Karain's lips moved slightly. A vivid flash of lightning made the
two round stern-ports facing him glimmer like a pair of cruel and
phosphorescent eyes. The flame of the lamp seemed to wither into brown
dust for an instant, and the looking-glass over the little sideboard
leaped out behind his back in a smooth sheet of livid light. The roll of
thunder came near, crashed over us; the schooner trembled, and the great
voice went on, threatening terribly, into the distance. For less than a
minute a furious shower rattled on the decks. Karain looked slowly from
face to face, and then the silence became so profound that we all could
hear distinctly the two chronometers in my cabin ticking along with
unflagging speed against one another.

And we three, strangely moved, could not take our eyes from him. He had
become enigmatical and touching, in virtue of that mysterious cause that
had driven him through the night and through the thunderstorm to the
shelter of the schooner's cuddy. Not one of us doubted that we were
looking at a fugitive, incredible as it appeared to us. He was haggard,
as though he had not slept for weeks; he had become lean, as though
he had not eaten for days. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunk,
the muscles of his chest and arms twitched slightly as if after an
exhausting contest. Of course it had been a long swim off to the
schooner; but his face showed another kind of fatigue, the tormented
weariness, the anger and the fear of a struggle against a thought, an
idea--against something that cannot be grappled, that never rests--a
shadow, a nothing, unconquerable and immortal, that preys upon life. We
knew it as though he had shouted it at us. His chest expanded time after
time, as if it could not contain the beating of his heart. For a moment
he had the power of the possessed--the power to awaken in the beholders
wonder, pain, pity, and a fearful near sense of things invisible, of
things dark and mute, that surround the loneliness of mankind. His eyes