Burke, dizzied, walked forward. The limp, scattered sleepers were still there as before, but in one corner a man was choking in his breathing, and near the anchor another was vibrating in his sleep in one long, continuous shudder.
There came another period of suspense. One day passed, two days passed, with no cases. The third day came, and Burke's Demon was clutching him.
He had found in the hold some rude native varnish, redolent of crude alcohol, and had brought it up to polish the crude furniture of his hospital; and now he dared not come near it. The bucket stood by the hatch, and Burke was pacing to and fro along the deck like a wild beast. Each time he passed the bucket the pungent odour stung his face, filling his mind with the memory of one of his worst periods of degradation and his whole physical being with a madness to wallow back into it.
He fought hard. He knew that he must throw that bucket overboard, so he forced his thoughts upon the act.
"I'll walk twenty times the length of the deck with my mind on that," he muttered to himself.
So, concentrating his brain upon the necessary deed, he began pacing up and down. At the twentieth turn he walked toward the bucket and stopped suddenly, livid as death, his eyes fixed stupidly upon his hands.
In his right hand he held a stick, a little, pliable bamboo stick.
He tried to remember picking it up; he could not. The act had been not of the will, of the will that was fighting for mastery; it had been forced by that other Power, that Power which possessed his nerves, his bones, his flesh, the Power he was seeking to kill.
"I will begin again," he muttered.