Silently, a stark
naked shadow in the night, he came back to the bateau and crawled
through his window.
He lighted a lamp, and turned it very low, and in the dim glow of
it rubbed his muscles until they burned. He was fit for tomorrow,
and the knowledge of that fitness filled him with a savage
elation. A good-humored love of sport had induced him to fling his
first half-bantering challenge into the face of Concombre Bateese,
but that sentiment was gone. The approaching fight was no longer
an incident, a foolish error into which he had unwittingly plunged
himself. In this hour it was the biggest physical thing that had
ever loomed up in his life, and he yearned for the dawn with the
eagerness of a beast that waits for the kill which comes with the
break of day. But it was not the half-breed's face he saw under
the hammering of his blows. He could not hate the half-breed. He
could not even dislike him now. He forced himself to bed, and
later he slept. In the dream that came to him it was not Bateese
who faced him in battle, but St. Pierre Boulain.
He awoke with that dream a thing of fire in his brain. The sun was
not yet up, but the flush of it was painting the east, and he
dressed quietly and carefully, listening for some sound of
awakening beyond the bulkhead.
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