As soon as it was light, Norah was awakened by Archie's voice outside her tent. He was speaking in Chiwemba, and she could hear Matao's monosyllabic replies.
Her call brought Archie to the doorway. She resisted an impulse to tell him to come in; he seemed so infinitely remote.
'You ought to be in bed,' she told him.
He assured her that he was better.
'What is it? Fever?'
'Yes. But it's down this morning.'
If he had not been standing with his back to the light, she could have seen from the colour of his eyes that it was not very far 'down.'
'You ought to have a day in bed and give yourself a chance,' she urged him.
'Can't. Every moment brings the rains nearer. No joke to be caught on a raft by a squall.'
She asked if the natives could not be left to work alone, or, she hesitated a moment, under Dick's charge.