"Look here, Heseltine," said Roger. "I must do this."
"You shall not wreck the expedition," said Lionel. "You're as ignorant
as a cow. You haven't even examined the ruin."
Roger paid no attention to him. He bade the men moor the boat and
unload her.
"Naldrett," said Lionel, "if you persist in this--when I'm sick and
can't stop you--it's the end of our working together. We part company.
Put down that box, Merrylegs. Leave those things in the boat."
Roger had more strength left in him than his companion. The boat was
unloaded. The bearers, leaving a pile of boxes by the river, formed an
Indian file and marched with their burdens of necessaries towards the
hill. Lionel walked, supported by Roger. He did not speak. His face
worked with the impotent anger of a sick man. Presently Roger noticed
that he was crying from mere nervous weakness. He felt that it would
be well to say nothing. Lionel's petulance was the result of fever.
If he said anything, the petulant mood would surely twist it into a
cause of offence. He said nothing. Lionel, after pausing a minute,
said something in a faint voice about the heat. Roger had not noticed
the heat. He had a glowing lime-kiln within him. He stopped, and
asked if it were very hot. "God!" said Lionel disgustedly. They
walked on, following the bearers. Presently Lionel stopped and swore
at the heat. Roger waited. Each moment of waiting was torture to him.
Each moment of physical effort racked him. He wanted to fling himself
down and let the fever run its course.
"God Almighty!" said Lionel, turning on him. "Can't you answer me?"
"I didn't know you spoke to me."
"You don't know anything."
"You were not speaking to me, you were swearing at the heat."
"What if I were."
"If you could manage to keep quiet till we are camped," said Roger,
"you'd feel better. I'm doing my best for you."
"You are," said Lionel, "you are. I'm dying to see the sort of rotten
camp you'll make when you're left by yourself."
"Shut up," said Roger. "Shut up. I'm too ill to talk." The fever was
whirling in him now. He could not trust himself to say more. He was
near the delirious stage. He remembered smelling the smell of death,
in a foul sultry blast, while Merrylegs said something about the kraal
in the hollow. Looking, half-drowsed, to his left, he saw a kraal
littered with dead and dying cattle, among which gorged vultures
perched. Afterwards, he remembered the ruins of a wall, standing now
about three feet high. It was built of good hewn stone, well laid,
with one crenellated course just below its present top. He could never
remember getting over the wall. There were many sunflowers. Immense
orange sunflowers with limp wavy petals. Sunflowers growing out of a
litter of neatly wrought stones. Mosquitoes came "pinging" about him,
winding their sultry horns. Those little horns seemed to him to be the
language of fever. They suggested things to him. The men were a long,
long time pitching the tent. Something was wrong with one of the men.
The other men were keeping apart from him. The beds with their
nettings were ready at last. Fire was burning. Something with a smell
of soup was being cooked. In his sick fancy it was the smell of
something dead. He told them to take it away. He saw Lionel
somewhere, much as a man at the point of death may see the doctor by
his bedside. He could not be sure which of the two of them was the
living one. Then there came a moment when he could not undo the
fastening of his mosquito net. He saw his bed inside. He longed to be
in bed. All this torture would be over directly he was in bed, wrapped
up. But he could not get in. The bed was shut from him by the
mosquito net. He wanted to get in. He would give the world to be in
bed. But he did not know how he was to move the netting, everything
smelt of death so strongly. It was very red everywhere, a smoky,
whirling red, with violent lights. People were crossing the dusk, or
rather not people, but streaks of darkness. They were making a great
crying out. They were too noisy. Why could they not be quiet? He
ceased to fumble at the net. He began to see an endless army of
artillery going over a pass. The men were all dark; the guns were all
painted black; the horses were black. They were going uphill
endlessly, endlessly, endlessly. He cried out to them to stop that
driving, to do anything rather than go on and on and on in that ghastly
way. Instantly they changed to tsetses, riding on dying cattle. They
were giant tsetses, with eyes like cannonballs. An infernal host of
trypanosomes wriggled around them. The trypanosomes were wriggling all
over him. A giant tsetse was forcing his mouth open with a hairy bill,
so that the trypanosomes might wriggle down his throat. A flattened
trypanosome, tasting as flabby as jelly, was swarming over his lips.
The fit passed off in the early morning, leaving him weak, but alert.
Something was going to happen. The air was as close as a blast from a
furnace. He sat up, holding by the tent-pole. He could see a star or
two. He wished that the horrible smell would go. It seemed to be
everywhere.
"Lionel," he said.
"Yes," said a faint voice.
"Have you slept?"
"Yes. I've had a long sleep. How are you?"
"The fit's gone. But I feel queer. Something's going to happen."
"It's very close. It will pass off before morning. Fever plays the
devil with one, doesn't it?"
"Are you quite better now?"
"Yes. I shall be all right now. You'll be all right after some
breakfast. It isn't so bad here, is it?"
"No. Not so bad. But there's this smell of death, Lionel."
"That's fever. That will pass away, you'll find."
"Was I delirious?"
"Yes. A little."
"You were pretty bad."
"Yes. I was pretty bad all yesterday," said Lionel. "It's horrible
when one gets into that state. One is so ashamed afterwards. It is
part of the sickness. You were awfully gentle with me, Roger."
"I saw that you were pretty bad. We shall have to get to work
to-morrow, and get things into order. They are in a bad way in the
village there. There are twenty-nine cases left. We might save
sixteen of them."
"Is there any trace of how they got it? Do they know?"
"They don't talk any language known to Merrylegs."
"I see. What are they like? Are they a good lot?"
"Yes. They are good type negroes. They look as if they might have
something better in them than negro blood. Something Arabian. And
there's this ruin here."
"It will be fun looking at the ruin. I wonder if it's like the
Rhodesian ruins. I've seen those. If it is, there ought to be gold
here. Wrought gold as well as crude. But we mustn't think of that."
"No. Let's have no side-issues. I suppose we'd better start an
isolation camp to-morrow."
"Yes. Get them all out and burn the village. Then we'll start the
treatment."
"It would be rather a feather in our caps if we found a tsetse-cide. A
bird would be better than nothing. Or an ichneumon-fly to pierce the
pupæ."
"I was young myself once," said Lionel. "I know exactly how it feels."
There was a pause after this. Lionel seemed to chuckle.
"Can't you go to sleep again, Lionel?"
"No. It's too close."
"It's jolly looking at the stars. And I can see right out into the
wilderness. The moon is wonderful. It is very vast out here. And
lonely. It gives one a strange sense of being full of memories. I
wonder who built these ruins."
"Phoenicians, I suppose. In Africa one puts everything down to
Phoenicians. In the Mediterranean it used to be some other fellows;
now it's Iberians. Aryans had a great vogue forty years ago; but
they're dead, now. Then there were those sloppy Celts. It'll be the
Hittites when we get back."
"Did you see Great Zimbabwe?"
"Yes. But they're all called Zimbabwe. It's a native name for ruins.
It's an uncanny place. It lies all open. There's no roof to it. None
of them have any roof. Nothing but great high walls, and two hideous
cones of stone, and a lot of corpses under the floors. There are
ancient gold workings all around it. It is said to be an astronomical
temple, as well as the site of a great mining town. Do you know much
about astronomy?"
"No. I know Sirius."
"I know Sirius. Can you see him?"
"I can't see it from here. Perhaps it isn't visible."
"It seems to me to be clouding up. Listen."
"Is that a lion roaring?"
"Jump out a minute." Lionel was turned out, standing at the door of
the tent.
"What's the matter?" Roger asked.
"A thunderstorm," said Lionel. "Get on your things. I prepared for
this. Wrap that tarpaulin round you, and come on out. Don't wait.
Come on."
Outside in the night the heavens were fast darkening under a whirling
purplish cloud. From time to time the expanse of cloud glimmered into
a livid reddish colour with the passage of lightning. It was as though
the whole lower heaven lightened. Thunder was rolling. Great burning
streaks tore the sky across, loosing thunder and flame. Roger saw the
bearers moving from their fire to the shelter of the lee of the ruins.
A faint sultry blast fanned against his face, bringing that smell of
death to him. He turned away, choking. "Get away from the tent,"
Lionel shouted in his ear, over the roar of the thunder. "Tie this
rope round me. It's going to be bad. Get under the lee of the wall
there. Run." They hurried to the shelter, on the tottering legs of
those who have just recovered from fever. As they ran, Roger trod on
something rope-like and moving, which (squirming round) struck his boot
with a sharp tap.
"There's a snake," he cried, giving a jump.
"Did he get you?"
"No. Only my boot."
"Lucky for you. There may be death-adders here. Rattle with your
feet. Here we are. This will do."
There came a sharp pattering of heavy rain-drops, which beat the ground
like shot falling on to tin. In the glimmer of a long flash, which
burnt for a full ten seconds, Roger saw Lionel probing the ground for
snakes with an outstretched foot. He was hooded and cowled with
tarpaulin from the boat. He was scratching a match, sleepy with
heat-damp, to get a light for a cigarette. The match flared, putting
the face in strong colour below the shade of the cowl. The sky was
being charged by a dark host. There came a sort of elemental sighing,
as the obscuring of the vertical stars began. Out of the whole air
came the sighing. It was a noise like waterfalls and pine forests.
Then with a shattering crash the storm burst. The whole sky broke into
a blaze, as though a vast bath of fire had suddenly been hurled over.
There was a roaring as of the earth being split. After an instant's
pause, there came an explosion so terrific that the two men huddled up
together instinctively. It grew colder on the instant. It grew icy
cold. The tent stood out clearly, in every detail, for a few bright
seconds. Then the rain poured down, as though the bottom of the sky
had broken. The next flash shewed only a streaming greyness of water,
pouring down, with a weight and force new to Roger. It was a blinding
rain, one could not face it. It made the world one grey torrent. It
made the earth paste beneath the feet. Brooks were rushing down the
hill within half a minute of its beginning. The flashes and thundering
never ceased. Crouching up to the wall, Roger could only gulp air that
was half water. The force of the storm staggered him. The fury of the
thunder daunted him. The splendour of the lightning was so ghastly
that at each blast he bent back against the wall. A tree was struck on
the wall above him. He expected to be struck at each flash. There was
no question of bravery. The racket and the glare were worse than the
fiercest shell-fire. The lightning seemed to run across the sky and
along the ground, and out of the ground. One smelt it. It had the
smell of something burning; some metal.
The next instant he was digging his fingers into the crenellations to
save himself from being blown away. The wind came swooping down with a
rush which beat the breath out of him. For one second the rain seemed
to pause. It was merely changing its direction to the horizontal. The
air seemed to be no longer present. There was nothing but a rushing,
stinging, blinding torrent of water. After the wind began, Roger was
not properly conscious of anything. He stood backed up to the wall,
with his eyes and mouth tight shut, his ears buffeted and streaming,
his nose wrinkled by the effort to keep his eyes shut. Across his
eyelids he sensed the glimmer of the lightning, now blinding, now
merely vivid. Everything else was leaping, howling uproar, driving
wet, driving cold, dominated by the explosions aloft. All confusion
was left loose to feed the fear of death in him. So they stood
shoulder to shoulder, for something like an hour, when a change came.
The wind died away, after blowing its fiercest. The rain stopped. The
livid glimmering of the lightning passed off into the distance. The
stars came out. Roger squelched about in the mud, trying to get some
sensation into his freezing feet. Lionel's teeth were chattering.
Lionel with numbed fingers was trying to light a sopping match for the
sodden cigarette already between his lips.
"Pretty bad one," said Lionel. "The tent's gone."
"It will be dawn soon," said Roger, looking at the wreck of the tent.
"It's over now." He shivered.
"Not yet," said Lionel. "That's only half of it. There's the other
half to come yet. I wonder how the bearers took it."
"I'll go and see," said Roger.
"Stay where you are," said Lionel. "You won't have time." The moon
shewed for a brief moment--a sickly moon already threatened by scud.
The clouds were rolling up again.
"This will be in our faces," said Lionel, raising his voice. "These
are circular storms." The wind was muttering far off. All the earth
was filled with a gloomy murmur. "Let's get into the wreck of the
tent," Lionel added in a shout. "Into the wreck of the tent. We may
die of cold if we don't." They hove up the heavy canvas so that they
might creep within, under the folds. They cowered there close
together, waiting, chilled to the bone.
"It's jolly cold," said Roger, with chattering teeth.
"Yes," said Lionel. "I've known a man die in one of these. Hold
tight. Here it comes."
It came with such a shock of thunder and fire of lightning that they
both started. They felt the folds of the tent surge and lift above
them as the wind beat upon it. Some flap had blown loose. It flogged
at Roger like a bar of hard wood. He understood then what sailors
meant by wind. He felt a sort of exultation for a moment. Then one
terrible blast flung him on his side, and rolled a great weight of wet
canvas on him. He felt it quiver and hesitate. The wind seemed to be
heaving and heaving, with multitudinous little howling devils. They
were heaving up and heaving under. The whole mass hesitated. He was
moved, he was swayed. He felt the fabric pause and totter upward and
sink down. "We're going," he muttered, gulping. Afterwards, he
maintained that nothing but the weight of the rain kept him from being
blown away. Water was gurgling in the ground beneath him. Water was
running up his sleeves, and down his neck. Water spouted on him as he
beat away the folds to get air. A grand and ghastly fire was running
across heaven. Shocks were striking the earth all around him. Another
tree was blasted. Thunder broke out above in a long rippling crescendo
of splitting cracks. That, and the pouring of a cataract into his face
made him draw back the fold. He cowered. He had lost touch with
Lionel. He did not know where Lionel was. His foot struck something
hard. Groping down, hungry for companionship, he found that it was the
broken tent-pole. Another gust lifted him. It gathered strength. It
swept the folds from his hands and sent the edge flogging, flogging,
flogging, with its lashes of rope and tent-pegs. The full fury of the
storm was on him. The tent was bundling itself up into ruin against
the boxes. He was sitting in wet mud assailed by every devil of bad
weather. Lionel was by his side shouting into his ear. "Don't stand,"
came the far-away voice. "Get struck." He nodded when next the flames
ran round. It seemed likely that he would be struck. It was a quick
death, so people said. He found himself saying aloud that it would be
terrible if Lionel were struck. What then? What would he do then? He
craned round into the beating rain to try to get a glimpse of the
bearers. He could see nothing but rain and that reddish running
glimmer of living light.
He did not feel much. He was too cold, too weak, too frightened. If
he had been able to define his feelings he would have said that he was
thinking it impossible that he could ever have been dry, or warm, or
happy. His old life was a far-off inconceivable dream. That he had
ever sat by a fire seemed inconceivable. That there was such a thing
as a sun seemed inconceivable. That life could be dignified, tender,
or heroic seemed inconceivable. "If this isn't misery," he muttered,
shaking, "I don't know what is. I don't know what is." He felt
suddenly that water was running under him in a good strong stream,
several inches deep. Putting his hand down, it slopped up to the wrist
in a current. He groped with his hand. As he put it down some beetle
in the water pinched him briskly, turning him sick for a moment with
the memory of the snake which had struck his boot. Standing up
hurriedly, the water rose above his boots. Looking up, an opening in
the clouds shewed him the moon, a beaten swimmer in a mill-race. The
storm was breaking.
Not long after that it broke. The stars came out. The wind ceased
from her whirling about continually. She blew steady, in a brisk fresh
gale, bringing up the clearing showers. The showers would have seemed
torrents at other times, but to Roger, now, they were little drizzles.
Lionel and he found a sort of cave in the tent. Part of the canvas had
wedged itself under the pole. The rest had been blown across a pile of
boxes on to the wall. Being supported now by those two uprights it
roofed in a narrow shelter about five feet long. They crept into this
shelter, dead beat from the cold. For a while they sat crouched close
together, with chattering teeth. Then they drew a few folds of the
canvas over them and lay still, trying to get warmth and sleep. They
were not very sure that they would live to see the dawn. Roger thought
vaguely of the bearers. He wondered what they had done, prompted by
their knowledge of these storms. A dull, heavy, steady roaring noise
seemed to be coming from the river. He wondered if the water had risen
much, after all that torrential rain. Thinking vaguely of a flood, he
wondered if the boat were safe. It seemed a long, long time since they
had left the boat. He must have left the boat in some other life. The
sun had been shining, he had been hot, he had passed through a glorious
landscape. He had seen the peacocks of the Queen of Sheba jetting
among flowers which were like burning precious stones. That was long
ago. That was over forever. But yet he wondered vaguely about the
boat. Was it safe, there in the broad?
"Lionel," he said gently. "Can you sleep?"
"No. We shall get warm presently."
"It's jolly wretched."
"It'll be all right when we get warm. Don't let's talk."
"Is the boat all right, do you think? The water is roaring in the
river."
"The boat? I can't think about the boat. She was moored or
something." Their teeth chattered again for some little time.
Presently, as they lay there shivering, they felt the uneasy aching
warmth which sometimes comes to those who sleep in wet clothes. It is
much such an unpleasant heat as wet grass generates in a rick. There
is cramp and pain in it. The muscles rise up into little knots and
bunch themselves. Still, it is heat of a kind. They lay awake,
rubbing their contorted muscles, until, a little before the dawn, they
were warm enough to doze. They dozed off, then, waking up, from time
to time, generally once in ten minutes, to turn uneasily, so that the
aching muscles might cease to twist into little knots and bunches.