He choked, he suffered the torture of the mailed Genoese going under; worse, for the drowner's delirium swirls but a minute in the gaping brain, while he had to lie all, night at the mercy of the night.
He was only calmer when morning came.

Night has little mercy for the self-reproachful, and for a strong man denouncing the folly of his error, it has none.

The bequest of the night was a fever of passion; and upon that fever the light of morning cleared his head to weigh the force opposing him.

He gnawed the paradox, that it was huge because it was petty, getting a miserable sour sustenance out of his consciousness of the position it explained.

Great enemies, great undertakings, would have revived him as they had always revived and fortified.