At the thought the old fever began to rise in his blood.

The hot, clear smell of rock and sand, the brown depths of the waters, the far white peaks running up among the stars, all spoke to him with the long-remembered call.

Once more he should taste life, and, alert in mind and body, hold up his chin among his fellows.

It would be a contest of wits, and for all his cowardice this was not the contest he shrank from.
And then there came back on him, like a flood, the dumb misery of incompetence which had weighed on heart and brain.

The hatred of the whole struggling, sordid crew, all the cant and ugliness and ignorance of a mad world, his weakness in the face of it, his fall from common virtue, his nerveless indolence--all stung him like needle points, till he cried out in agony.