
portion of the wreck, bo