The burn of the sun, the slippery
sweat, the growing ache of muscles, the never-ending thirst, the
lessening of strength--these sensations impinged upon Neale's
emotion and gradually wore to the front of his consciousness. His
hands grew raw, his back stiff and sore, his feet crippled. The
wound in his breast burned and bled and throbbed. At the end of the
day he could scarcely walk.
He rode in with the laborers, slept twelve hours, and awoke heavy-
limbed, slow, and aching. But he rode out to work, and his second
day was one of agony.
The third was a continual fight between will and body, between
spirit and pain. But so long as he could step and lift he would work
on. From that time he slowly began to mend.
Then came his siege with the rails. That was labor which made
carrying ties seem light. He toiled on, sweating thin, wearing hard,
growing clearer of mind. As pain subsided, and weariness of body no
longer dominated him, slowly thought and feeling returned until that
morning dawned when, like a flash of lightning illuminating his
soul, the profound and exalted emotion again possessed him. Soon he
came to divine that the agony of toil and his victory over weak
flesh had added to his strange happiness. Hour after hour he bent
his back and plodded beside his comrades, doing his share, burdened
as they were, silent, watchful, listening, dreaming, keen to note
the progress of the road, yet deep in his own intense abstraction.
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