Meanwhile Knox, forgetting his desire to hear the experience of his guest, was telling his own. It was sufficiently thrilling, but not to be compared with that of the planter's; and when he had finished, Alexander began with some pride to relate his impressions of the storm. He, too, had not talked for three days; his heart felt warm again; and in the familiar comfortable room, the terrible picture of the hurricane seemed to spring sharp and vivid from his memory; he had recalled it confusedly hitherto, and made no effort to live it again. Knox leaned forward eagerly, dropping his pipe; Alexander talked rapidly and brilliantly, finally springing to his feet, and concluding with an outburst so eloquent that his audience cowered and covered his face with his hands. For some moments Knox sat thinking, then he rose and pushed a small table in front of Alexander, littering it with pencils and paper, in his untidy fashion. "My boy," he said, "you're still hot with your own eloquence. Before you cool off, I want you to write that down word for word as you told it to me. If it twisted my very vitals, it will give a similar pleasure to others. 'Twould be selfish to deny them. When it's done, I'll send it to Tiebout. Now I'll leave you, and if my niggers are still too demoralized to cook supper for you, I'll do it myself." Alexander, whose brain, in truth, felt on fire, for every nerve had leapt to the recreating of that magnificent Force that had gathered an island into the hollow of its hand, crushed, and cast it back to the waters, dashed at the paper and wrote with even more splendour than he had spoken. When he had finished, he was still so excited that he rushed from the house and walked till the hideous sights and smells drove him home. He was quivering with the ecstasy of birth, and longed for another theme, and hours and days of hot creation. But he was to be spared the curse of the "artistic temperament." XI