It was a tragic trio which reassembled on the Kawa's deck as the late afternoon sun spread its golden hand across the lagoon. The purple shadow of the Mountain rested on our tiny craft but a shadow yet deeper shrouded our hearts. Each of us carried the consciousness of a terrible duty. We ought to leave the Filberts.
Broken-heartedly we talked over the situation.
"Getting worse," was Whinney's report. "Saw Baahaabaa scratching his leg this morning—probably got it."
Poor Baahaabaa, how my heart ached for him.
"We ought to leave," I said.
It was the first time any of us had dared state the hideous truth in plain words. They fell like lead on our spirits. Swank's sensitive soul was perhaps the most harrowed of all.
He sat moaning on the taffrail taking little or no part in the discussion. All at once he sprang up with blazing eyes.
"I can't do it!" he shouted. "I can't—and I won't. Blessed little Lupoba,—my Mist-on-the-Mountain. How can I desert you? How can we any of us desert our wives—let us stay, let us live, and, if we must, let us die. Love is more than life."
It was a powerful appeal. Overwrought as I was, I nearly succumbed to the false reasoning which was but the expression of my desire. And then once more the vision of those deadly inroads of disease rose before me.
"Whinney," I asked, "is there no cure for this awful thing? No antitoxin?"