"I SAW A MAN PURSUING THE HORIZON; ROUND AND ROUND THEY SPED. I WAS DISTURBED AT THIS; I ACCOSTED THE MAN. "IT IS FUTILE," I SAID, "YOU CAN NEVER" — … - Stephen Crane

"XX

A learned man came to me once.
He said, "I know the way, - come."
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened,
Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of me feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, "I am lost.

The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lashlike over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise impaired his resources.

His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it was an engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his companions were being taunted and derided from sincere convictions that they were poor and puny. His knowledge of his inability to take vengeance for it made his rage into a dark and stormy specter, that possessed him and made him dream of abominable cruelties. The tormentors were flies sucking insolently at his blood, and he thought that he would have given his life for a revenge of seeing their faces in pitiful plights.