Victor Hugo’s third great romance, “The Toilers of the Sea” ("Les Travailleurs de la Mer"), published in 1866, was written during his exile in Guernsey.  Of all Hugo’s romances, both in prose and in verse, none surpasses this for sheer splendour of imagination and diction, for eloquence and sublimity of truth.  It is, in short, an idyll of passion, adventure, and self-sacrifice.  The description of the moods and mysteries of the sea is well-nigh incomparable; and not even in the whole of Hugo’s works can there be found anything more vivid than Gilliatt’s battle with the devil-fish.  The scene of the story is laid in the Channel Islands, and the book itself is dedicated to the “Isle of Guernsey, severe yet gentle, my present asylum, my probable tomb.”  The story was immensely successful on its appearance, and was at once translated into several European languages.

I.—­A Lonely Man

A Guernseyman named Gilliatt, who was avoided by his neighbours on account of lonely habits, and a certain love of nature which the suspicious people regarded as indicating some connection with the devil, was one day returning on a rising tide from his fishing, when he fancied he saw in a certain projection of the cliff a shadow of a man.

The place probably attracted Gilliatt’s gaze because it was a favourite sojourn of his—­a natural seat cut in the great cliffs, and affording a magnificent view of the sea.  It was a place to which some uninitiated traveller would climb with delight from the shore and sit entranced by the scene before him, all oblivious of the rising ocean till he was completely cut off from escape.  No shout would reach the ear of man from that desolate giant’s chair in the rock.

Gilliatt steered his ship nearer to the cliff, and saw that the shadow was a man.  The sea was already high.  The rock was encircled.  Gilliatt drew nearer.  The man was asleep.

He was attired in black, and looked like a priest.  Gilliatt had never seen him before.  The fisherman wore off, skirted the rock wall, and, approaching so close to the dangerous cliff that by standing on the gunwale of his sloop he could touch the foot of the sleeper, succeeded in arousing him.

The man roused, and muttered, “I was looking about.”

Gilliatt bade him jump into the boat.  When he had landed this young priest, who had a somewhat feminine cast of features, a clear eye, and a grave manner, Gilliatt perceived that he was holding out a sovereign in a very white hand.  Gilliatt moved the hand gently away.  There was a pause.  Then the young man bowed, and left him.

Gilliatt had forgotten all about this stranger, when a voice hailed him.  It was one of the inhabitants, driving by quickly.

“There is news, Gilliatt—­at the Bravees.”

“What is it?”

“I am too hurried to tell you the story.  Go up to the house, and you will learn.”