The effect of these last stories is sobering and saddening, especially to a mind not yet accustomed to such tales. A shadow lies across the white man’s heart. And that same shadow lies across every charm in Africa and mars every beauty—the reflection of the cruel ignorance and awful sufferings of its people. The observer who does not see the shadow must never have entered into the mind-life and the heart-life of the people. The vast forest darkness, and the weird night-sounds that befit the darkness, deepen the impression of the camp-fire stories.
That piercing cry of the lemur, how it suggests the terror of the wretched man devoured by driver ants! And that other mournful note is surely the remorse of spirits in the other world for cruel deeds committed here.
There is now something awful in the darkness. One feels with the Ancient Mariner—
“Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a fearful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”