Kali's eyes were bloodshot, the veins in his neck were inflated, and his lips cracked the same as the other negroes. About five o'clock he approached Stas and, in a hollow voice which with difficulty issued out of his throat, said:
"Great master, Kali can go no further. Let the night come here."
Stas overcame the pain in his jaws and answered with an effort:
"Very well. We will stop. The night will bring relief."
"It will bring death," the young negro whispered.
The men threw the loads off their heads, but as the fever in their thickened blood already reached the highest degree, on this occasion they did not immediately lie down on the ground. Their hearts and the arteries in their temples, hands, and limbs pulsated as if in a moment they would burst. The skin of their bodies, drying up and shrinking, began to itch; in their bones they were sensible of an excessive disquiet and in their entrails and throats a fire. Some walked uneasily among the packets; others could be seen farther away in ruddy rays of the setting sun as they strolled one after another among the dried tufts as though seeking something, and this continued until their strength was entirely exhausted. Then they fell in turn on the ground and lay in convulsions. Kali sat, squatting near Stas and Nell, catching the air with open mouth, and began to repeat entreatingly between one breath and the other:
"Bwana kubwa, water."
Stas gazed at him with a glassy stare and remained silent.
"Bwana kubwa, water!"
And after a while:
"Kali is dying."