"Yes," said Lionel. "They're not up here, anyhow."
After some little search, they found where the bearers had sheltered before the storm threatened. A vulture shewed them the exact place. Two other vultures were there already. The storm had killed one of the men.
"It's Eukwo, the lazy one," said Lionel. "I noticed last night that there was something the matter with him. Perhaps you saw how the others fought shy of him. These fellows are like animals, aren't they, in the way they leave their sick?" He looked at the body. "Dysentery and the cold, I suppose," he said. "With Kilemba dead last night, the village full of dead down below us, the storm, then this fellow dying, it has been too much for them. I'm afraid, Roger, that the men have deserted us."
"Gone?" said Roger blankly. It had not occurred to him before as a possibility.
"I'm afraid," said Lionel, moving away. "Here is where they sheltered for the storm. There are their tracks leading downhill. You see? Here. See? Still half full of water. They cleared out in the night during the showers. They've got three or four hours' start of us."
"Well," said Roger. "Come on. We'd better eat as we go. Otherwise we may never catch them up."
"They'll have gone in the boat," said Lionel. "With this flood they'll be a day's march downstream. There's no trace of the boat in the lagoon there."
"She may have been swept away," said Roger, after a glance through the glasses. "The stores are there still." By this time they were hurrying downhill towards the village. Both were thinking how fiercely they would thrash Merrylegs and how little chance there was of finding any Merrylegs to thrash. Anger burned up in hot bursts, and the cold water of despair put it out again. Roger felt it more keenly than Lionel. He was less used to the shocks of travel. He wondered, as he hurried, what stores had been left in the boat, and what had been piled on the bank to be carried up next day. He had been ill; he had never noticed. The men had done as they pleased. He reproached himself so bitterly that he hardly dared look at his friend. He wondered whether the men had taken anything of supreme importance. He feared the worst. If they had taken anything important he would be to blame. It was his fault. He ought to have guarded against this. He ought to have taken the paddles. He ought to have ordered the men to bring everything up to camp, where it would have been under his own eyes. Lionel looked at him quizzically.
"Don't cross the river till you reach the water," he said. "We may catch them. They may not have gone."
On their way they looked through the village. The bearers were not there. Lionel tried to make the villagers understand him by signs; but they were too strongly infected to understand a difficult thing. He had to give them up. He bade Roger fill his pockets with some bruised corn which they found in one of the pots of an empty hut. They munched this as they went. Their next task was to run out the trail.