A fresh task was
forced upon this famished man. It was necessary to build a breakwater in
the gorge. He flew to this task. Nails driven into the cracks of the
rocks, beams lashed together with cordage, cat-heads from the Durande,
binding strakes, pulley-sheaves, chains--with these materials the
haggard dweller of the rock built his barrier against the wrath of God.

Then the storm came.

_III.--The Devil-Fish_

When the awful rage of the storm had passed, and the barrier which he
had repaired in the midst of the tempest hung like a broken arm across
the gorge, Gilliatt, maddened by hunger, took advantage of the receding
tide to go in search of crayfish. Half naked, and with his open knife
between his teeth, he sprang from rock to rock. In hunting a crab he
found himself once more in the mysterious grotto that glittered with
jewel-like flowers. He noticed a fissure above the level of the water.
The crab was probably there. He thrust in his hand as far as he was
able, and groped about in that dusky aperture.

Suddenly he felt himself seized by the arm. A strange, indescribable
horror thrilled through him.

Some living thing--thin, rough, flat, cold, slimy--had twisted itself
round his naked arm. It crept upward towards his chest. Its pressure was
like a tightening cord, its steady persistence like that of a screw. In
less than a moment some mysterious spiral form had passed round his
wrist and elbow, and had reached his shoulder. A sharp point penetrated
beneath the arm-pit.

Gilliatt recoiled; but he had scarcely power to move. He was, as it
were, nailed to the place. With his left hand, which was disengaged, he
seized his knife, and made a desperate effort to withdraw his arm. He
only succeeded in disturbing his persecutor, which wound itself still
tighter. It was supple as leather, strong as steel, cold as night.

A second form--sharp, elongated, and narrow--issued out of the crevice,
like a tongue out of monstrous jaws. It seemed to lick his naked body;
then, suddenly stretching out, it became longer and thinner, as it crept
over his skin, and wound itself round him. A terrible sense of anguish,
comparable to nothing he had ever known, compelled all his muscles to
contract. He felt upon his skin a number of flat, rounded points. It
seemed as if innumerable suckers had fastened to his flesh, and were
about to drink his blood.

A third long, undulating shape issued from the hole in the rock, felt
about hi