For this was the leeward side of the island, and the huge bulk of it rose like a protecting shoulder between him and the gale, whereas his bee-hive, on the exposed flank of the rock, got the full force of it.

So he scooped a hole in the friable black soil and deposited his eggs in it and crawled along to the wall.
The tumbled fragments looked much less fearsome than they had done in the fog.

He found no difficulty in clambering among them now, when he could see clearly what he was about, and he wormed his way in and out, and up and down, but could not light on any of those tricky spaces which had seemed to him so dangerous before.
And then, as he crawled under one huge slab, a black void lay before him, of no great width but evidently deep.

It took many minutes' peering into the depths to accustom his eyes to the dimness.
Then it seemed to him that the rough out jutting fragments below would afford a holding, and he swung his feet cautiously down and felt round for foothold.
Carefully testing everything he touched, he let himself down, inch by inch, assured that if he could go down he could certainly get up again.
At first the gale still whistled through the crevices among the boulders, but presently he found himself in a silence that was so mighty a change from the ceaseless roar to which he was becoming accustomed, that he felt as though stricken with deafness.

Up above him the light filtered down, tempered by the slab under which he had come, and enabled him still to find precarious hand and foot hold.
But presently his downward progress was barred by a rough flooring of splintered fragments, and he stood panting and looked about him.
His well was about twenty feet deep, he reckoned, and there were gaping slits here and there which might lead in towards the rock or out towards the sea.