Despair's Last Journey by David Christie Murray

Here, in the wakeful night, high up in the monstrous hills, with this everlasting torrent raging in his ears, and the camp-fire out of doors there flaring, flickering, glowing, dying down -- here in the fog of the forest fires and the solitude of the mountains, it is so easy to see things as they truly were. A shrug, a smile, a word, a silence, the lift of an eyebrow -- things which had no apparent meaning a dozen years ago, which were either unnoticed or forgotten in an instant -- are alive with monitions now. Not to have seen! Not to have guessed 'It looks incredible. A mule might have begun to read the riddle.

Paul read nothing.