lvage some of the grottoes of his rock,
Gilliatt came upon a cave within a cave, so beautiful with sea-flowers
that it seemed the retreat of a sea-goddess. The shells were like
jewels; the water held eternal moonlight. Some of the flowers were like
sapphires. Standing in this dripping grotto, with his feet on the edge
of a probably bottomless pool, Gilliatt suddenly became aware in the
transparence of that water of the approach of some mystic form. A
species of long, ragged band was moving amid the oscillation of the
waves. It did not float, but darted about at its own will. It had an
object; was advancing somewhere rapidly. The thing had something of the
form of a jester's bauble with points, which hung flabby and undulating.
It seemed covered with a dust incapable of being washed away by the
water. It was more than horrible; it was foul. It seemed to be seeking
the darker portion of the cavern, where at last it vanished.

Gilliatt returned to his work. He had a notion. Since the time of the
carpenter-mason of Salbris, who, in the sixteenth century, without other
helper than a child, his son, with ill-fashioned tools, in the chamber
of the great clock at La Charite-sur-Loire, resolved at one stroke five
or six problems in statics and dynamics inextricably intervolved--since
the time of that grand and marvellous achievement of the poor workman,
who found means, without breaking a single piece of wire, without
throwing one of the teeth of the wheels out of gear, to lower in one
piece, by a marvellous simplification, from the second story of the
clock tower to the first, that massive clock, large as a room, nothing
that could be compared with the project which Gilliatt was meditating
had ever been attempted.

After incredible exertions, the machinery was ready for lowering into
the sloop. Gilliatt had constructed tackle, a regulating gear, and made
all sure. The long labour was finished; the first act had been the
simplest of all. He could put to sea. To-morrow he would be in Guernsey.

But no. He had waited for the tide to lift the sloop as near to the
suspended engines as possible, and now the funnel, which he had lowered
with the paddle-boxes, prevented the sloop from getting out of the
little gorge. It was necessary to wait for the tide to fall. Gilliatt
drew his sheepskin about him, pulled his cap over his eyes, and lying
down beside the engine, was soon asleep.

When he woke, it was to feel the coming of a storm.