“THE TOILERS OF THE SEA.”
The scene of “Les Travailleurs de la Mer” is Guernsey, and the two
characters brought most prominently forward are Gilliatt and Clubin.
Gilliatt was a man not much liked. He avoided company, neither drank,
smoked, chewed, nor snuffed; and lived in a house which, if not then
haunted, was suspected of having formerly been so. None, however,
could deny that he was a thorough seaman, a successful fisherman, a
skilful pilot, and an expert swimmer; and subsequent events proved
him to possess dauntless courage, pertinacious determination, a soft
heart, and chivalrous spirit. Clubin was in every moral quality
exactly the reverse. He had the reputation of being a man of severe
probity, strictly religious, and of unsurpassable integrity; and
thus was appointed master of a little steamer named the “Durande,”
which traded between Guernsey and St. Malo, and belonged to a
Monsieur Lathierry. But although Clubin had gained the good opinion
of his neighbours by his cunning and adroitness, he was a consummate
hypocrite, and an unscrupulous scoundrel. A former partner of
Lathierry, named Rantaine, had robbed their joint cash-box ten years
previously of a hundred thousand francs, fifty thousand of which,
of course, belonged to Lathierry. Nothing had been seen or heard of
him since he absconded, until one day Clubin caught sight of him in
St. Malo, watched him enter the shop of a money-changer, and receive
three bank-notes of 1000_l._ each (75,000 francs), and, at once
surmising that they were the proceeds of the embezzlement, determined
to possess them. He prepared his plans carefully, obtained with some
difficulty a revolver (then a novelty in fire-arms), ascertained
that Rantaine intended to escape from France in a vessel, the captain
of which had agreed to send a boat ashore for him; and just as he
was about to embark, after killing a coastguardsman to prevent his
giving an alarm, presented the revolver at his head, and demanded
“restitution,” as he called it, of the plunder. An altercation
ensued; but the formidable weapon gave its owner superiority, and
Rantaine was made to toss to his opponent from a distance the three
bank-notes, enclosed in an iron tobacco-box, and was then allowed to
depart. Clubin had already decided on the measures he would adopt to
enable him to enjoy his ill-obtained wealth in a foreign country,
without exciting a suspicion of his evil deed. The “Durande” was to
leave St. Malo the next day, on her return trip to Guernsey with
passengers and cargo. Weather-wise mariners predicted a fog, and
urged Clubin not to leave port; but he resolutely disregarded their
advice, and put to sea, placed a bottle of brandy in the secret
hiding-place used by his tippling steersman, who fell into the trap
and got drunk; and when the expected fog came on, the austere and
puritanical captain sent him forward with a reprimand, and, to the
admiration and satisfaction of the passengers, took the helm himself,
and went on at full steam for his destination. There were some on
board who thought he was running a great risk in not slackening
speed; and one passenger, a Guernsey man, felt sure that they were
not in their right course, and told the captain that more than once,
when the fog had lifted a little, he had recognised the land a-head
as a point called the “Hanois.” But Clubin kept straight on; for
this was just the spot where he had deliberately determined to run
the vessel ashore. In a few minutes she struck. The boat was got
over the side and launched, passengers and crew took their places
in her, and then all waited for the captain. But the devoted man
refused to leave his vessel. He would do his duty to the last, and
sink with her; and so, finding persuasion useless, they were obliged
to put off without him; some weeping for sorrow, and all regarding
him as an hero, and the most honest man that ever sailed the seas.
Here, then, was Clubin, alone in the very position he desired,
with 75,000 francs in his pocket, and having succeeded, whilst
perpetrating all his villainy, in gaining, instead of losing, the
esteem of his fellow-men. He would give the over-crowded boat time
to get away—to be lost, perhaps, with all on board. The short mile
to the shore would be nothing for a swimmer like him to traverse; he
would soon gain the land, conceal himself for a time, and then quit
the neighbourhood; whilst he would be supposed to be dead, and would
leave an honoured name behind him. He waited, and exulted over his
success. Suddenly, through a rift in the fog, a huge object attracted
his horrified gaze. He had been deceived in his position. Instead of
having run the “Durande” on the Hanois, before him was the formidable
“Rocher Douvres”—the “Man-Rock.” Hideous and instant is the change
in his condition—five leagues of sea, instead of one mile, between
him and the main! To swim that distance is impossible; he can never
reach the land. Death from cold and hunger stare him in the face. His
75,000 francs will not here purchase him a crust of bread. His only
hope now lies in his being seen by some passing ship, and eagerly he
looks to seaward. A sail appears—approaches—the vessel is a cutter.
But those on board will never see him where he stands. If he can but
reach the rock he will no doubt be perceived. There is not a minute
to lose; he will try; two hundred strokes will do it, and he will be
saved. He throws off all his clothes, buckles around his naked body
the leather belt in which is the tobacco-box containing the notes,
and plunges into the sea. He touches the bottom, grazes for a moment
the side of a submerged rock, then makes an effort to rise to the
surface. At this instant he feels himself seized by the foot.
In this horrible situation the author leaves him for a time, and
follows the course of events on the island which the miserable
wretch was destined never to reach. The boat was seen by a small
coaster, and its occupants taken on board, and conveyed to St. Peter
Port. The rescued crew and passengers of the “Durande” quickly
spread the tidings of the disaster, which fell with crushing effect
on her owner, Lathierry; the whole blame was laid on Tangrouille,
the drunken steersman, who was imprisoned, and the magnanimity of
Clubin was everywhere extolled. The master of a cutter, which arrived
a few hours after the landing of the saved people, reported that,
hearing the bellowing of the oxen which were a portion of the little
steamer’s freight, and the fog having dispersed, he had borne down
to the wreck and approached near enough to be certain that there was
no one on board; and consequently an opinion was expressed that the
heroic captain had been taken off by some sloop or lugger belonging
to Granville or St. Malo, and his return was hourly expected. The
steamer had broken her back, said the cutter’s master, but the
engine appeared not to be damaged. It was suggested that it might be
possible to preserve it; but the seaman shook his head, and gravely
replied that “The man did not exist who could go there and remove
it.” Renewed hope roused Lathierry from his stupor, and he exclaimed,
with a solemn oath, that he would give his daughter, Deruchette, in
marriage to the man who would perform the feat. Gilliatt had long
secretly loved the girl, and he determined if possible to achieve
the task, and thus to win her. He quietly stole away from the crowd,
and the same night, alone and unaided, got under weigh his fishing
craft, which he had won as a prize for seamanship in a regatta, and
proceeded to the wreck. After much toil and endurance of hardship
for more than two months, he succeeded in extricating the engine
and getting it on board his boat. His work completed, he had only
to wait for the tide to return in triumph with his prize. But he
was faint with hunger. He had long since exhausted the stock of
provisions he had brought with him, and had subsisted on the molluscs
and crustaceans he had been able to find on the rocks; and, now, it
became necessary to search for one more meal before his departure.
Profiting by the low tide, and taking his knife between his teeth,
he descended, by the help of hands and feet, the steep escarpment
into a pool. The water came up to his shoulders. During his search
for lobsters, cray-fish, and crabs, he espied a cavern, the arched
portal of which was partly uncovered. He entered. A fine crab,
frightened at his approach, escaped into a horizontal fissure in the
rock. He thrust his hand into the crevice, and suddenly felt himself
seized. Something slender, rough, adhesive, chilling, and living,
was twisting itself in the gloom around his naked arm. It proved to
be one of the limbs of a _pieuvre_ (octopus), or “devil-fish,” and
he had a terrible fight with the creature. It will be convenient to
consider in detail the particulars of the combat after finishing
our epitome of the narrative of which it fills the most remarkable
chapters. Gilliatt, after a desperate struggle, succeeded in cutting
himself free, and in killing the animal with his knife; and then,
panting with his exertions, turned to leave the place where he
had encountered so dangerous a foe. As he did so, something which
startled him caught his eye. He fancied he saw at the back of the
cavern a face which laughed at him. He approached, and stooping down,
found it was a human skull, with the rest of the skeleton. It was
surrounded by a multitude of crabs, but they were dead and their
shells empty. It was the larder of the “devil-fish”; the monster had
eaten the crabs; the crabs had eaten the man. There were no articles
of clothing to be seen; but, scraping away the crab-shells beneath
which the skeleton was half buried, Gilliatt perceived around the
vertebral column a leather belt, which had evidently been buckled
about the body of the man before his death. The leather was wet,
the buckle rusty; so Gilliatt cut the girdle with his knife. It
contained an old iron tobacco-box, which he forced open, and found
in it _three bank-notes of £1000 each_ (75,000 francs), and twenty
guineas in gold. He examined the belt more closely; and there, traced
in indelible lithographic ink, were the words, “_Sieur Clubin_.” The
skull, the bones, and the belt were all that remained of the robber
and hypocrite: the “devil-fish” had held him under water and drowned
him; the crabs had eaten him.
Gilliatt started on his return passage to Guernsey in joyful
certainty that he had earned the fulfilment of his wishes. Deruchette
would be his wife. He had saved the engine of her father’s vessel,
and, more than that, had recovered the old man’s stolen fortune.
True to his natural shrinking from observation, he timed his voyage
so that he arrived in port after dark, moored his sloop with her
cargo of machinery to the old ring in the harbour wall to which the
“Durande’s” cable used to be made fast, and then, without announcing
his return to anyone, retired to a nook overhung with brambles and
ivy, where he had often watched for hours—himself unseen, and his
love unsuspected—the house where dwelt the mistress of his heart, and
the garden in which she often walked. Near him, at the side of one
of the paths, was a rustic seat. As he gazed fixedly on the windows
of her chamber, and thought rapturously of his future happiness,
Deruchette herself left the house and came towards him. She sat down
on the bench, in his full view, and with pensive, meditative air,
remained motionless, as if in a dream. The thought of speaking to
her never entered his head. He saw her, was near her—that was enough
for him for the moment. A sound of approaching footsteps roused her
from her reverie, and him from his ecstasy. It was the young rector,
the Rev. Ebenezer Caudray, who had sought her to make her an offer
of marriage before leaving for England on the following morning.
Unhappy Gilliatt was a witness of his pleadings, her yielding, their
betrothal and embrace.
Meanwhile Lathierry had seen from his window the funnel of the
“Durande” standing at the old moorings; and, scarcely believing his
eyes, rushed to the harbour bell, and rang it long and violently.
Amongst those who appeared was Gilliatt, who, accompanying him to
his home, laid before him the bank-notes and Clubin’s belt. The
old man, wild with joy, confirmed his offer of his daughter’s hand
to the man who had so nobly won his gratitude. But Gilliatt, to his
astonishment, refused her: he knew that her affections were pledged
to another, and determined in his own mind that she should marry the
man of her choice. The next morning he met the lovers, and, with
feverish haste, insisted on the immediate performance of the marriage
ceremony; dragged them to the church, where, by an artifice, he
substituted his rival for himself as bridegroom, and then hurried
them on board the packet-boat which was just setting sail. His work
accomplished, the desperate man locked up his house, and strode
along the shore to a point of land close to which the vessel bearing
Ebenezer and Deruchette must pass. At its extremity was a kind of
“lovers’ seat,” called the “Chaise Gild-Holm’-Ur,” covered by the sea
at every tide, and near to which he had once rescued the young curé
from drowning. There he sat, watching the craft, on the deck of which
he could see the newly-wedded pair. It advanced nearer; the tide
rose to his ankles:—it came opposite to him; the water reached his
waist:—it passed: he watched and watched, and the tide rose and rose,
until, as the vessel was lost to view, his head disappeared beneath
the waves.