“I’ve got to go on! I will go on!” he cried indomitably.
The fog showed no prospect of lifting. It was still a world without form and void. Dimly conscious in his direction, treading now on the firmer ground that bordered the steppe’s road, Nathan went on and away into nothing, nothing! Only fog!
Once he heard a horse approaching, slopping through the quag. Frenziedly he left the road, drew into the deeper mist, flattened himself to earth. Horse and rider passed him about a hundred feet to the east, a high-hatted rider on a dirty, creamy pony. Then quiet again—ethereal quiet—the journey—on and on—and on!
The fog of the world and of life was having a last great rubble with Nathan.
There could never be another fog like the fog of that night. There could never be another grayness quite like that last awful morning.
A couple of hours after dawn Nathan began drawing on raw nerve to make that journey. He had no prospect of finding food. He had no prospect of finding any one, even if he made the railroad. Trains over the railroad ran days apart now. He was far closer to death than he suspected.
But the blind instinct to live, to win an objective, drove him onward. And the road and the hills kept his footsteps true. Hour after hour, mile after mile,—still he staggered onward. Little six-inch steps at times now. Fog! Fog! Fog!
Had the sun risen? Could the sun be shining above?
The fog was luminous—different somehow. It seemed so.
“It’s got to lift sometime!” he cried brokenly. “The sun’s shining somewhere. The sun is always shining somewhere. I must find it. I must!”