"Shut your silly head, Merrylegs," cried Roger angrily. The song broke off. Merrylegs began to tell the bow-oar what meat there would be in Jualapa. He said that there would be cattle, and perhaps a diseased cow among them. The rowing seemed to freshen a little. The boat dragged on a little quicker.
"How are you, Lionel?" Roger asked. It was a foolish question.
"Oh, for God's sake don't ask silly questions," said Lionel very weakly. "Do leave me alone."
For answer, Roger gently renewed the compress round the sick man's head. From the thirst which was torturing him he guessed that his fever's hot fit would soon begin. He prayed that it might keep off until they had reached the smoke. They were probably nearing some village. They might camp at the village. Only he would have to be well when they reached the village. He would have to get Lionel ashore, into some comfortable hut. He would have to feed him there with some strong comforting broth. Before he could do that, he would have to see the village headman. He would have to look after the bearers. The boat would have to be moored. Some of her gear would have to be unloaded.
There could be no thought of going on, upstream, to Jualapa, in their present state. A native had told them, the day before, that Jualapa, three days' journey upstream, was stricken with sleeping sickness. "All were sleeping," he said. "Men, women, and little children. The cattle were not milked at Jualapa." It was the first time that they had heard of the disease since leaving the coast. They had decided to attempt Jualapa.
They were both suffering from fever. They would have been glad to camp for a few days before pushing on; but Lionel forbade it. The rowers were getting homesick. Three of them had contracted dysentery. He felt that if they called a halt anywhere their men would desert them. The important thing was to push on, he said, to carry the men so far that they would be afraid to run. If the men deserted after the leaders had engaged the disease, well and good, there would be the work to do. But if they deserted before that, the expedition would end before Roger took his first lumbar puncture. It was the last sensible decision Lionel had been able to make. His fever had recurred within the hour. Since then he had been dangerously ill, so ill, and with such violent changes of temperature, that his weakness, now that the fever lifted, frightened Roger.
Roger shook and chattered, trying to think. He was ill; so ill that he could not think clearly. The horrible part of it, to him, was to be just clear enough in his head to fear to change Lionel's decision. He wanted to change for Lionel's sake; but with this fever smouldering in his brain, surging and lifting, like a hot blast withering him, the plan seemed august, like a law of the Medes and Persians. He was afraid of changing. At last, in a momentary clearing of the head, he made up his mind to change. He would anchor. They would halt at the smoke. They would land and camp. Nothing could be done till the leaders were cured. If the men deserted, he would trust to luck to be able to hire new men. He could not go on like this; Lionel might die. The fever closed in upon his mind again, surging and withering. The air seemed strangely thick. Merrylegs wavered and blurred. The boat grounded on a mud-bank, and brushed past some many-shimmering reeds with a long swish. The dying negro, stirred by some memory, which the noise had awakened in him, raised himself faintly, asking something. He fell back faint, closing his eyes, then opening them. He beat with one hand, jabbering the name Mpaka. His teeth clenched. He was in the death agony. One of the stroke-oars, clambering over the boxes in the stern-sheets, beat the dying man upon the chest. He was beating out the devil, he explained. He soon grew tired. He shouted in the sick man's ear, laughed delightedly at his groans, and went forward to explain his prowess. He broke out into a song about it.
Kilemba has a big devil in his belly.
Big devil eat up Kilemba. Eat all up.
But Muafi a strong man. Very strong man. Devil no good.
Not eat Muafi.
They swept round a bend, where crocodiles, like great worm-casts, sunned and nuzzled, with mud caking off their bellies. The boat passed into a broad, above which, the hill like a Roman camp rose up. Pink cranes stood in the shallows. Slowly, one of them rose aloft, heavily flagging. Another rose, then another, then another, till they made a pinkish ribbon against the forest. Following the line of their flight Roger saw a few delicate deer leave their pasture, startled by the starting of the cranes. They moved off daintily, looking uneasily behind them. Soon they broke into a run.
On the left bank, in a space of poor soil, covered with shingle by a freshet, some vultures cowered and sidled about a dead thing. Roger stared stupidly at them. Something of a warning of death moved through the surging of his fever. He said to himself that there was death here. Words spoke in his brain, each word like a fire-flash. "No white man has ever been here before. You are the first. Take care. There is death here." Some vague fear of possible war, so vague that he was not quite certain that it was not a memory of a war-scare at home, made him look to his revolver. He thrust up the catch with his thumb, and stared at the seven dull brass discs pulled slightly forward by the extractor. There were seven, and we are seven, and there were seven planets. The fever made him stare at the opened breech for a full minute.