The feeding frenzy of run-hungry batsmen who have gorged themselves on the West Indies bowling, from as far back even as Brian Lara's first tenure as captain, continued at Supersport Park here yesterday.
His team bowled with more discipline than they had on the hapless first day of the fourth and final Test and were sharper in the field and safer in catching than at any time on tour.
Still, Jacques Kallis sustained his insatiable appetite for runs with his fourth hundred of the series. It followed those of South Africa's openers, captain Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs, in their partnership of 301 on the first day as South Africa built a total of 604 for six declared.
It was their second in excess of 600 to add to others of 561 and 532 in their four completed innings - and the sixth over 500 against the West Indies in their last 14 Tests.
Smith's objective was to give his bowlers 13 overs at the weary West Indian batsmen but they managed only five.
It was a wonder they got in as many before Chris Gayle and Daren Ganga, who comfortably survived them, gratefully accepted the offer of umpires David Shepherd and Srinivasa Venkataraghavan to end the day after several consultations with their light meters.
An overcast gloom had settled over Supersport Park for the entire day and compelled the use of the floodlights for all but the first quarter-hour.
The only one more relieved at the early close than Gayle and Ganga was the South African fast bowler, Andre Nel.
He had already postponed his long-arranged wedding in nearby Benoni by two hours and had less than an hour to get to the church on time when he was whisked off by a waiting helicopter as soon as he left the field.
Kallis' chanceless, unbeaten 130 was South Africa's 12th three-figure innings since Smith set the pattern with his 132 on the opening day of the first Test and his 15th overall.
It placed Kallis' name alongside an elite band of ten batsmen to have scored hundreds in four successive Tests.
The legendary Australian, Don Bradman, did so three times but no one has yet matched the five in five innings by the phenomenal Everton Weekes, for the West Indies between 1948 and 1949.
With 158 in the first innings of the first Test, 177 in his only innings of the second and 130 not out in the second innings of the third, Kallis pushed his aggregate to 712.
It surpassed the 706 Australian Ricky Ponting amassed over the past month against India as the highest for a series of four Tests.
But the powerful right-hander, playing his 75th Test, had to give up one record.
Gibbs carried his overnight 139 past Kallis' 177 to 192, the highest score by a South African against the West Indies, before he slapped Ramnaresh Sarwan's long-hop leg-break to Daren Ganga at point, 15 minutes after lunch.
The statistics told the story of the improved West Indies effort.
While South Africa rattled up their 302 for one at a rate of 4.8 runs an over on the opening day, allowing only seven maidens in the 67 overs, they needed another 91 overs, of which 12 were maidens, to add the same 302 at a rate of 3.3 yesterday.
Had Lara not left third man vacant, even as the total passed 500 with only four wickets down, allowing six unnecessary boundaries to add to the five in the same area on the first day, the advance would have been slower.
In conditions that aided swing, Corey Collymore had two outstanding spells of six overs before lunch and nine in the second session. His accurate away-swing troubled all the batsmen, Kallis most of all.
At the end, he had no more than Smith's first-day wicket against his name while, in addition to Gibbs, Sarwan had Gary Kirsten's, caught and bowled from a full toss after hoisting a six the previous delivery.
Merv Dillon, steady but slower and slower with each spell, claimed Neil McKenzie to a catch by Lara at first slip to end a partnership of 86 with Kallis while Dwayne Smith's bustling, promising medium-pace swing earned him his first Test wicket, Mark Boucher swinging a catch into fine-leg's lap.
But as usual, the effort came a day too late. The damage had already been done and the South Africans merely had to bide their time.
The hallmarks of Kallis' batting are his composure, the certainty and weight of his driving and cutting and his unerring judgment of which balls need to be defended and which can be attacked.
He joined Gibbs 35 minutes before lunch when left-hander Jacques Rudolph lost his middle stump to one of the few deliveries the clearly overworked and exhausted Fidel Edwards got on target; an in-swinging yorker delivered from round the wicket.
Gibbs had taken some time to get going as Rudolph initially took the lead in their partnership. But a short-armed pickup over mid-wicket off Dillon for six and Kallis' hooked six and pulled four off successive balls when Edwards bounced him would have made the lunch, taken at 398 for two, less digestible for the West Indies.
Lara chose Sarwan and Ganga as his starters after the break, a strange combination, but it brought success.
Sarwan accounted for Gibbs and Kirsten and Ganga was tight with his flat off-spin before Collymore returned to put down the best spell of the match.
Towards the end of it, he turned his left ankle and McKenzie's driven four through extra-cover and hooked six in the same over was the sign that he had come to the end of his tether.
At the opposite end, Vasbert Drakes had separate, very close lbw appeals against McKenzie and Kallis, then, 69, rejected by Venkat.
McKenzie fell to Dillon with Kallis 83 and Boucher to Smith with him 99, keeping a lively crowd of 14,000 quivering with excitement.
But Kallis would not be rushed.
Only when he completed his hundred after four hours, ten minutes by cover-driving his 198th ball, off Edwards, for his ninth four did he allow himself full freedom, scoring his last 31 from 16 balls with five more fours.
The two most junior bowlers, Edwards and Smith, took the punishment, both spraying wides in their efforts to keep away from Kallis' late savagery.
It might have gone on longer but the South African Smith was satisfied with his 604.