And presently, when the tom-toms and the jangling iron suggested some tune to his ear, he changed this to a jangle which stated "I could—not love—thee dear—so much—loved I—not hon—or more." And as the tune beat out into the hot steamy night, so did the words keep time to them with irritating repetition.
Once he stopped and shook a fist at the invisible sky above. "I am going to marry Laura," he declared, "if she was ten times as black. I am going to marry her though I know my father will never speak to me again, and I can't take her home. I am going to marry her though the heaven's fall. I am going to marry her for one reason that can't be got over, and that is because I said I would. A man must play the game. But my God! why did I never guess that Kate was on earth somewhere?"
There was an old cotton-wood stump in the clearing, and he stood against it so thoughtful and still that he became the object of attention of bats. He hit at them angrily and recommenced his prowl.
Hour after hour he tramped through the dripping grass, biting against fate. Cascaes, who did not work unless he was driven, had long since checked his tally of kernels, and gone to bed. The factory lamps had one by one gone out. The night noises of the forest that hemmed them in were in full swing. His thin clothes were sodden with the damp, and by every law of Africa he was gathering unto himself the seeds of disease. But still he tramped on, in and out amongst the huts and litter, wrestling with his misery.
The thing which in the end lifted him out of this unhealthy pit of self-pity was commonplace enough in its way. As he was passing a small rude shelter of boughs and thatch, there came to his ears a very unmistakable human groan.
It was a temporary hut run up by some trader who was waiting his turn to do business at the factory, and the groan was of that timbre which told that it was wrenched from a strong man by deadly pain. At another time Carter would probably have passed on. One grows callous to suffering in West Africa, and to interfere with a sick native seldom brings thanks and very frequently produces complications. But something just then moved him to play the Samaritan.
He put his head through the entrance and peered into the darkness. "Well," he said, "who's here, and what's the matter?"
A voice replied in stately Haûsa, "O, Effendi, I am close upon death, and it is hard to die far from one's own lands and people."
"Let's have a look at you," said Carter, in what he knew of the same tongue, eked out with Kroo and Okky. He scraped a damp and reluctant match. "Holy Christopher! What have you been doing to your thigh?"
"As I marched along the road to here, a leopard sprang and seized me, but the men that were with me speared him, and so I escaped with my life. They made a litter, and on it carried me to this place. And here they left me in the hands of Allah, whilst they followed up their own private affairs."