He would never go back there.

Never! He looked round slowly at the brilliance of things in the deadly sunshine and took up his paddle! How changed everything seemed! The river was broader, the sky was higher.

How fast the canoe flew under the strokes of his paddle! Since when had he acquired the strength of two men or more?
He looked up and down the reach at the forests of the bank with a confused notion that with one sweep of his hand he could tumble all these trees into the stream.

His face felt burning.

He drank again, and shuddered with a depraved sense of pleasure at the after-taste of slime in the water.
It was late when he reached Almayer's house, but he crossed the dark and uneven courtyard, walking lightly in the radiance of some light of his own, invisible to other eyes.