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No one else knew how miserable a travesty on sleep his sleep had been, first reading until a heavy physical weariness came, then lying in his bed through the latter hours of the night, fitfully dozing, often rousing, while from either side of his bed, from the ceiling above, from the headboard behind him, and from the footboard, strong lights played full and flary upon his twitching, aching eyelids; and finally, towards dawn, with every nerve behind his eyes taut with pain and strain, awakening unrefreshed to consciousness of that nimbus of unrelieved false glare which encircled him, and the stench of melted tallow and the stale reek of burned kerosene foul in his nose.
The blizzard has continued throughout last night and up to this time of writing, late in the afternoon. Starting mildly, with broken clouds, little snow, and gleams of sunshine, it grew in intensity until this forenoon, when there was heavy snowfall and the sky overspread with low nimbus cloud.
First the doctor sitting with hands resting on his knees, his aquiline nose and brow clearly outlined against the shadowy background in the gold chalk of the dancing flames, his black evening clothes in strong contrast to the high white of the coverlet, framing the child's face like a nimbus.
Sara sat down on the rocker in front of the window and the sunset light came in behind her and made a sort of nimbus round her head, like a motherly saint's in a cathedral. "Beatrice," she said gently, "I want to know what the trouble is. You can't hide it from me that something is wrong. I've noticed it for some time. You don't eat anything and you cry all night oh, yes, I know you do.
Let him alone fer dat. Yis, honey, I'se comin' d'reckly!" he shouted, as his wife called him from his own cabin. "Now Bre'er 'Liab, yer comes ter supper wid us. Lugena's jes' a callin' on't." "Oh, don't, Nimbus," said the other, shrinking away. "I can't! You jes send one of the chillen in with it, as usual."
And yet, with this exultation, there was a spirit of deep melancholy pervading his countenance, as well as his discourses, that seemed to imply a sense of danger. The nimbus of the saint in his eyes was associated with the crown of martyrdom. He seemed to look forward to a fatal termination of his ministry, as the most and proper conclusion of his labours.
"The sheriff says you an' 'Liab Hill has been gittin' into some trouble with the law, and that the Ku Klux has got after you too, so that if you don't leave you're likely to go to States prison or have a whippin' or hangin' bee at your house afore you know it." "Jes let 'em come," said Nimbus, angrily "Ku Kluckers or sheriffs, it don't make no difference which.
In the midst of this Juno-like nimbus however, the negro continued to talk and act, helping the sailor and little William, until not only were the water-casks restored to their proper places, but the sail was hauled up to the mast, and the Catamaran once more scudding before the breeze, as if not the slightest accident had occurred either to craft or crew.
This last touch proves Thomas Stevens's identity conclusively. His quest for tobacco was perennial and untiring. Ere we became fairly acquainted, I learned to greet him with one hand, and pass the pouch with the other. But the night I met him in John O'Brien's Dawson saloon, his head was wreathed in a nimbus of fifty-cent cigar smoke, and instead of my pouch he demanded my sack.
For a time there was, in the centre of the haze, a nimbus of light which revealed his cards to him and the towers of chips which he constantly called for and which as constantly disappeared like the towers of a castle in Spain. Then the haze thickened, and the one thing clear to him was a phrase from an old-time novel he had read long ago: "Debt of honor."
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