Morrison's despairing reserve had broken down.

He had been wandering with a dry throat all over that miserable town of mud hovels, silent, with no soul to turn to in his distress, and positively maddened by his thoughts; and suddenly he had stumbled on a white man, figuratively and actually white--for Morrison refused to accept the racial whiteness of the Portuguese officials.

He let himself go for the mere relief of violent speech, his elbows planted on the table, his eyes blood-shot, his voice nearly gone, the brim of his round pith hat shading an unshaven, livid face.

His white clothes, which he had not taken off for three days, were dingy.

He had already gone to the bad, past redemption.