While Dane ran his eyes along his trenches it struck him that the raw heaps of sand and the rude wooden flumes appeared strangely out of place in that gap in the primeval forest. It towered about them, vast, shadowy, and impressive, rotting as it grew, but throbbing with the pulse of an untrammeled life that would tear down the conduits, and bury the workings with verdure, almost as soon as their constructors relinquished them. The voices of the negroes, rising hollowly through the motionless atmosphere, sounded weak and feeble against its silence.
"If all goes well, and the yield increases as it has done of late, we should have enough to leave us a creditable profit before the year is done," Dane said. "We have been long enough in this country, Carsluith, and I mean to return to England before it wastes all the life out of me."
Perhaps it was the weather, for Maxwell appeared in an unusually somber mood.
"Your proviso covers a good deal," he replied. "This is a land of surprises, where it is more than usually useless to predict what any man will do. Neither are the signs auspicious at present."
"No," Dane agreed reflectively; "I can't say that I consider them so. This dead stillness worries me. Does it presage a premature change in the seasons, or has it any other unpleasant meaning?"
"Who can tell? Anything abnormal carries a hint of death with it in this country. Still, there are other tokens. The few tribesmen who brought us in provisions have vanished completely. The last we saw looked like badly frightened men and were moving south with, for natives, surprising celerity. As you know, the interpreter failed to understand them, but I have an uneasy feeling that there was a sufficient cause for their hurry. The negro is not a foreseeing person, and does not run away unless the danger which threatens him is tangible and near."
Dane twice turned to move back toward the workings, but did not do so. His physical nature revolted from toil that day, and his brain felt sick and useless under the stress of temperature. So the two lingered until a negro near them, dropping his shovel, rolled over, clawing at the sand, as suddenly as a rabbit stricken by the gun. His fall was so swift and unexpected that Dane stared at the twitching black limbs motionless until Maxwell's voice roused him.
"Shake yourself together, Hilton. There is work before us! That fellow must be carried into the bush before the rest discover what he is suffering from."
The man proved a heavy lift, and his greasy limbs writhed within their grasp; but they laid him among the creepers without attracting attention, and Dane, running to the tent, returned with a phial.
"Where do you feel them pain lib?" he asked.