How to obtain food was a problem; how to get drink was a problem; how to
find rest was a problem.

He ate when he was fortunate enough to find a crayfish or a crab; he
drank when he chanced to see a sea-bird descend upon a point of rock;
for on climbing up to the spot he generally found there a hollow with a
little fresh water. He drank from it after the bird; sometimes with the
bird; for the gulls and seamews had become accustomed to him, and no
longer flew away at his approach. Even in his greatest need of food he
did not attempt to molest them. He had, as will be remembered, a
superstition about birds. The birds on their part--now that his hair was
rough and wild and his beard long--had no fear of him. The change in his
face gave them confidence; he had lost resemblance to men, and taken the
form of the wild beast.

The birds and Gilliatt, in fact, had become good friends. Companions in
poverty, they helped each other. As long as he had had any meal, he had
crumbled for them some little bits of the cakes he made. In his deeper
distress they showed him in their turn the places where he might find
the little pools of water.

He ate the shell-fish raw. Shell-fish help in a certain degree to quench
the thirst. The crabs he cooked. Having no kettle, he roasted them
between two stones made red-hot in his fire, after the manner of the
savages of the Feroe islands.

Meanwhile signs of the equinoctial season had begun to appear. There
came rain--an angry rain. No showers or steady torrents, but fine,
sharp, icy, penetrating points which pierced to his skin through his
clothing, and to his bones through his skin. It was a rain which yielded
little water for drinking, but which drenched him none the less.

Chary of assistance, prodigal of misery--such was the character of these
rains. During one week Gilliatt suffered from them all day and all
night.

At night, in his rocky recess, nothing but the overpowering fatigue of
his daily work enabled him to get sleep. The great sea-gnats stung him,
and he awakened covered with blisters.

He had a kind of low fever, which sustained him; this fever is a succour
which destroys. By instinct he chewed the mosses, or sucked the leaves
of wild cochlearia, scanty tufts of which grew in the dry crevices of
the rocks. Of his suffering, however, he took little heed. He had no
time to spare from his work to the consideration of his own privations.
The rescue of the machinery of the Dur