Frightened and panting for breath, he swam about without aim, endeavouring to touch ground, and no longer able to distinguish the Ile des Morts from Trébéron. After having long shifted his course, struggled against the tide in which every moment he plunged still deeper, been a thousand times brought back from despair to hope, and run the full length of his endurance and his courage, he felt at last that he was overcome. His respiration grew painful, his eyes were covered with a film; all things were to him but as a revolving chaos; his mind wandered. A moment more, and he and Francine had disappeared beneath the waters. The gun-boat, which he had wished to avoid, but which he could no longer perceive, was his sole means of safety. He summoned all his remaining strength to utter a cry for help; a surge, more powerful, stifled it on his lips. Half-fainting and having nothing left him but that instinctive self-defence which survives the will, he struggled still an instant, buffeted from wave to wave; then felt that he was going down. But all at once, he was arrested; his feet had fallen on to the reef; they were fastened on it, and steadied themselves thereon; his body straightened up; the water that blinded him seemed to lower itself. He took breath and looked before him, and could see at the distance of a hundred steps the cleft rock of the Ile des Morts. A few minutes sufficed for reaching it. Touching the shore he fell down upon it, and called Francine with expiring voice. The child, terrified, could only reply by throwing herself upon his breast, where he held her for some time in his embrace. His first thought had been for her; his second carried him back to Geneviève who was expecting his return, to know that they were safe. Still tottering, he raised himself up, took his little daughter by the hand, and set himself to climbing the steep slope that led to the terrace. It was necessary to make the tour of the powder magazine, to avoid the sentinel placed at the angle which commanded the main roadside; and also, on reaching the magazine keeper's door, to knock gently, for fear of being heard from without. Dorot fortunately had the light sleep of old soldiers; he awoke at the first knocking, and appeared at the window. --"Open the door!" said Mathieu to him in a low voice. --"Ropars!" cried the sergeant, thunderstruck. --"Lower! and be quick!" returned the seaman "our lives' safety is at stake." Dorot went down rapidly, drew back the bolt, and made them enter the house. Mathieu paused, when across the thresh-hold, with the child pressed against his knees. --"Heaven protect us! whence come you, Ropars?" inquired the sergeant. --"You see," replied the sailor, "we have come out of the sea, and we have crossed over it, to come hither." Dorot drew back, exclaiming, "Can it be? in God's name, what has happened, that you should thus expose your life?"