The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo

Author:Victor Hugo [Hugo, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781165176939
Publisher: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
Published: 1866-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

II

GREAT ASTONISHMENT ON THE WEST COAST

The moon was due to rise at ten that night; but however favorable the night, the wind, and the sea, no fishermen meant to go out either from La Hougue la Perre, nor from Bordeaux harbor, nor from Houmet Benet, nor from Le Platon, nor from Port Grat, nor from Vazon Bay, nor from Perelle Bay, nor from Pezeries, nor from Les Tielles, nor from Saint’s Bay, nor from Petit-Bô, nor from any port or harbor on Guernsey. The reason was very simple: the cock had crowed at midday.

When the cock crows at an unusual time there are no fish to be had that day.

That evening, however, as night was falling, a fisherman returning to Omptolle had a surprise. As he came past Houmet Paradis, with the Platte Fougère buoy, which is in the form of an inverted funnel, on his left and the St. Sampson buoy, in the form of a man, on his right, he thought he detected a third buoy. What was this buoy, he wondered? Who had set it at that particular point? What hidden shoal was it marking? The buoy provided an immediate answer to his questions: it was moving; it was a mast. This by no means lessened the fisherman’s astonishment. A buoy would have been cause for wonder; a mast even more.

No one could be fishing that day. When everyone was coming in, someone was putting out.

Who could it be? And why was he going out to sea?

Ten minutes later the mast, moving slowly, came within a short distance of the fisherman from Omptolle. He was unable to recognize the boat. He heard the sound of oars. He could make out only two oars, so there was probably only one man on board. The wind was northerly, and the man was evidently rowing out to catch the breeze beyond Fontenelle Point. There, probably, he would put on sail. So he was intending to round L’Ancresse and Mont Crevel. Whither was he bound?

The mast passed on its way, and the fisherman returned to port.

That same night, at different points along the west coast of Guernsey and at different times, a number of people observed a boat moving out at sea.

Just as the fisherman from Omptolle was mooring his boat, a man carting seaweed half a mile farther on was whipping his horses along the lonely Les Clôtures road, near the standing stones between Martello towers 6 and 7, when he saw a sail being hoisted some distance out at sea, in an area toward the Roque Nord and the Sablonneuse, which was little frequented because it required familiarity with these dangerous waters. He paid little heed to it, being more interested in carts than in boats.

Perhaps half an hour later a plasterer returning from his work in the town and skirting the Mare Pelée saw almost in front of him a boat daringly maneuvering amid the Quenon, Rousse de Mer, and Gripe de Rousse rocks. It was a dark

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