A form was before the window; a marvellous form. It was the funnel of a steam-vessel.
Mess Lethierry started, and sat upright in his bed. The hammock oscillated like a swing in a tempest. Lethierry stared. A vision filled the window-frame. There was the harbour flooded with the light of the moon, and against that glitter, quite close to his house, stood forth, tall, round, and black, a magnificent object.
The funnel of a steam-vessel was there.
Lethierry sprang out of his hammock, ran to the window, lifted the sash, leaned out, and recognised it.
The funnel of the Durande stood before him.
It was in the old place.
Its four chains supported it, made fast to the bulwarks of a vessel in which, beneath the funnel, he could distinguish a dark mass of irregular outline.
Lethierry recoiled, turned his back to the window, and dropped in a sitting posture into his hammock again.
Then he returned, and once more he saw the vision.
An instant afterwards, or in about the time occupied by a flash of lightning, he was out upon the quay, with a lantern in his hand.