between Guernsey and France. Left alone on the ship, he is terrified, but he sees a cutter and leaps into the water to catch it. At that moment he is grabbed by the leg and is pulled down to the bottom. Everybody in Guernsey finds out about the shipwreck. Mess Lethierry is desperate to get the Durandes engine back. His niece declares she will marry the rescuer of the engine, and Mess Lethierry swears she will marry no other. Gilliat immediately takes up the mission, enduring hunger, thirst, and cold trying to free the engine from the wreck. In a battle with an octopus, he finds the skeleton of Clubin and the stolen money on the bottom of the sea. Eventually he succeeds in returning the engine to Lethierry, who is very pleased and ready to honour his promise. Gilliat appears in front of the people as the rescuer but he declines to marry Deruchette because he had seen her accepting a marriage proposal made by Ebenezer Caudry, the young Anglican priest recently arrived on the island. He arranges their hurried wedding and helps them run away on the sailing ship Cashmere. In the end, with all his dreams shattered, Gilliat decides to wait for the tide sitting on the Gild Holm'Ur chair (a rock in the sea) and drowns as he watches the Cashmere disappear on the horizon. Characters Gilliatt: a fisherman Mess Lethierry: owner of the ship Durande, the island's first steam ship Déruchette: Mess Lethierry's young niece Sieur Clubin: captain of the Durande Ebenezer Caudray: young Anglican priest, recently arrived on the island Influence The novel is credited with introducing the Guernésiais word for octopus (pieuvre) into the French language (standard French for octopus is poulpe). Inspiration In the 2010s, locals conducted research on the circumstances under which the novel originated, using Hugo’s unpublished notes as well. They found that the Douvre double rock did not exist, but its model image did: it was modeled by Hugo on the so-called Les Autelets on the island of Sark (and the coast). And the fight with the octopus was inspired by a real polyp attack that took place here. Dedication The following dedication appears at the front of the book: Je dédie ce livre au rocher d'hospitalité et de liberté, à ce coin de vieille terre normande où vit le noble petit peuple de la mer, à l'île de