When he had finished his story he lay back and closed his eyes, and then sank into a stupor. From this all the Subaltern's medicinal arts could not rouse him.
The next day at dawn he cried out, and they all ran to him.
"Carry me to the jungle edge," he said, "the end has come."
They carried him, and laid him on a mattress, for he could not stand.
Then he raised his voice in a shrill and piercing cry, that echoed through the jungle.
A dead silence followed.
Then again, as if in an expiring effort, he raised another cry, louder and shriller, and more prolonged than the other.
Then, far off in the gloomy depths of the jungle, a dull muffled roar responded.
They waited, and once again Gascoyne sent up the cry.