"I don't suppose it's much use, but you may as well take the knife that's in the pocket, and feel if there's any potleg near the top. Well, why don't you do it? You need not be frightened. It won't bleed much—that way."
Amadu shivered as he probed the wound. Maxwell's face grew grayer, and after a downward glance out of half-closed eyes he shook his head and stretched out one hand for more of the brandy. Then there was a heavy silence for several minutes.
"If I could lie still with ice to suck until somebody brought a surgeon there might be a chance; but that's out of the question here," he said in a rambling fashion, and then roused himself. "You don't understand. Well, I'll try in the little I know of your own idiom. We have made two great journeys together, but now it is written that I shall shortly set out on a longer one alone, Amadu."
Maxwell spoke thickly, but there was a wry smile on his lips as he watched the big dark-skinned alien, who, rending his cotton robe, bound a pad of wet leaves upon the injured side.
"It is useless, Amadu." Maxwell coughed once or twice. "Listen. Because of something you may remember you dare not fail me, and this is my word to you. I made a promise which must be kept, and you will carry me to the white man's camp before six days are over, alive or dead."
Amadu looked eastward across the jungle, spread his palms outward, and then bent his head.
"By fire and salt, and the beard of the Prophet it shall be so," he said in his own tongue. "And I would it may also be written that I shall still follow my master should these dogs of bushmen meddle again."
"Your master is one of the infidel," replied Maxwell. "Now see that none of these others know what has overtaken me, and call up the hammock men."
Maxwell was leaning on Amadu's shoulder when the hammock appeared round the bend, and none of the black men who lifted him into it guessed how hard he had been hit; and the monotonous carrying chanty drowned the groans he could not quite suppress. The heavens were opened as the march began again, and the rain rushed down. It lashed the negroes' oily skins until they tingled, the trail became a streamlet, and the mire in places fouled them to the knee; but Amadu, having given his promise, saw to the keeping of it with a terrible persistence, and they trudged on doggedly, the dripping hammock always before them. As one worn-out bearer stumbled another replaced him, and the march progressed until long after darkness fell, and after a few hours' halt in drifting mist it began again.
So the long days and black nights passed. There were odd flashes of sunlight, and once or twice the moon looked down; but between these times the air was filled with the steam of the saturated earth or with a rush of lukewarm water.