"Are the rains very unhealthy?"
"Yes. If they bring out the latent disease, they do so by lowering the constitution. But I don't believe that they do anything of the kind. Still, the natives say that they can bring out nagana in a bitten cow by pouring a bucket of water over her."
"Look here," said Roger, "I don't want you to decide definitely till you know me better. I know how risky a thing it is to choose a companion for a journey into the wilderness, or for any undertaking of this kind. But I am dissatisfied with my work. I can't tell you more. I don't think that my work is using enough of me, or letting me grow up evenly. Besides, for other reasons, I want to give up writing. I am deeply interested in your work, and I should like to join you, if you would let me, after you know me better. I have a theory which I should like to work out."
"It would be very nice," said Lionel. "I mean it would be very nice for me. But it means pretty severe work, remember. And then, how about scientific training? I'm not properly qualified myself; but I've been at this game for seven years, and I had a hard year's training under my old chief, Sir Patrick Hamlin. I began by doing First Aid and Bearer-Party in camp. Then, when I gave up soldiering, I got a job on famine relief in India. Then old Hamlin took me under his wing, and got me to help with the plague at Bombay, and so I went on, learning whatever I could. I was very lucky. I mean, I was able to learn a good deal, being always with Hamlin. You ought to know Hamlin. He's a very remarkable man. He stamped out Travancore ophthalmia. He made me very keen and taught me all that I know. Not that that's much. Now you are rather a griff, if you'll excuse my saying so. I wonder how soon you could make yourself useful?"
"Well, what is wanted?" said Roger. "Surely not much? What can you do with the disease? You can only inject atoxyl into a man, and pump trypanosomes out of him? I can learn how to mount and stain objects for the microscope. I have kept meteorological records. I could surely keep records of temperatures. I have no experience and no scientific knowledge; but I am not sure that my particular theory will need much more than prolonged, steady observation. Probably all the attainable scientific facts about the structures of the different varieties of tsetse are known, but the habits of the flies are very little known. I was thinking that a minute observation of the flies would be useful. It is a kind of work which a trained scientist might find dull. Now, who has really observed the tsetse's habits? It is not even known what their food is. And another thing. What is it which keeps them near the water, even when (for all that we know) the air-breathing fish are no longer burrowed in the mud? And why should they be so fond of certain kinds of jungle? And why should there not be some means of exterminating them? I could experiment in many ways."
"Yes. That is true. You could," said Lionel, puckering his face. "How do you stand heat? You're slight. You can probably stand more than a big beefy fellow."
"I did not find Belize very trying."
"Then it's an expensive business," said Lionel. "When I go out I shan't be attached to any commission. One has to go into all these sordid details pretty closely. Of course, you won't mind my giving you one or two tips. Here's my account book for a quite short trip to Ikupu. You will see that it is very costly and very wasteful."
Roger looked at the account-book. The cost of the Ikupu trip was certainly heavy. The relatives of two bearers who had been eaten by lions had received compensation. The widow of the dead assistant had received compensation. A month's stores had been thrown away by deserting bearers. The dirty, dog's-eared pages gave him a sense of the wasteful, deathy, confused life which goes on in new countries before wasteful, cruel, confused nature has the ideas of her "rebellious son" imposed upon her. "We went out seventy strong," said Lionel, "to go to Ikupu. We had bad luck from the very start. Only twelve of us ever got there. You see, my assistant, Marteilhe, was frightfully ill. I had fever on and off the whole time. So the bearers did what they liked. It's a heart-breaking country to travel in. It's like Texas. 'A good land for men and dogs, but hell for women and oxen.' What do you think? Does it seem to you to be worth the waste?"
"Very well worth," said Roger, handing back the book. "If I fail to do one little speck of good there, it will have been very well worth, both for my own character and for my own time."