Even now, as he flung himself on the forest's
protection, it was not with the solace of the son returning to the mother;
it was rather as a man might take refuge from a lion in a mammoth cavern,
where the darkness only conceals dangers.
After the struggle with crude nature the smooth, grass-carpeted
wagon-track brought him more than a physical sense of comfort. It not only
made his flight swift and easy, but it had been marked out by man, for
man's purposes and to meet man's need. It was the result of a human
intelligence; it led to a human goal. It was possible that it might lead
even him into touch with human sympathies With the thought, he became
conscious all at once that he was famished and fatigued. Up to the present
he had been as little aware of a body as a spirit on its way between two
worlds. It had ached and sweated and bled; but he had not noticed it. The
electric fluid could not have seemed more tireless or iron more insensate.
But now, when the hardship was somewhat relaxed, he was forced back on the
perception that he was faint and hungry His speed slackened; his shoulders
sagged; the long second wind, which had lasted so well, began to shorten.
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