THE resolve, the hint of personal adversity, and the sight of Australians stir in Brian Lara's consciousness in equal measure and surfaced once more on the third day of the first Test yesterday.
The recalled West Indies captain strode to the wicket quarter-hour before lunch to the background of a host of off-field distractions, a deficit of 142 still to be cleared to prevent an innings defeat and the accompaniment of jeering from the packed Bourda stands upset by his preference over their fellow Guyanese, the sacked and absent Carl Hooper.
When he left just over three hours later, to a bizarre dismissal as his bat hit the top of leg-stump from a tangled sweep shot against left-arm wrist spinner Brad Hogg, he had 110 to his name and the West Indies were ahead by 73 and back in contention.
His seventh hundred against his favourite opponents, and his 19th overall, took 157 balls, included 20 fours and made him the fifth West Indian to pass 2,000 Test runs against Australia.
It rapidly changed the mood of the fickle hecklers so that he returned to the pavilion to the kind of reception accorded American servicemen of late in Baghdad.
Unlike several of his past masterpieces against Australia, this was no single-handed effort.
Two of the team's lesser lights were equally responsible for a total of 381 for five at close, a lead of 129 with two days remaining.
The little, left-handed 21-year-old opener Devon Smith, in his debut Test, set the mood for the revival with a sparkling 62 in the first session, highlighted by thumping off-side drives that brought him most of his 13 fours.
The one that raised his 50 burst through captain Steve Waugh's grasp at extra-cover and temporarily sent him off the field to have six stiches inserted in he resulting wound.
After Smith snicked a wicket-keeper's catch off Jason Gillespie, the day's most threatening bowler, 20 minutes before lunch, the solid right-hander Daren Ganga, with whom he added 58, was Lara's ideal foil in a third wicket partnership of 185 that occupied the next three hours.
The 24-year-old Ganga outlasted his captain to complete a hundred of his own , 114, and dispel the widely held notion that he was only keeping the No.3 spot warm until the return of the injured Ramnaresh Sarwan for the second Test in Port-of-Spain next weekend.
This is his first Test at home and his first hundred after 18 spread all over the globe - in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Sharjah and Bangladesh.
It was an innings, spanning just under five and a quarter hours and occupying 225 balls, that highlighted his cricketing sense and his character for his tenuous place had been further undermined by his third-ball duck in the first innings. His emotional celebration of reaching the landmark was understandable but the effort was unfittingly spoiled by its end.
Frustrated by occasional left-arm spinner Darren Lehmann's tactic of bowling into the rough outside the leg-stump, Ganga abandoned the correct response of kicking the ball away and on-drove against the spin instead. The outcome was a head-high catch to mid-wicket.
His main scoring shots in five and a quarter diligent hours were a pulled six off leg-spinner Stuart MacGill's long hop and 19 fours were his main scoring strokes.
The two hundreds brought the number in the match to five, following Shivnarine Chanderpaul's in the West Indies first innings and those by Justin Langer and Ricky Ponting for Australia.
They are a reflection of a lifeless pitch and parched, fast outfield that have yielded 156 fours and nine sixes over the three days. In such conditions, the West Indies cannot feel comfortable unless they can somehow extend their eventual lead to 350.
Such a prospect was not a consideration as Smith and Wavell Hinds carried their overnight 16 into the third day.
Smith, the pugnacious little Grenadian, was the first to revive West Indian spirits in the stands and, more crucially, in the dressing room. Less docile pitches will test his technique but there is nothing wrong with his attitude and temperament.
With Chris Gayle waiting to get his place back and a first innings, umpire-induced failure behind him, Smith might have had some apprehension. Instead, he batted with refreshing freedom.
He dominated an opening partnership of 52 with Wavell Hinds who was lucky with umpire Asoka deSilva's rejection of Brett Lee's lbw appeal second ball of the morning but unlucky with his affirmation off MacGill's second ball an hour later. The leg-break seemed to have enough on it to beat the stumps.
Smith's removal was a timely setback 20 minutes before lunch when the West Indies were 122 for two, still 130 in arrears.
The situation prompted Lara into a long period of discreet watchfulness before transferring to his more familiar style, MacGill and Hogg mainly with sweeps and pulls but seldom ignoring the half-volleys that came along.
With his fastest bowler, Lee, again struggling with his rhythm, counting 14 no-balls for the day from the same number of overs, and the pitch challenging bowlers unaccustomed to such docility, Waugh eventually used seven bowlers, including himself for eight respectable overs of medium-pace.
Strangely, he did not call on Hogg until mid-way through the afternoon.
Once he changed gears, Lara sped past Ganga in the 50s and seemed unstoppable. He spent 73 balls over his first 40. His next 70 came from 84.
Waugh and Australia had seen it often enough before to be wary and their joy was unconfined when their appeal for a catch from Lara's final ball was rendered redundant by his bat striking the stump.
Marlon Samuels, who followed, lasted nine balls before, he edged an on-drive against MacGill's leg-break low to second slip, as casual a dismissal as his first ball edge to slip in the first innings.
He remained as Chanderpaul's runner but the impression that he was in a trance was confirmed when he kept lingering out of his crease while Chanderpaul faced.
He was fortunate not to have cost Chanderpaul his wicket, stumped, only because he was out of range of the TV camera at point when the alert Adam Gilchrist broke the stumps.
Chanderpaul remained to the end, passing 4,000 Test runs, as he and Vasbert Drakes got through the new ball to carry West Indian hopes of extending the lead today.