“Kali will not forget that I saved him from Gebhr—I’m sure of that.”
“Possibly,” said Linde, and pointing to Nasibu, he added:
“He is also a good child. Take care of him after my death.”
“Don’t always think of death, and don’t talk of it.”
“My dear,” answered the Swiss, “I long for it—all I hope is that it will take place without further suffering. Just think, I am now quite helpless, and if one of the Mahdists whose band I dispersed should accidentally wander through this narrow pass, he could slaughter me like a lamb single-handed.”
He pointed to the sleeping negroes, and resumed:
“These will never wake, or, more correctly, each one will wake once again shortly before his death, and will run madly through the jungle, from which he will never return. Out of two hundred people there were only sixty left me. Many ran away, died of smallpox, or lay down to die in other gorges.”
Stasch gazed at the negroes, his heart full of horror and pity. Their bodies were of an ashy gray, which in the negro signifies pallor. The eyes of some were tightly closed, of others half open, but even these were sleeping soundly, for the pupils of their eyes were not sensitive to the light. The knee-joints of some were swollen. All were so terribly emaciated that their ribs could be seen through their skin. Their hands and feet shook incessantly and rapidly. Blue flies had settled in thick masses on their eyes and lips.
“Is there no help for them?” asked Stasch.
“No. In the district of the Victoria-Nyanza this illness kills the inhabitants of entire villages. Sometimes it is worse than at others. The inhabitants of the villages lying in the woods near its banks are most frequently attacked.”