But he struggled on, maintaining his zigzag course upwards, with nerve unfailing and spirits unimpaired.
Gulls flew out above his head and circled about him with indignant protests.

He looked somewhat like a gigantic gull himself, his slim white figure outlined against the darkness of the cliff.

He cried back to the startled birds reassuringly in their own language, but the commotion continued; and presently, finding precarious foothold on a narrow ledge halfway up, he stopped to wipe his forehead and laugh with merriment unfeigned.

He was plainly in love with life--one in whose eyes all things were good, but yet who loved the hazard of them even better.
The ledge did not permit of much comfort.

Nevertheless he managed to turn upon it and to lean back against the cliff, with his brown face to sky and sea.