The very air seemed dead in there--heavy and stagnating, poisoned with the corruption of countless ages.

He went on, staggering on his way, urged by the nervous restlessness that made him feel tired yet caused him to loathe the very idea of immobility and repose.

Was he a wild man to hide in the woods and perhaps be killed there--in the darkness--where there was no room to breathe?
He would wait for his enemies in the sunlight, where he could see the sky and feel the breeze.

He knew how a Malay chief should die.

The sombre and desperate fury, that peculiar inheritance of his race, took possession of him, and he glared savagely across the clearing towards the gap in the bushes by the riverside.