IX

Where be these cannibals, these varlets?

_The Shoemaker's Holiday_.

The rain ceased before dawn. When the two friends felt strong enough

to turn out, the sun was already burning. It was after half-past seven

o'clock. The brooks which had washed past them and over them, only

three or four hours before, were no longer running. Their tracks were

marked on the hillside, in broad, shallow, muddy ruts, and in paths of

plastered grass. The river had been over its banks not long before.

It was swirling along now, brimful, as red as water from an ironworks.

Roger remembered the water running by a road near Portobe, from some

ironworks up the hill. It was just that savage colour. He felt a

qualm of home-sickness. He turned to blink at the sun for the pleasure

of the warmth upon his face.

The camp was a quag of mud. Red splashes plastered the boxes. The

tent was half-buried in it. His clothes, and the covering tarpaulin,

were smeared with it. He felt that it had been worked, not only into

his skin, but into his nature. He had never before known what it is to

be really dirty, nor what continued dirt may mean to the character.

The site of the camp was trodden and spattered and beslimed, yet the

brightness of morning made it hard for him to believe that such a storm

had passed over him only a little while before. He noticed the trees

which had been blasted by the lightning. It had not all been nightmare.

Up the hill, beyond three small circling walls, no taller than the wall

beside him, rose up the great central walls. They stood out clearly in

the strong light. They were good, well-built walls, with crenellated

courses near the top, in the right artistic place, in the inevitable

place. The crenellations shewed Roger that he was not widely removed

from the builders, in spirit. They talked the universal language of

art. But they were more than talkers, these old men. Their work was

splendid. It had style. It had the impress of will upon it. The idea

had been thought out to its simplest terms. The walls were solid with

that simple strength which the efficient nations of antiquity, not yet

corrupted by sentiment, affected, in public building. Though they were

not like Roman work, they reminded Roger of walls at Richborough and

Caerwent. There was something of the same pagan spirit in them,

something strong, and fine, and uncanny. Even with the flowering

shrubs and grass clumps on them, these walls were uncanny. He shivered

a little. The lonely hill had once been a city, where strong, fine,

uncanny brains had lived.

Lionel crawled out. "Where's Merrylegs?" he asked. "Why haven't they

brought our tea?"

Roger started. Where were the bearers? He had not seen them since he

had noticed them go to cover before the bursting of the storm. They

had gone. They had not come back. They had not even lighted a fire.

"I don't know where they are," he said. "Where can they be?"

"Haven't you seen them?" said Lionel.

"No," he answered. "They're not here. Merrylegs!" he shouted.

"Merrylegs!" No answer came.

Lionel's face changed slightly. He jumped on to the low wall, and

looked downhill towards the village. The view over that waste of pale

grass, through which the river ran, was very splendid; but Lionel was

not looking for landscape. "Give me the glasses," he said. He stared

through them for several minutes, sweeping the plain. "Run up into the

ruins, Roger," said Lionel. "They may be there."

"Wait one minute," said Roger. "There is smoke in the village. That

is too big a fire for the people whom I saw there to have made."

"Wet wood," said Lionel promptly. "Come on. We must get these boys

into order."

They hurried up the hill, calling for Merrylegs. After a couple of

minutes Roger stopped. "Lionel," he said. "During the storm, or just

before it, I saw them go to shelter under the lee of the wall there.

Their tracks will be in the mud. We could follow them up in that way."

"Yes," said Lionel. "They're not up here, anyhow."

After some little search, they found where the bearers had sheltered

before the storm threatened. A vulture shewed them the exact place.

Two other vultures were there already. The storm had killed one of the

men.

"It's Eukwo, the lazy one," said Lionel. "I noticed last night that

there was something the matter with him. Perhaps you saw how the

others fought shy of him. These fellows are like animals, aren't they,

in the way they leave their sick?" He looked at the body. "Dysentery

and the cold, I suppose," he said. "With Kilemba dead last night, the

village full of dead down below us, the storm, then this fellow dying,

it has been too much for them. I'm afraid, Roger, that the men have

deserted us."

"Gone?" said Roger blankly. It had not occurred to him before as a

possibility.

"I'm afraid," said Lionel, moving away. "Here is where they sheltered

for the storm. There are their tracks leading downhill. You see?

Here. See? Still half full of water. They cleared out in the night

during the showers. They've got three or four hours' start of us."

"Well," said Roger. "Come on. We'd better eat as we go. Otherwise we

may never catch them up."

"They'll have gone in the boat," said Lionel. "With this flood they'll

be a day's march downstream. There's no trace of the boat in the

lagoon there."

"She may have been swept away," said Roger, after a glance through the

glasses. "The stores are there still." By this time they were

hurrying downhill towards the village. Both were thinking how fiercely

they would thrash Merrylegs and how little chance there was of finding

any Merrylegs to thrash. Anger burned up in hot bursts, and the cold

water of despair put it out again. Roger felt it more keenly than

Lionel. He was less used to the shocks of travel. He wondered, as he

hurried, what stores had been left in the boat, and what had been piled

on the bank to be carried up next day. He had been ill; he had never

noticed. The men had done as they pleased. He reproached himself so

bitterly that he hardly dared look at his friend. He wondered whether

the men had taken anything of supreme importance. He feared the worst.

If they had taken anything important he would be to blame. It was his

fault. He ought to have guarded against this. He ought to have taken

the paddles. He ought to have ordered the men to bring everything up

to camp, where it would have been under his own eyes. Lionel looked at

him quizzically.

"Don't cross the river till you reach the water," he said. "We may

catch them. They may not have gone."

On their way they looked through the village. The bearers were not

there. Lionel tried to make the villagers understand him by signs; but

they were too strongly infected to understand a difficult thing. He

had to give them up. He bade Roger fill his pockets with some bruised

corn which they found in one of the pots of an empty hut. They munched

this as they went. Their next task was to run out the trail.

By the village drinking-place the river had overflowed the bank. It

had torn up a couple of trees, which now lay branches downward in the

water, arresting wreckage. It had surged strongly against the boxes,

driving them from their place, but not destroying them. It had heaped

them with drift, and coloured them a yellowish red. The footmarks of

the bearers were thickly printed in the mud there. They must have

arrived there in the early morning, when the waters were beginning to

fall.

"They've been busy," said Roger. All the boxes had been broken open.

Their contents were tumbled in the mud in all directions.

"Look here," said Lionel. "What do you make of these marks?" In one

place the mud had been planed smooth in a long plastering smear, ending

in a notch or narrow groove.

"That was made by the boat," said Roger.

"Yes," said Lionel. "That was the boat. You can see the puncture in

the mud there. That was made by the projecting screw in the false

nose. You remember the screw we put in at Malakoto? They shoved off

here."

"Yes. No doubt. That is the screw. So they've sampled the goods and

gone."

"That is so. They've robbed us and run away."

"And we are stranded in the heart of the wilderness?"

"We are alone, three hundred miles from any white man."

"Yes. Then we are alone," said Roger. "We are alone here." The words

thrilled him. They were meaning words.

"We can't go after them," said Lionel. "They've got too big a start."

"We've got no boat to go in."

"I wish," said Lionel, "I wish these riverine negroes used canoes."

"They don't."

"No," said Lionel. "They don't. Well. It's no good moping."

"We could follow downstream," said Roger, "and perhaps catch them at

Malakoto."

Lionel shook his head. "There are the swamps," he said. "And we've

both got fever on us. I doubt if we could get through. We might."

"We shall have to try it in the end, if we are to get away at all."

"I was thinking that," said Lionel. "But when we try it, it will be

the end of the dry season, when the swamps will be passable. The

swamps now are as bad as they can be. Honestly, Roger, I don't think

we could make Malakoto, carrying our own stores. It's ten days; and

those others wouldn't stay at Malakoto, remember. They'd make for

Kisa. No. Best give in. They've won the trick."

"And we're to lose all these stores; about a hundred pounds' worth of

stores?"

"That's the minimum, I'm afraid."

"It's a bad beginning," said Roger. He walked to and fro, fretting.

"Doesn't it make your blood boil?" he continued. "Look at the way the

brutes have tossed the things about. I'd give a good deal to have a

few of them here."

Lionel sat down on a box and stared meditatively at the wreck.

"Roger," he said at length. "Have you any idea what stores were

brought up the hill last night?"

"Mostly the bow-stores, I suppose; provisions, bedding, and camp gear."

"That's what I was afraid," said Lionel.

"What are you afraid of?"

"Come on. Let's face it," said Lionel, springing from his perch. "We

must get these things out of the mud. We must see how we stand."

"You mean we may be-- What do you mean?"

"We must see what stores are left to us."

They set to work together to pick up the wreck. They began with

cartridges, which had been scattered broadcast in wantonness. Many

were spoiled; many missing. Marks on the grass shewed that others had

been carefully emptied, so that the thieves might have the brass shells

enclosing the charges. Still, a good many were to be found. The two

men recovered about fifty rounds of Winchester, and eighty rounds of

revolver ammunition. With what they wore in their belts this amount

was reassuring.

"Look here," said Roger. "Here's a box of slides. They're all

smashed."

"Was the microscope not brought up?"

"I don't know," said Roger. "It was in a box with a blue stencil."

"I know," said Lionel. "I've been looking out for it. I thought it

wasn't here. Look. Over there. There's part of a lid with a blue

stencil. Is that the lid for the microscope?"

"No, that's a drugs lid."

"They can't have taken it with them. Surely they wouldn't take a

microscope."

"It might be up in the camp all this time."

"Yes. True. Wait. We'll get these things out of the mud, and then

we'll go up the hill, and make a list of what is missing. Here's our

stationery ruined. All our nice clean temperature charts that I set

such store by. I told you life was wasteful out here. All your

pressed plants are done for."

"Here are clothes, of sorts. Jaeger underwear."

"Fish them out. We'll wash them afterwards."

They quartered the expanse of red slime. It was a sort of Tom

Tiddler's ground, littered with European goods. They worked quickly,

racing the sun. From time to time there came hails of "The

tool-chest's gone. Here's the lid." "Your small stores won't be much

good, the soap's melted or something." "Look at what these brutes have

done to the sugar."

Presently Lionel hailed.

"I say. I say. Have you come across any drugs?"

"No. Only the lid of a drugs box."

"Well. It's getting serious. There's no other box here. We must go

on back to camp and find out if they are there."

"We shall be done, without drugs," said Roger.

"Don't talk about it, my dear man," said Lionel. "Don't talk about it."

"It would be worth while making a raft," said Roger. "There are a

couple of axes in camp. If we worked hard all morning, we could get a

sort of a raft built. We could use the tent-ropes for lashings. Then

we could easily rig up a sail. We should catch them up by dusk,

perhaps."

"There are points about the raft theory," said Lionel, as they set out

for camp. "But there are so many creeks and gullies where they could

hide, and then there are the crocks."

"We could build a sort of bulwark of boxes."

"We'll find out about the drugs first. No. If we go working hard in

the sun we shall get fever again." He wrinkled his brows. He was

anxious. "I hope those drugs are all right," he said. "I don't mind

the guns; but our drugs are portable life."

Roger glanced uneasily at Lionel. He had got to know him pretty well

during the last few months. He had come to know that though he was

sometimes irritable, he was very seldom given to despondent speech.

Now he was talking anxiously, from the selfish standpoint of "I."

Roger thought of the precious bottles of atoxyl, worth a good deal more

than a guinea an ounce. Lionel's remark was true. They were portable

life. And if the atoxyl were gone, their mission was at an end. No.

It was worse than that. If the atoxyl were gone, Lionel was in danger.

For suppose the trypanosomes recurred in him, as they might, in this

hot climate? Suppose Lionel developed sleeping sickness and died, as

the people in the village were dying, before they could win to

civilisation? He did not find any answer to the problem. Hoping to

distract Lionel, he began gallantly to talk of the Phoenicians, about

whom he was sufficiently ignorant to escape attention.

In the camp things were as they had been, except that they were drier.

They turned over the boxes, looking eagerly for blue stencil.

"Here's the microscope," said Roger. "Or I think it is." He prized

the case open with the jemmy on the end of the peg-maul. "Yes. The

microscope's all right. Some of our test-tube things are smashed.

Some of the media. There are plenty of those, though, down in the mud.

That's one thing to the good. What's in the case there?"

"Anti-scorbutics here."

"And in the long box?"

"Grub of different kinds."

"Here you are, then. Here's a drugs case."

"Saved!"

"Shall I open it?"

"Yes, open it. We did a very foolish thing, Roger. We ought to have

packed each box as a miniature equipment, so as to minimise the

importance of any losses. It's in my mind that all our atoxyl is in

one case."

"No," said Roger. "It was in three cases. One of them, I know, was in

the boat. I was sitting on it most of yesterday."

"Well. Open that one, and let's see where we stand."

The well-fixed screws were drawn. The box lay open to the sun, exuding

a faint, cleanly smell of camphor.

Lionel looked over the drug pots, muttering the names: "Mercury

bi-chlor, sodium carb, sodium chlor, sodium cit, corrosive sublimate,

quinine, quinine, quinine, potassium bromide--we shan't want much of

that--absolute alcohol, carbolic, first-aid dressings, chlorodyne,

morphia, camphorated chalk for the teeth, what's this?--digitalis.

What the devil did they send that for? There's no atoxyl here."

"Nor that other stuff, the dye, trypanroth?"

"No. We didn't order any. It wasn't altogether a success with me, and

it wasn't being so well spoken of."

"That's unfortunate. But wait a minute. I see another drug case.

Over there, against the wall. Isn't that a drug case?"

"It is. Chuck the jemmy over." He did not wait to draw the screws.

He prized the lid off with two quick wrenches of the jemmy. He looked

inside.

"A quaker," he said grimly, after one look. "It's a quaker case."

"What's a quaker?"

"This case here is what we call a quaker. Why? Because it makes one

quake. Look at these bottles. They're full of paper and sawdust.

Look at this one. Old rags. Here's a 2-lb. atoxyl bottle, for which

we paid twenty-eight pounds, not to speak of the duty. It's full of

dust like the rest."

"But, good Lord, Lionel! Where could it have been done? Who could

have done it? We got these direct from the very best London house."

"There were rats on the way," said Lionel. "You remember we stopped

off a day at that place Kwasi Bembo, where we hired Merrylegs? Well.

This was probably done at Kwasi Bembo by one of those foreign

storekeepers. An easy way of making money for them."

"I don't see how he did it."

"Oh, he could have done it easily enough, while we were having our

siestas. It doesn't matter much, though, where it was done, does it?"

"Don't despair yet," said Roger. "There must be another box somewhere.

Here. Open this one. The stencil is ground off. What's inside this

one?"

"It looks promising," said Lionel. "It's screwed; it isn't nailed.

Off, now." He thrust the lid away with a violent heave. Roger peered

in anxiously.

"Nothing but stones in this one," said Lionel. "Not even our bottles

left. We'd better open all our cases, and find out what else has been

taken. I suppose that's our last box of chemicals?"

"It's the last here."

"Never mind," said Roger. "We won't despair. Let's see what is left

to us." They examined the other cases. They made out an inventory of

their possessions. They learned that they were left in the heart of

Africa with provisions for three months, forty pounds' weight of

anti-scorbutics, a quantity of clothing, a moderate supply of

ammunition, two rifles, two revolvers, a shotgun, many disinfectants,

an assortment of choice drugs, some medical instruments, and a

microscope. Of medical comforts they had sparklets, tobacco, soap,

matches, and two bottles of brandy. Of quaker cases they found, in

all, five, all of them purporting to be either chemicals or cartridges.

Of utensils they had a tin basin, plates, and pannikins. For shelter

they had a tent with a broken pole.

"Lionel," said Roger, when they had checked their list. "Look here.

We've been up here a good hour and a half. The water will have fallen

a foot or more. By the time we have cooked and eaten breakfast it will

have fallen another foot. It is quite possible that by that time there

will be some more goods, perhaps, even, some more cases, left high and

dry on the bank. We won't worry about our loss till we know it. If we

breakfast now we shall be strong enough to bear whatever may be coming

to us. Let's get a fire started. We'll brew some tea and sacrifice a

tin of soup. Let's be extravagant and enjoy ourselves."

They were sufficiently extravagant over breakfast, but they got little

enjoyment out of it. They had rankling anger in them, against their

enemies, known and unknown. When their anger gave them leave, they

felt, low down, a chilling, sinking fear that their plans for the

saving of life would come to nothing, that, in short, their expedition

was a failure.

"Lionel," said Roger. "Do you think that the fraud of the atoxyl was

done in London? Surely Morris and Henslow wouldn't do a thing like

that?"

"Who knows what they won't do?" said Lionel gloomily. "I know that

some contractor or other always supplies shoddy of some kind to an

expedition to one of the Poles. Why not to us? There is always the

chance that the expedition won't return. And even if it does return,

the fraud is quite likely not to become known to the public. And even

if the case comes on in a law court, who can prove it? There are too

many loopholes. It is almost impossible to bring the guilt really

home. The contractor practically never gets found out. As for a

contractor being punished, I don't suppose it has ever happened. It

makes one believe in hell."

"It's not the crime itself," said Roger. "Not knowing the criminal, I

cannot judge the crime; but it's the state of mind which sickens me.

The state of mind which could prompt such a thing."

"It's a common enough state of mind," said Lionel. "In business it's

common enough. Business men, even of good standing, will do queer

things when the shoe begins to pinch. You may say what you like about

war. Business is the real curse of a nation. Business, and the

business brain, and, oh, my God, the business man! Swine. Fatted,

vulpine swine."

"Well," said Roger. "It is very important not to take these things

into the mind, even to condemn them."

"And I say it is nothing of the sort," said Lionel. "I believe in

strangling ideas as I believe in strangling people. You writers, when

you are really good at your job, don't condemn half enough."

"Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner."

"Intellectually, not morally. Come on. We are not going to argue. We

are going to work. We've got to bury that bearer. Where's the spade?"

They dug a grave for Kukwo, and buried him, and heaped a cairn of

stones from the wall on top of him. It was burning midday when they

had finished. They had leisure then to think again of the loss of

their atoxyl.

"We may not have any at all?" said Roger. Lionel produced a small

screw-top bottle from his pocket. It had once contained tabloids of

anti-pyrin. It was now about half full of a white powder.

"I've a few doses here," he said. He looked at it carefully. "With

luck," he said, "we could cure two or three cases with this."

"But suppose you have a relapse yourself, Lionel? You must keep some,

in case you should relapse."

"I shan't relapse," he said carelessly. "Relapses aren't common."

"But you might. And you are more important than a village-full of

negroes. More important than all the blacks put together and

multiplied by ten."

"I don't see it. Look here. I tell you one thing which is pretty

plain to me. We've got to set to work to find an anti-toxin. First,

though, we'll go down and grope in the mud for anything which may be

left. I don't give up hope of finding some atoxyl even now."

They told each other as they went that they didn't expect to find

anything. Really their hearts beat high with expectation. They were

sure of finding what they sought.

They went down to the mud so sure that their disappointment almost

unmanned them. For they were disappointed. An hour of broiling work

only added two cartridges to their store. Out in the river, caught in

a snag with other drift, they saw a floating packing-case, marked with

a blue stencil. By the manner of its floating they judged it to be

empty, or nearly empty. It had probably floated off shortly after

being opened. It had been caught in a snag. It had then ducked and

sidled to get away. Lastly, it had turned upside down and emptied its

contents into the river. So they judged the tragedy, viewing the

victim through their glasses, from a distance of a hundred yards.

"That settles it, I think," said Lionel. A projecting snout rose at

the box, tilting it over. It fell back, lipping under, so that it

filled. In another instant it was gone from sight. The glasses showed

a slight swirl in the water. The swirl passed at once, under the drive

of the spate. Their last hope of atoxyl was at an end.

"Well," said Roger hopelessly. "It's as well to know the worst. The

box was empty, don't you think?"

"I don't know," said Lionel. "I couldn't be sure."

"We might find some things in the water when the river sinks a little

further," said Roger, without much conviction. "It'll be drying up

very soon now. Then we shall find whatever is in it."

Lionel sat down despondently, resting his chin on one hand. He was

letting his disappointment work itself off silently. His heart had

been set so long on this first great medical field-day that he could

not look Roger in the face. The loss of the atoxyl was less hard to

bear than the loss of all the interesting cases over which he would

have been bending at that minute had this ghastly thing not happened.

And, being an old campaigner, and therefore forethoughtful, it was

bitter to him to find himself thwarted unexpectedly by a trick so

simple. He had thought that he had guarded against all the known

dodges. He had been on his guard all through. In London he had

sampled the food, the clothes, the cartridges, rejecting everything

which seemed even faulty. He had been surprised at his own strictness.

All the way up from the coast he had watched his stores so jealously

that he had thought himself safe. He had been vain of his success. He

had never lost so little in any previous expedition. Now an attack of

fever, a storm, and a bearer's sudden death had let him in for this.

He was not forgetting the chemist's share. He cursed himself for

having trusted the chemist. Then he decided that it was not the

chemist. The fraud had been committed in Africa. He had not been

careful enough. He himself was to blame. "Guns and grub I could

understand," he cried. "But for them to take drugs! Who would have

thought of their taking drugs? Why didn't I see that Africa is getting

civilised? Roger, I want to kill somebody."

"It's my turn to lecture now," said Roger. "We'll carry these things

up to camp. I've an idea about camp."

"What is your idea?"

"To build a house out of the loose stones of the wall. We could use

the wall itself for one wall, build up three others and roof it with

the tent. It would be better than having another night like last

night."

"It might be done," said Lionel, mechanically filling his pockets with

cartridges. "But I don't know what good we're going to do here if we

haven't any atoxyl. I wish I knew who it was. If ever I touch at

Kwasi Bembo again, I'll have that atoxyl out of his liver."

They passed a broiling afternoon carrying their gear to camp. They

became irritable at about four o'clock. After that time they worked

apart, avoiding each other. At six Roger made tea, over which they

made friends. At seven they set about the building of their house.

They laboured by moonlight far into the night, laying the mortarless

stones together. When they knocked off for bed it was nearly midnight,

and the house was far from perfect. They could not do more to it.

They were too tired. After flogging their blankets against the walls

to get rid of mud and "bichos," they turned in, bone-weary, and slept

the stupid sleep of sailors for nearly eleven hours.

They finished their house in the afternoon. It was not a very good

house, but they judged that it would be safer and drier than their tent

had proved. After they had finished it, they felt it to be

structurally weak. They went at it again. They strengthened the roof

with saplings, and laid great stones upon the edges of the canvas

cover, so that it should not blow from its place. With great cunning

Roger arranged an outer roof of a rough thatch which he himself made

from the osiers used by the natives. He thought that a double roof

would be cooler. He explained to Lionel an ambitious scheme for a

thatched verandah; but this had to be abandoned from want of

encouragement. Inside, the house was about twelve feet square. When

the two beds, the table, the chairs, and the boxes were all within

doors, it seemed very cramped and poky. They were in some doubt about

a name for it. Lionel was for "Phoenician Villa," Roger for "The

Laurels" or "Oak Drive." Finally they decided on "Portobe," which they

smeared over the door in blacking. They had not thought much of

Portobe on their way up country. Portobe. Roger going out that night,

after supper, to wash the plates in a bucket, sat by the fire for many

minutes, "thinking long" about Portobe. Something made him turn his

head, and look out into the night north-north-westward,

for there dwelt love, and all love's loving parts,

And all the friends.

It was a dim expanse, mothlike and silver in the moonlight, reaching on

in forest and river to the desert. To reach Portobe he would have to

go beyond the desert, over the sea, over Spain, over France. He

paused. He was not sure whether France would be in the direct line.

If it were not, then there would only be the sea to cross, past Land's

End, past Carnsore, past Braichy, past all the headlands. Then on to

the Waters of Moyle, which never cease to call to the heart who hears

them. He remembered the poem of the calling of the Waters of Moyle.

He knew it by heart. It was a true poem. The vastness and silence of

the night were over him. The great stars burned out above. They

seemed to wheel and deploy above him, rank upon rank, helm on gleaming

helm, an army, a power. There were no birds, no noise of beasts, no

lights. Only the earth, strange in the moon; the great continent,

measureless in her excess. She was all savage, all untamed, a black

and cruel continent, a lustful old queen, smeared with bloody oils.

She frightened him. He thought of one night at Portobe three years

before, when he had come out "to look at the night" with Ottalie. He

could still see some of the stars seen then. He could still, in the

sharpened fancy of the home-sick, smell the spray of honeysuckle which

had gone trailing and trailing, drenching wet, across the little-used

iron gate which led to the beach. He longed to be going up the beach,

up the loaning overhung with old willows, as he had gone that night

with Ottalie. He longed to be going through the little town, past the

fruitman's, past the butcher's, past the R.I.C. barracks, to the little

churchyard by the stream. Ottalie lay there. Here he was in Africa,

trying to do something for Ottalie's sake. He drew in his breath

sharply. It was all useless. It was not going to be done. The atoxyl

was lost. They might just as well have stayed in England. He sighed.

To do something very difficult, which would tax all his powers, that

was his task. When that was done he would feel that he had won his

bride. A strange, choking voice came from the house.

"Roger! Roger! Come in. Where are you?" Lionel had been asleep in

his chair.

"What is it? What is it?" said Roger.

"Nothing. Nothing," said Lionel. "I dreamed I was fast by the leg.

You don't know how beastly it was."

X

A cold shivering, methinks.

_Every Man out of his Humour_.

What would you minister upon the sudden?

_Monsieur Thomas_.

The next day they walked to the village, prepared for an unpleasant

morning. They buried seven bodies and burned eleven huts. Several

times, during the day, they noticed tsetse at rest on the framework of

the huts.

"They have followed people up from the water," said Lionel. "They

don't attack us, because we are wearing white duck. They don't like

white."

"Flies have an uncanny knowledge," said Roger. "How do they get their

knowledge? Is it mere inherited instinct? I notice that they always

attack in the least protected spots. How do they know that a man

cannot easily drive them from between his shoulders? They do know. I

notice they nearly always attack between the shoulders."

"Yes. And dogs on the head, cattle on the shoulders, and horses on the

belly and forelegs. They're subtle little devils."

"And they have apparently no place in the scheme of the world, except

to transplant the trypanosome from where he is harmless to where he is

deadly."

"Lots of men are like that," said Lionel. "You can go along any London

street and see thousands of them outside those disgusting pot-houses.

Men with no place in the scheme of the world, except to transplant

intoxicants from the casks, where they are harmless, to their insides,

where they become deadly, both to themselves and to society. Any

self-respecting State would drown the brutes in their own beer. Yet

the brutes don't get drowned. And as they do not, there must be a

scientific reason. Either the State must be so rotten that the germs

are neutralised by other germs, or the germs must have some dim sort of

efficiency for life, just as the tsetses have. They have the tenacity

of the very low organism. It is one of the mysteries of life to me

that a man tends to lose that tenacity and efficiency for life as soon

as he becomes sufficiently subtle and fine to be really worth having in

the world. I like Shakespeare because he is one of the very few men

who realise that. He is harping on it again and again. He is at it in

Hamlet, in Richard the Second, in Brutus, Othello. Oh, in lots of the

plays, in the minor characters, too, like Malvolio; even in Aguecheek.

And people call that disgusting, beefy brute, Prince Henry,

'Shakespeare's one hero,' a 'vision of ideal English manhood.'

Shakespeare's one hero! Shakespeare wrote him with his tongue in his

cheek, and used an ounce of civet afterwards."

They turned again to their work. After changing their clothes, bathing

antiseptically, and anointing their hands with corrosive sublimate

solution and alcohol, they began solemnly to distil some water for

their tiny store of atoxyl.

"Lionel," said Roger, "we've got enough drug to cure two, or perhaps

three of these people. We ought not to use it all. We are away in the

wilds here. Save one dose at least for yourself in case you should get

a relapse. You know how very virulent a relapsed case is."

"I know," said Lionel. "But that is part of the day's work. Our only

chance of doing good here is to find an anti-toxin. I want this spare

atoxyl for that."

"But," said Roger, "you cannot make an effective serum from the blood

of a man in whom atoxyl is at work. Surely atoxyl only stimulates the

phagocytes to eat the trypanosome."

"Quite so," said Lionel. "You're a serumite, I'm not. I am not at all

keen on the use of serum for this complaint. I believe that the cure

(if there is one) will be got by injecting the patient with dead

trypanosomes or very, very weak ones. I'm going to make a special

artificial culture of trypanosomes in culture tubes. I shall then

weaken the germs with atoxyl. When they are all bloated and paralysed,

I shall inject them. I believe that that injection, or the injection

of quite dead trypanosomes, will have permanent good effects."

"And I," rejoined Roger, "believe that your methods will be useless. I

believe that the cure (if there be a cure) will be obtained by the use

of sera obtained from naturally or artificially immunised animals."

"That's just the taking kind of fairy story you would believe. You're

a sentimentalist."

"Very well. But listen. It is said that when the dogs of the bushmen

are reared entirely on the meat of immune game, they become immune like

the game; but that if they are not used to wild meat they develop

nagana from eating it casually."

"I don't believe the first part of that," said Lionel. "It sounds too

like a yarn. The dogs which are reared entirely on wild game are

probably naturally immune native dogs, bred originally from some wild

strain, like the wild hunting-dogs."

"But there is no doubt that wild game, like wildebeests, koodoos,

hyenas, and quaggas, are immune?"

"None whatever."

"Then could not some preparation be made from the blood of the wild

game? Surely one could extract the immunising principle from the

immune creature, and use that as a serum?"

"We don't even know what the 'immunising principle' may be; so how can

we extract it?"

"Well, then. Use the blood serum by itself."

"But, my dear man, the blood of these beasts is the favourite haunt of

the trypanosome."

They argued it to and fro with the pertinacity of enthusiasts

improperly equipped with knowledge. Roger fought for his "fairy

story," Lionel for his dead and dying cultures. At last Lionel

finished the preparation of the mixture.

"Look here," he said. "This atoxyl, you say, is to be kept? Well. If

I get a relapse before it is used, you will please remember that it is

to be used to paralyse artificially-raised trypanosomes, which will

afterwards be injected into me. You will try none of your sera on me,

my friend. If you like to go getting sera from dying, dirty, anthraxy

wild beasts, do so; but don't put any of the poison, so got, into me.

I see you so plainly strangling a deer in a mud-wallow, and drawing off

the blood into a methylated spirits can. Here's the mixture ready.

And now that our water of life is ready for use, comes the great

question: Which of all these sleepers is to live? Here are twenty-nine

men, women, and children. They are all condemned to die within a few

weeks. Now then, Roger. You are a writer, that is to say a law-giver,

a disposer and settler of moral issues. Which of these is to live? We

can say thumbs down to any we choose. If we live to be a hundred we

shall probably never have to make such a solemn choice again."

"It isn't certain life," said Roger, hesitating for a moment, staggered

by the responsibility. "Atoxyl isn't a certain cure, even of moderate

cases."

"It's a practically certain cure if the patient is all right in other

ways; that is, of course, if the case has not gone too far."

"What is the percentage of deaths?" said Roger.

"With atoxyl?"

"Yes."

"Eight per cent. for slight cases, and twenty-two per cent. for bad

ones. Without atoxyl, it's a certain hundred per cent."

"I see."

"It's a good drug."

"Yes," said Roger. "It's a good drug. But look at them, Lionel. To

stand here and choose them out."

"We are doing now what the scientist will one day do for every human

race," said Lionel. "We are choosing for the future. As it happens we

are choosing for the future of a fraction of a wretched little African

tribe. The scientist will one day choose, just as finally, for the

future of man. I didn't think you'd baulk, Roger. This is the

beginning of the golden age. 'The golden age begins anew.' Here are

the wise men choosing who are to inherit the earth."

A sleepy negro came unsteadily from a hut. He walked, as though not

quite in control of his actions, towards the wise men. He was a fine,

supple creature, dressed in crocodile's teeth. Parts of him shone with

an anointment of oil. He drew up, dully staring. His jaw was hanging.

Flies settled on his body. A tsetse with fierce, dancing flight, flew

round him, and settled on his shoulders. He stood vacantly, gazing at

the wise men. His mind could not be sure of anything; but there was

something which he wanted to say; something which had to be said. He

waited, vacantly, for the message to come back to him, and then drove

slowly forward again, and again stopped. His lips mumbled something.

His eyes drooped. One trembling hand weakly groped in the air for

support. It rested on a hut. He slowly and very wearily collapsed

upon the hut, and sat down. His head nodded and nodded. Another

tsetse flew down. Roger noticed that the man was cicatrised about the

body with old scars. He had been a warrior. He had lived the savage

life to the full. He had killed. He had rushed screaming to death,

under his tossing Colobus plumes, first of his tribe to stab, before

the shields rattled on each other. He had been lithe, swift, and

bloody as the panther. Now he was this trembling, fumbling thing, a

log, a driveller, a perch for flies.

"Lionel," said Roger, "it will be awful if we lose our cases."

"Why? They will die in any case."

"But after choosing them like this. If we give them their chance, and

they lose the chance. I should feel that perhaps one of the others

might have lived."

"We shall choose carefully. We can do no more than that. There's that

hideous old crone coming out again. Poor old thing. I dare say she

has seen more of the world than either of us. She may be a king's wife

and the mother of kings. How merciless these savages are to the old!"

"They're like children. Children have no mercy on the old."

"I wonder what good life is to her?"

"I dare say she remembers the good days. She can't feel very much."

"No," said Lionel. "But I notice that old people feel intensely. They

don't feel much. They may feel only one single thing in all the world;

but they feel about that with all their strength. It's perfectly

ghastly how they feel. We are all islands apart. We do not know each

other. We cannot know that woman's mind, nor have we any data by which

we can imagine it. That old animal may be like Blake's bird: 'A whole

world of delight closed to your senses five.'"

"Very well. Would you cure her? She's not infected as it happens; but

would you, if she were?"

"No. She has had her life. I wonder, by the way, if extreme old age

is immune from sleeping sickness. I dare say it is. But old age is

not common in savage societies. I wish I knew that old woman's story.

She has seen a lot, Roger. That is a wonderful face. Now we must

choose. Shall we choose a woman?"

"No. Not a woman. We must think of the creature's future. What would

become of a woman left alone here? Even if she followed up her tribe,

they would probably not admit her. You know that these people do not

believe in the possibility of a cure for sleeping sickness. They would

only drive her out, or kill her."

"Yes, or let her drift among white men. No. Not a woman. Not an old

man, I say. The old have had their lives. Besides, the life of an old

savage is generally wretched. There would be nothing for him to do,

either here or anywhere else. So we won't have an old man."

"Nor a warrior," said Roger.

"I'm not sure about a warrior," said Lionel. "He would be able to fend

for himself. He would be worth taking in by some other tribe short of

males. There are points to the warrior."

"He would probably rise up one night and jab us with a shovel-headed

spear."

"And then we should shoot him. Yes, that might happen. That narrows

it down to the boys."

They looked at the boys, noting their teeth, skulls, and physiognomies.

Several shewed signs of congenital malignant disease; others were

brutish and loutish looking; but they were, on the whole, a much

nicer-looking lot than the boys who sell papers in London. They

narrowed the choice to four. One of them shewed signs of pneumonia.

He was rejected. The others were examined carefully. Their prefrontal

areas were measured. They were sounded and felt and summed up. The

matter was doubtful for a time. The lad with the best head was more

drowsy than the other two. The question arose, should the doubtful

cure of a genius be preferred to the less doubtful cure of a dunce.

"Nature has made an effort for this one," said Lionel, "at the expense

of the type. This fellow has got a better head than the others, but he

is not quite so fine a specimen. That means that he will be less

happy. Nature would probably prefer the other fellows."

"We have nothing to do with Nature," said Roger. "We are out to fight

her wherever we can find her. Nature is a collection of vegetables,

many of them human. Let us thwart her. Nature's mind is the mind of

the flock of sheep. Nature's order is the order of the primeval swamp.

Never mind what she would prefer. Sacrifice both the dunces, and let

the other have a double chance. I know the dunce-mind, or 'natural'

mind, only too well. It would sacrifice any original mind, and

brutally, like the beast it is, rather than see its doltish sheep-pen

rules infringed."

"Genius is excess," said Lionel. "Genius in a savage means an excess

of savagery. This fellow may be a most turbulent, bloodthirsty

ruffian. The others, though they will probably be bloodthirsty

ruffians, may not be so turbulent."

"If he be turbulent," said Roger, "it will be in a more intellectual

manner than is usual with his tribe. Turbulence in a savage is a sign

of life. It is only in a civilised man that it is a sign of failure."

"Very well," said Lionel. "We will have the genius. He may disappoint

us. I think he is the best type here. Who is to be the other? What

do you say to that nice-looking boy, whom we spun some time ago for

itch? I like that lad's face."

"You think he would be a good one to save?"

"Well, itch apart, he looked a nice lad. He would be exceptional,

socially, just as the other would be exceptional intellectually. He

would be to some extent unnatural, which is what you seem to want. Why

are you so down on the natural?"

"I've heard some old women of both sexes praising the natural, ever

since I was a child. The natural. The born natural. The undeveloped

sheep in us, which makes common head to butt the wolf-scarer."

"We'll give them a dose to-day and a dose to-morrow, and a last dose in

two and a half weeks' time," said Lionel. "And then they'll either be

fit to butt anything in the wide world, or they'll be on their way to

Marumba."

"The genius first," said Roger, bringing up the patient. The needle

was sterilised. A little prick between the shoulderblades drove the

dose home. The other boy followed. Lionel eyed them carefully.

"They must come out of here, now," he said. "They must live with us

for to-night. We can't do more now. We've done enough for one day.

To-morrow we must rig them up a shanty up on the hill. They'll be

pretty well by to-morrow night."

They were doing finely by the next night, as Lionel had foretold.

Their second dose was followed up with a preparation of mercury, which

the wise men trusted to complete the cure. The patients were pretty

well. But the work and excitement of settling them into quarters near

"Portobe" made the doctors very far from pretty well. Though the

sick-quarters were little more than a roofed-in wind-screen of

tarpaulin, the strain of making it was too much for two over-wrought

Europeans, not yet used to the heat. Lionel, complaining peevishly of

headache, knocked off work before tea. Roger, feeling the boisterous

good spirits which so often precede a fit of recurrent fever, helped

Lionel into bed, and cheerfully did the sick man's share of building.

After this he gave the two patients their supper of biscuit and bully

beef (which they ate with very good appetites), and, when they had

eaten, put them to bed under their wind-screen. As he worked, he hoped

fervently that Lionel was not going to be ill again. He had been

peevish, with a slight, irritable fever all the way up the river from

Malakoto. If he fell ill again now, all the work would be delayed.

Roger wanted to get to work. All their plans had been upset by the

bearers' desertion. Any further upsetting of plans might ruin the

expedition. The days were passing. Every day brought those poor

drowsy devils in the village nearer to their deaths. Soon they would

be too ill to cure. He wanted Lionel well and strong, working beside

him towards the discovery of a serum. That was the crying need. With

Lionel ill, he could do nothing, or nearly nothing. He had so little

scientific knowledge. And besides that, he would have Lionel to watch,

and the cleansing and feeding of all those twenty-seven sick. He did

not see how things were going to get done.

He told himself that things would have to get done, and that he would

have to do them. The resolution cheered him, but the prospect was not

made brighter by his discovery soon afterwards that Lionel's

temperature had shot up with a sudden leaping bound to 103°. That

frightened him. Lionel was not going to be ill, he was ill, and very

dangerously ill already. His temperature had risen four or five

degrees in about half an hour. The discovery gave Roger a momentary

feeling of panic. With a fever like that, Lionel might die, and if

Lionel died, what then? He would be there alone, alone in the wilds,

with drowsed, half-dead savages. He would be alone there with death,

in the heart of a continent. He would go mad there, at the sight of

his own shadow, like the Australian in the cheerful story. But for

Lionel to die, to lose Lionel, the friend of all these days, the

comrade of all these adventures, that was the desolating thought. It

would not matter much what happened to himself if Lionel were to die.

It was borne in upon him that Lionel's life would depend on his

exertions. He would be doctor, nurse, and chemist. Let him look to

it. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be two vigorous natives to

look to the sick in the village. Meanwhile, there was the night to win

through; and that burning temperature to lower.

He managed to administer a dose of quinine. There was nothing more

that he could do. Crouching down by the sick man's side made him feel

queer. He remembered that he had left neither food nor water in the

patients' hut. They ought to have food by them in case they woke

hungry, as they probably would, after their long, irregular fast. He

carried them some biscuit, and a bucket half full of water. They were

sleeping heavily. Nature was resting in them. While coming back from

the hut, he noticed that the night struck cold. He shivered. His

teeth began to chatter. He felt that the cold had stricken to his

liver. He wished that he had not gone out. Coming into the house, he

felt the need of a fire; but he did not dare to light one, on account

of Lionel. Lionel lay tossing deliriously, babbling the halves of

words. Roger gave him more quinine, and took a strong dose himself.

There was something very strange about the quinine. It seemed to come

to his mouth from a hand immensely distant. There was a long, long

arm, like a crooked railway, tied to the hand. It seemed to Roger that

it could not possibly crook itself sufficiently to let the hand reach

his mouth. After the strangeness of the hand had faded, he felt

horribly cold. He longed to have fire all round him, and inside him.

He regarded Lionel stupidly. He could do nothing more. He would lie

down. If Lionel wanted anything, he would get up to fetch it. He

could not sit up with Lionel. He was in for a fever. He got into his

bed, and heaped the blankets round him, trembling. Almost at once the

real world began to blur and change. It was still the real world, but

he was seeing much in it which he had not suspected. Many queer things

were happening before his eyes. He lay shuddering, with chattering

teeth, listening, as he thought, to the noise made by the world as it

revolved. It was a crashing, booming, resolute noise, which droned

down and anon piped up high. It went on and on.

In the middle of all the noise he had the strange fancy that his body

was not in bed at all, but poised in air. His bed lay somewhere below

him. Sitting up he could see part of it, infinitely distant, below his

outstretched feet. The ceiling was swelling and swelling just above

him. It seemed as vast as heaven. All the time it swelled he seemed

to shrink. He was lying chained somewhere, while his body was

shrinking to the vanishing point. He could feel himself dwindling,

while the blackness above grew vaster. He heard something far below

him--or was it at his side?--something or somebody speaking very

rapidly. He tried to call out to Lionel, but all that he could say was

something about an oyster tree. There was a great deal of chattering.

Somebody was trying to get in, or somebody was trying to get out.

Something or somebody was in great danger, and, do what he could, he

could not help growing smaller, smaller, smaller. At last the

blackness fell in upon his littleness and blotted it out.

He awoke in the early morning, feeling as though his bones had been

taken out. His mouth had a taste as though brown paper had been burnt

in it. Wafts of foul smell passed over him as each fresh gust blew in

at the doorway. Something was the matter with his eyes. He had an

obscurity of vision. He could not see properly. Things changed and

merged into each other. He lifted a hand to brush away the distorting

film. He was thirsty. He was too weak to define more clearly what he

wanted; it was not water; it was not food; it was not odour; but a

bitter, pungent, astringent something which would be all three to him.

He wanted something which would cleanse his mouth, supplant this

foulness in his nostrils, and nerve the jelly of his marrow. Weakly

desiring this potion, he fell asleep from exhaustion. He woke much

refreshed after a sleep of about eight hours.

When he looked about him, he saw that Lionel was still unconscious. He

was lying there uneasily, muttering and restless, with a much-flushed

face. His hands were plucking and scratching at his chest. There was

that about him which suggested high fever. Roger hurriedly brought a

thermometer and took the sick man's temperature. It had sunk to less

than 100°. He thrust aside the pyjama coat, and felt the heart with

his finger. The pulse was beating with something of the batting motion

of a guttering electric light. The chest was inflamed, with a slight

reddish rash.

Roger sat down upon his bed and took a few deep breaths to steady

himself. Afterwards he remembered telling himself in a loud, clear

voice that he would have to go into this with a clear head, a very

clear head. He swilled his head with water from the bucket. When he

felt competent he remembered another and more certain symptom. He

advanced to the sick man and looked anxiously at his throat glands. He

had braced himself for the shock; but it was none the less severe when

it came. The glands were visibly swollen. They were also very tender

to the touch. Lionel had relapsed. He was suffering from

trypanosomiasis. The disease was on him.

Roger passed the next few minutes biting his lips. From time to time

he went back to the bed to look at the well-known symptoms. He was

sure, only too sure, but each time he went he prayed to God that he

might be mistaken. He went over these symptoms in his mind. High

temperature, a rapid pulse, the glands of the neck swollen, a rash on

the chest, hands, or shoulders, a flushed face, and feeble movements.

There was no doubting the symptoms. Lionel was in a severe relapse.

Even when one is certain of something terrible, there is still a

clinging to hope, a sense of the possibility of hope. Roger sitting

there on the bed, staring at the restless body, had still a hope that

he might be wrong. He dressed himself carefully, saying over and over

again that he must keep a level head. There was still one test to

apply. It was necessary to be certain. He got out the microscope, and

sterilised a needle. When he was ready he punctured one of Lionel's

glands, and blew out the matter on to a slide. Very anxiously, after

preparing the slide for observation, he focussed the lens, and looked

down onto the new, unsuspected world, bustling below him on the glass.

He was looking down on a strange world of discs, among which little

wriggling wavy membranes, something like the tails of tadpoles, waved

themselves slowly, and lashed out with a sort of whip-lash snout. Each

had a dark little nucleus in his middle, and a minute spot near the

anterior end. There was no room for hope in Roger's mind when he saw

those little waving membranes, bustling actively, splitting,

multiplying, lashing with their whips. They were trypanosomes in high

activity. He watched them for a minute or two horrified by the

bluntness and lowness of the organism, and by its blind power. It was

a trembling membrane a thousandth part of an inch long. It had brought

Lionel down to that restless body on the bed. It had reduced all

Lionel's knowledge and charm and skill to a little plucking at the

skin, a little tossing, a little babbling. It was the visible

pestilence, the living seed of death, sown in the blood.

Roger made himself some tea. Having made it, he forced himself to eat,

repeating that he must eat to keep strong, lest he should fail Lionel

in any way. Food, and the hot diffusive stimulant, made him more

cheerful. He told himself that Lionel was only in a fit of the

frequently recurring trypanosome fever. After a day or two of fever he

would come to again, weak, anæmic, and complaining of headache. A dose

of atoxyl would destroy all the symptoms in a few hours. Even if he

did not take the atoxyl, there was no certainty that the fever would

turn to sleeping sickness. There was a chance of it; but no certainty.

A doctor's first duty was to be confident. Well, he was going to be

confident. He was going to pull Lionel through. He remembered a

conversation between two Americans in a railway carriage. He had

overheard them years before, while travelling south from Fleetwood.

They were talking of a coming prize fight between two notorious boxers

who, while training, spent much energy in contemning each other in the

Press, threatening each other with annihilation, of the most final

kind. "Them suckers chew the rag fit to beat the band," said one of

the men. "Why cain't they give it a rest? Let 'em slug each other

good, in der scrap. De hell wid dis chin music."

"Aw git off," said the other. "Them quitters, if they didn't talk hot

air till dey believed it, dey'd never git near der ring."

He had always treasured the conversation in his memory. He thought of

it now. Perhaps if doctors did not force themselves "to talk hot air"

till their patients believed it, very few patients would ever leave

their beds. He cleared away the breakfast things and made the house

tidy. He gave Lionel an extra pillow. Then he went out into the

morning to think of what he should do.

When he got out into the air he remembered the two patients. It was

his duty now to dose them and give them food. All that he had to do

was to walk to their hut, see that they ate their breakfast, and give

them each a blue pill afterwards. The drug would have taken a stronger

hold during the night, and the action of atoxyl is magical even in bad

cases. He expected to find them alert and lively, changed by the

drug's magic to two intelligent merry negroes. It was not too much to

hope, perhaps. He prayed that it might be so. There was nothing for

which he longed so much as for some strong evidence of the power of

atoxyl to arrest the disease. He topped the rise and looked down on

his handiwork.

All was quiet in the clumsy hut. The negroes were not stirring. Roger

was vaguely perplexed when he saw that they were not about. Even if

they were no better than they had been the day before they ought still

to be up and sunning. He wondered what had happened. A fear that the

drug had failed him mingled with his memory of a book about man-eating

lions. He broke into a run.

He had only to push aside the tarpaulin which served for door to see

that the two patients had gone. When they had gone, there was no means

of knowing; but gone they were. They had gone at a time when there had

been light enough for them to see the biscuits and the bucket; for

biscuits and bucket were gone with them. He could see no trace of the

two men on the wide savannah which rolled away below him. He supposed

that some homing instinct had sent them back to the village. He was

cheered by the thought. They had been cured within two days. They had

been changed from oafish lumps into thinking beings. Now he would cure

Lionel in the same way. As he hurried back to "Portobe," he was

thankful that some of the drug remained to them. He would have been in

a strange quandary had they used all the drug two days before.