The following morning, to my astonishment and no small consternation, Ndova was ill, and refused to eat the berries and nuts given to him, of which ordinarily he was very fond. He looked at them, but would not even take them in his hands. His body was hot, and it was evident that he had a high fever. His heart beat very fast. It was very strange, I thought; he had been so well the evening before.
I said to Rogala: "I wonder if Ndova could have been stung by a scorpion or a centipede during the night, or perhaps a small poisonous snake entered his house and bit him when he tried to play with it."
"No," said Rogala, "monkeys are like people; they are afraid of snakes and do not play with them."
I took Ndova on my knees and examined his body, on which I discovered a red spot, showing that he had been stung either by a scorpion or a centipede.
"Look!" I said to Rogala, pointing out the place to him. "Ndova has been stung by a scorpion or a centipede."
"It is so," replied Rogala.
There are two or three species of centipedes and scorpions; the very poisonous ones are dark red, almost black. Rogala looked carefully at the red spot, and then said in a thoughtful and sad voice: "I am afraid it is all over with Ndova, for we black men die of the sting of this bad kind of scorpion and centipede, or else, if we escape, we are very ill. Their stings are often as dangerous as the bites of poisonous snakes."
I immediately gave a little dose of medicine to Ndova, but it did not seem to do him any good. That night we all went to sleep feeling very sad.
At break of day I went to Ndova to see how he was. I said, "Good-morning, Ndova," but he remained quiet in his little house. He did not come out, as he had always done before, and jump on my shoulder, and give a chuckle, which probably meant in the monkey language of the ndova tribe, "I am glad to see you." Instead of the chuckle I heard an indistinct sound, and he looked at me in a forlorn way as if to say, "I am very ill."