He saw the poet Labarta just as when he was recounting to his godson the adventures of the old Ulysses, and his shipwrecked struggle with the rocky peaks and waves.
Again the marine dilatation tossed him against a rock, and again he anchored himself to it with an instinctive clutch of his hands.

But before this wave retired it hurled him desperately upon another ledge, the refluent water passing back below him.

Thus he struggled a long time, clinging to the rocks when the sea overwhelmed him, and crawling along upon the jutting points whenever the retiring water permitted.
Finding himself upon a projecting point of the coast, free at last from the suction of the waves, his energy suddenly disappeared.

The water that dripped from his body was red, each time more red, spreading itself in rivulets over the greenish irregularities of the rock.

He felt intense pain as though all his organism had lost the protection of its covering,--his raw flesh remaining exposed to the air.
He wished to get somewhere, but over his head the coast was rearing its stark bulk,--a concave and inaccessible wall.