Geoffrey looked at him curiously.
"Leave you to these savages in the Manyema country? No; that would be a beastly thing to do," he said, with his cynical laugh. "I'm not quite bad enough for that, Allan. How do I know they wouldn't eat you? They've been civil enough so far, but I believe it's because of my fiddle. They take me for a medicine-man, and my little Amati for a capricious devil that can give them toko if they don't act on the square. I won't leave you—like that; but I'll tell you what I'll do. We'll divide forces for a bit. I'll leave you the larger party, and I and my Makololos will go and look for big game."
Allan crept into the hut and sank down upon his mat while his comrade was talking. He had hardly strength to answer him. He lay there white and dumb, while Geoffrey spread the blanket over him, and wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief.
"Do what you like, Geoff," he murmured, "and do the best for yourself. I don't want to spoil your sport."
He turned his body towards the wall, with an obvious effort, as if his limbs were made of lead, and presently sank into a sleep which seemed almost stupor.
"My God!" muttered Geoffrey, looking down at him, "is he going to die? Can death come like that, as if in answer to a wicked wish?"
He went out and talked to the men, giving them stringent orders as to what they were to do for the sick Musungu. He was going on a shooting expedition with only four men—the rest, a round dozen, would remain with the other Musungu, and nurse him, and take care of him, and obey his orders when he was well enough to move; and, above all, not attempt robbery or desertion, as they—the two Musungus—had letters from the Sultan of Zanzibar to Nzigue, the Arab chief at Kassongo, and any evil treatment would be bitterly expiated. "You know how small account the white Arabs make of a black man's life," he concluded.
Yes, they knew.
He went back to the hut, and to the store of quinine and other drugs, and he prepared such doses as it would be well for Allan to take at fixed periods; and then he instructed the leader of the porters—a Zanzibari, who had been with Burton, and afterwards with Stanley—as to the treatment of the sick man. He was to do this, and this, once, twice, thrice, between sunrise and sundown, the division of the day by hours not having yet been revealed to these primitive minds.
"Say, how often are you hungry in the day, and how often do you eat?"