After events were to fix it all in my brain with peculiar accuracy, but his narration had that night of itself its own individual quality.

His was no ordinary personality, or, at any rate, the especial circumstances of the time drove it into no ordinary shape, and I believe that never before in all his days had he spoken freely and eagerly to any one.

It was simply to-night his exultation and happiness that impelled him, perhaps also some sense of high adventure that his romantic character would, most inevitably, extract from our expedition and its purposes.
At any rate, I listened, saying a word now and then, whilst the hour grew dark, lit only by the stars, then trembled into a pale dawn overladen with grey dense clouds, which again broke, rolled away, before another shining, glittering morning.

I remember that it was broad daylight when we, at last, left the corridor.
"I'm thirty-three," he said.

"I don't feel it, of course; I seem to be now only just beginning life.