IN the middle of the night he awoke suddenly and with a jerk like the recoil of a spring.
       He opened his eyes.
       The Douvres, rising high over his head, were lighted up as by the white glow of burning embers. Over all the dark escarpment of the rock there was a light like the reflection of a fire.
       Where could this fire come from?
       It was from the water.
       The aspect of the sea was extraordinary.
       The water seemed afire. As far as the eye could reach, among the reefs and beyond them, the sea ran with flame. The flame was not red; it had nothing in common with the grand living fires of volcanic craters or of great furnaces. There was no sparkling, no glare, no purple edges, no noise. Long trails of a pale tint simulated upon the water the folds of a winding-sheet. A trembling glow was spread over the waves. It was the spectra of a great fire, rather than the fire itself. It was in some degree like the glow of unearthly flames lighting the inside of a sepulchre. A burning darkness.
       The night itself, dim, vast, and wide-diffused, was the fuel of that cold flame. It was a strange illumination issuing out of blindness. The shadows even formed part of that phantom-fire.
       The sailors of the Channel are familiar with those indescribable phosphorescences, full of warning for the navigator. They are nowhere more surprising than in the "Great V," near Isigny.
       By this light, surrounding objects lose their reality. A spectral glimmer renders them, as it were, transparent. Rocks become no more than outlines. Cables of anchors look like iron bars heated to a white heat. The nets of the fishermen beneath the water seem webs of fire The half of the oar above the waves is dark as ebony, the rest in the sea like silver. The drops from the blades uplifted from the water fall in starry showers upon the sea. Every boat leaves a furrow behind it like a comet's tail. The sailors, wet and luminous, seem like men in flames. If you plunge a hand into the water, you withdraw it clothed in flame. The flame is dead, and is not felt. Your arm becomes a firebrand. You see the forms of things in the sea roll beneath the waves as in liquid fire. The foam twinkles. The fish are tongues of fire, or fragments of the forked lightning, moving in the depths.
       The reflection of this brightness had passed over the closed eyelids of Gilliatt in the sloop. It was this that had awakened him.
       His awakening was opportune.
       The ebb tide had run out, and the waters were beginning to rise again. The funnel. which had become disengaged during his sleep, was about to enter again into the yawning hollow above it
       It was rising slowly.
       A rise of another foot would have entangled it in the wreck again. A rise of one foot is equivalent to half an hour's tide. If he intended, therefore, to take advantage of that temporary deliverance once more within his reach, he had just half an hour before him.
       He leaped to his feet.
       Urgent as the situation was, he stood for a few moments meditative, contemplating the phosphorescence of the waves.
       Gilliatt knew the sea in all its phases. Notwithstanding all her tricks, and often as he had suffered from her terrors, he had long been her companion. That mysterious entity which we call the ocean had nothing in its secret thoughts which he could not divine. Observation, meditation, and solitude, had given him a quick perception of coming changes, of wind, or cloud, or wave.
       Gilliatt hastened to the top ropes and paid out some cable; then being no longer held fast by the anchors, he seized the boat-hook of the sloop, and pushed her towards the entrance to the gorge some fathoms from the Durande, and quite near to the breakwater. Here, as the Guernsey sailors say, it had du rang. In less than ten minutes the sloop was withdrawn from beneath the carcass of the wreck. There was no further danger of the funnel being caught in a trap. The tide might rise now.
       And yet Gilliatt's manner was not that of one about to take his departure.
       He stood considering the light upon the sea once more: but his thoughts were not of starting. He was thinking of how to fix the sloop again, and how to fix it more firmly than ever, though near to the exit from the defile.
       Up to this time he had only used the two anchors of the sloop, and had not yet employed the little anchor of the Durande, which he had found, as will be remembered among the breakers. This anchor had been deposited by him in readiness for any emergency, in a corner of the sloop, with a quantity of hawsers and blocks of top-ropes, and his cable, all furnished beforehand with large knots, which prevented its dragging. He now let go this third anchor, taking care to fasten the cable to a rope, one end of which was slung through the anchor ring,while the other was attached to the windlass of the sloop. In this manner he made a kind of triangular, triple anchorage, much stronger than the moorings with two anchors. All this indicated keen anxiety and a redoubling of precautions. A sailor would have seen in this operation something similar to an anchorage in bad weather, when there is fear of a current which might carry the vessel under the wind.
       The phosphorescence which he had been observing, and upon which his eye was now fixed once more, was threatening, but serviceable at the same time. But for it he would have been held fast locked in sleep, and deceived by the night. The strange appearance upon the sea had awakened him and made things about him visible.
       The light which it shed among the rocks was, indeed, ominous; but disquieting as it appeared to be to Gilliatt, it had served to show him the dangers of his position, and had rendered possible his operations in extricating the sloop. Henceforth, whenever he should be able to set sail the vessel, with its freight of machinery, would be free.
       And yet the idea of departing was further than ever from his mind. The sloop being fixed in its new position, he went in quest of the strongest chain which he had in his store-cavern, and attaching it to the nails driven into the two Douvres, he fortified from within with this chain the rampart of planks and beams, already protected from without by the cross chain. Far from opening the entrance to the defile, he made the barrier more complete.
       The phosphorescence lighted him still but it was diminishing. The day, however, was beginning to break. Suddenly he paused to listen.

book i. the history of a bad reputation.
   I. A Word Written on a White Page.
   II. The Bu de la Rue.
   III. For Your Wife: When You Marry.
   IV. An Unpopular Man.
   V. More Suspicious Facts about Gilliatt.
   VI. The Dutch Sloop.
   VII. A Fit Tenant for a Haunted House
   VIII. The Gild-holm-'ur Seat.
book ii. mess lethierry.
   I. A Troubled Life, but a Quiet Conscience.
   II. A Certain Predilection.
   III. Mess Lethierry's Vulnerable Part.
book iii. durande and deruchette.
   I. Prattle and Smoke.
   II. The Old Story of Utopia.
   III. Rantaine.
   IV. Continuation of the Story of Utopia.
   V. The "Devil Boat"
   VI. Lethierry's Exaltation.
   VII. The Same Godfather and the Same Patron Saint.
   VIII. "Bonnie Dundee."
   IX. The Man Who Discovered Rantaine's Character.
   X. Long Yarns.
   XI. Matrimonial Prospects.
   XII. An Anomaly in the Character of Lethierry.
   XIII. Thoughtlessness Adds a Grace to Beauty.
book iv. the bagpipe.
   I. Streaks of Fire in the Horizon.
   II. The Unknown UnfoldS Itself by Degrees.
   III. The Air "Bonnie Dundee" Finds an Echo on the Hill.
   IV. "A serenade by night may please a lady fair, But of uncle and of guardian let the troubadour beware. Unpublished Comedy
   V. A Deserved Success has Always its Detractors.
   VI. The Sloop "Cashmere" Saves a Shipwrecked Crew.
   VII. How an Idler Had the Good Fortune to be Seen by a Fisherman.
book v. the revolver.
   I. Conversations at the Jean Auberge.
   II. Clubin Observes Some One.
   III. Clubin Carries Away Something and Brings Back Nothing.
   IV. Pleinmont.
   V. The Birds'-Nesters
   VI. The Jacressade.
   VII. Nocturnal Buyers and Mysterious Sellers.
   VIII. A "Cannon" off the Red Ball and the Black.
   IX. Useful Information for Persons Who Expect or Fear the Arrival of Letters from Beyond Sea.
book vi. the drunken steersman and the sober captain.
   I. The Douvres.
   II. An Unexpected Flask of Brandy.
   III. Conversations Interrupted.
   IV. Captain Clubin Displays All His Great Qualities.
   V. Clubin Reaches the Crowning-Point of Glory.
   VI. The Interior of an Abyss Suddenly Revealed.
   VII. An Unexpected Denouement.
book vii. the danger of opening a book at random.
   I. The Pearl at the Foot of a Precipice.
   II. Much Astonishment on the Western Coast.
   III. A Quotation from the Bible.
book i. malicious gilliatt.
   I. The Place Which is Easy to Reach, but Difficult to Leave Again.
   II. A Catalogue of Disasters.
   III. Sound, but not Safe.
   IV. A Preliminary Survey.
   V. A Word Upon the Secret Co-operations of the Elements.
   VI. A Stable for the Horse.
   VII. A Chamber for the Voyager.
   VIII. Importunaeque Volucres.
   IX. The Rock, and How Gilliatt Used It.
   X. The Forge.
   XI. Discovery.
   XII. The Interior of an Edifice Under the Sea.
   XIII. What was Seen There, and What Perceived Dimly.
book ii. the labour.
   I. The Resources of One Who Has Nothing
   II. Preparations.
   III. Gilliatt's Masterpiece Comes to the Rescue of Lethierry.
   IV. Sub Re.
   V. Sub Umbra.
   VI. Gilliatt Places the Sloop in Readiness
   VII. Sudden Danger.
   VIII. Movement Rather than Progress.
   IX. A Slip Between Cup and Lip
   X. Sea-Warnings.
   XI. Murmurs in the Air.
book iii. the struggle.
   I. Extremes Meet.
   II. The Ocean Winds.
   III. The Noises Explained.
   IV. Turba Turma.
   V. Gilliatt's Alternatives.
   VI. The Combat.
book iv. pitfalls in the way.
   I. He Who is Hungry is Not Alone.
   II. The Monster.
   III. Another Kind of Sea-Combat.
   IV. Nothing is Hidden, Nothing Lost.
   V. The Fatal Difference Between Six Inches and Two Feet.
   VI. De Profundis ad Altum.
   VII. The Appeal is Heard.
book i. night and the moon.
   I. The Harbour Clock.
   II. The Harbour Bell Again.
book ii. gratitude and despotism.
   I. Joy Surrounded by Tortures.
   II. The Leathern Trunk.
book iii. the departure of the cashmere.
   I. The Havelet Near the Church.
   II. Despair Confronts Despair.
   III. The Forethought of Self-Sacrifice
   IV. "For Your Wife When You Marry."
   V. The Great Tomb.