His shelter was as wet inside as out, as
he was himself.
He felt empty and hungry at times, but never thirsty; his skin absorbed
moisture enough and to spare. But, chilled and clammed and starving, on
the fifth day when he had crawled into his wet burrow for such small
relief as it might offer from the ceaseless flailing without, he
broached his bottle of cognac and drank a little, and found himself the
better of it.
On the evening of the third day his hopes had risen with a slight
slackening of the turmoil. He was not sure if the gale had really
abated, or if it was only that he was growing accustomed to it. But
under that belief, and the compulsion of a growling stomach, he crawled
precariously round to the eastern end of the rock where the puffins had
their holes, lying flat when the great gusts snatched at him as though
they were bent on hurling him into the water, and gliding on again in
the intervals. And there, with a piece of his firewood he managed to
extort half-a-dozen eggs from fiercely expostulating parents. The end of
his stick was bitten to fragments, but he got his eggs, and was amazed
at the size of them compared with that of their producers.
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