Part 13

At the further end of the village Roger found evidence which helped him to make a theory of what had happened. Just outside the palisade were the bones of a few bodies, which, as he supposed, were those who had died, after the first breaking out of the epidemic. If the epidemic had begun two months before, as seemed likely, these men and women must have been dead for about a fortnight. The sickness and mortality had steadily increased since then. The able, uninfected inhabitants, had at last migrated together. They had gone off with their arms and cattle to some healthier place, leaving the infected to die. He could make no other explanation. Many of the huts were deserted. In others, still living sleepers lay among corpses. Three young men, a boy, and an old man were the liveliest of the remaining inhabitants. Roger had only to look at their tongues to see that they, too, were sealed for death. The tongue moved from the root with a helpless tremor. Their lymphatic glands were swollen. They themselves were under no delusions about their state. The cloud was on them. They would not speak unless they were spoken to with some sharpness. They were gloomily waiting until the ailment should blot everything away from them. Merrylegs tried to understand them; but gave it up. "Very poor men," he said. "Know nothing." They were some relic (or outpost) of a strange tribe, speaking an unknown tongue. Perhaps they were the descendants of some little wandering band, separated from its parent tribe, by war, pestilence, or mischance. They had had their laws, their arts, their customs. They had even thriven. The game of life had gone pleasantly there. Life there had been little more than a sitting in the sun, between going to the river for a drink and to the patch for a mealie. The beauties had sleeked themselves with oil, and the strong ones had made themselves fat with butter. They had lived "naturally," like plants or animals, sharing the wild things' immunity from ailments. They were completely adjusted. Now some little change had altered their relations to nature. Something had brought the trypanosome. Now they died like the animals, deserted by their kind.

The first shock of the sight of this harvest of death came upon Roger dully, through the shield of his fever. He did not realise the full horror of it. Nor was he conscious of the passage of time. He stayed in the village for a full hour before he returned to the boat. In that hour he made rough notes of the twenty-nine cases still present there. Sixteen of them, he hoped, might yield to treatment. The others were practically dead already from wasting. The preparation of the notes, brief as they were, was a great drain upon his strength. The fever was gaining on him. He found himself staring vacantly between the writing of two words. His brain was a perpetual surging tumult. His eyes seemed to burn in their sockets. He remembered Lionel with a great start. "Lionel," he repeated. "I must tell Lionel. We shall stop here."

Outside the infected village he looked for tracks. A track led towards the ruin. Another led away across the plain. Both were as narrow as a horse's girth, and beaten as hard as earthenware. The old tracks of cattle crossed them. Merrylegs, looking about upon the ground, cried out that the tribe had gone over the plain with their cattle ten or eleven days before. He pointed to marks on the ground. Roger took his word for it.

He climbed into the stern-sheets of the boat, feeling as though hot metal were being injected into his joints. "How are you now, Lionel?" he asked. "You're looking pretty bad. This is a plague spot. They've got the sickness here. They're dying of it."

"Couldn't you have come and told me before this?" said Lionel. "I've been lying here not knowing whether you were dead or alive."

"I'd a lot of huts to examine," he answered. "What do you think? We had better stop here, eh? We had better make this our station. The first thing I shall do will be to get you into a bed."

"That's like you," said Lionel. "You make plans when I'm sick and can't veto them. My God, if I'd known it was going to be like this! Well, I'll never work with a griff again."

"It's time for your medicine," said Roger stolidly, in order to change the subject. He poured the white powder into a cigarette paper, and handed it to the patient.

"Don't you dare to give me medicine," Lionel answered, knocking the dose away. "I believe you're poisoning me. I've watched you. You're poisoning me."

"Don't say things like that, Lionel," said Roger. "You're awfully tired, I know, but they hurt. I wish I could get you well," he mused. "It's not so easy as you seem to think," he added.

"What isn't?"

"Life here."

"That's because you're such a silly ass. I'm all right. I only want to be left alone. Well. Get the men ashore, can't you? Get some sort of a camp pitched."

"I am going to," said Roger. "I am going to camp on the hill there for to-night, among the ruins." He gave some orders.

Lionel sat up. "Merrylegs," he said, "drop that. I command here."

"Look here, Heseltine," said Roger. "I must do this."

"You shall not wreck the expedition," said Lionel. "You're as ignorant as a cow. You haven't even examined the ruin."

Roger paid no attention to him. He bade the men moor the boat and unload her.

"Naldrett," said Lionel, "if you persist in this--when I'm sick and can't stop you--it's the end of our working together. We part company. Put down that box, Merrylegs. Leave those things in the boat."

Roger had more strength left in him than his companion. The boat was unloaded. The bearers, leaving a pile of boxes by the river, formed an Indian file and marched with their burdens of necessaries towards the hill. Lionel walked, supported by Roger. He did not speak. His face worked with the impotent anger of a sick man. Presently Roger noticed that he was crying from mere nervous weakness. He felt that it would be well to say nothing. Lionel's petulance was the result of fever. If he said anything, the petulant mood would surely twist it into a cause of offence. He said nothing. Lionel, after pausing a minute, said something in a faint voice about the heat. Roger had not noticed the heat. He had a glowing lime-kiln within him. He stopped, and asked if it were very hot. "God!" said Lionel disgustedly. They walked on, following the bearers. Presently Lionel stopped and swore at the heat. Roger waited. Each moment of waiting was torture to him. Each moment of physical effort racked him. He wanted to fling himself down and let the fever run its course.

"God Almighty!" said Lionel, turning on him. "Can't you answer me?"

"I didn't know you spoke to me."

"You don't know anything."

"You were not speaking to me, you were swearing at the heat."

"What if I were."

"If you could manage to keep quiet till we are camped," said Roger, "you'd feel better. I'm doing my best for you."

"You are," said Lionel, "you are. I'm dying to see the sort of rotten camp you'll make when you're left by yourself."

"Shut up," said Roger. "Shut up. I'm too ill to talk." The fever was whirling in him now. He could not trust himself to say more. He was near the delirious stage. He remembered smelling the smell of death, in a foul sultry blast, while Merrylegs said something about the kraal in the hollow. Looking, half-drowsed, to his left, he saw a kraal littered with dead and dying cattle, among which gorged vultures perched. Afterwards, he remembered the ruins of a wall, standing now about three feet high. It was built of good hewn stone, well laid, with one crenellated course just below its present top. He could never remember getting over the wall. There were many sunflowers. Immense orange sunflowers with limp wavy petals. Sunflowers growing out of a litter of neatly wrought stones. Mosquitoes came "pinging" about him, winding their sultry horns. Those little horns seemed to him to be the language of fever. They suggested things to him. The men were a long, long time pitching the tent. Something was wrong with one of the men. The other men were keeping apart from him. The beds with their nettings were ready at last. Fire was burning. Something with a smell of soup was being cooked. In his sick fancy it was the smell of something dead. He told them to take it away. He saw Lionel somewhere, much as a man at the point of death may see the doctor by his bedside. He could not be sure which of the two of them was the living one. Then there came a moment when he could not undo the fastening of his mosquito net. He saw his bed inside. He longed to be in bed. All this torture would be over directly he was in bed, wrapped up. But he could not get in. The bed was shut from him by the mosquito net. He wanted to get in. He would give the world to be in bed. But he did not know how he was to move the netting, everything smelt of death so strongly. It was very red everywhere, a smoky, whirling red, with violent lights. People were crossing the dusk, or rather not people, but streaks of darkness. They were making a great crying out. They were too noisy. Why could they not be quiet? He ceased to fumble at the net. He began to see an endless army of artillery going over a pass. The men were all dark; the guns were all painted black; the horses were black. They were going uphill endlessly, endlessly, endlessly. He cried out to them to stop that driving, to do anything rather than go on and on and on in that ghastly way. Instantly they changed to tsetses, riding on dying cattle. They were giant tsetses, with eyes like cannonballs. An infernal host of trypanosomes wriggled around them. The trypanosomes were wriggling all over him. A giant tsetse was forcing his mouth open with a hairy bill, so that the trypanosomes might wriggle down his throat. A flattened trypanosome, tasting as flabby as jelly, was swarming over his lips.

The fit passed off in the early morning, leaving him weak, but alert. Something was going to happen. The air was as close as a blast from a furnace. He sat up, holding by the tent-pole. He could see a star or two. He wished that the horrible smell would go. It seemed to be everywhere.

"Lionel," he said.

"Yes," said a faint voice.

"Have you slept?"

"Yes. I've had a long sleep. How are you?"

"The fit's gone. But I feel queer. Something's going to happen."

"It's very close. It will pass off before morning. Fever plays the devil with one, doesn't it?"

"Are you quite better now?"

"Yes. I shall be all right now. You'll be all right after some breakfast. It isn't so bad here, is it?"

"No. Not so bad. But there's this smell of death, Lionel."

"That's fever. That will pass away, you'll find."

"Was I delirious?"

"Yes. A little."

"You were pretty bad."

"Yes. I was pretty bad all yesterday," said Lionel. "It's horrible when one gets into that state. One is so ashamed afterwards. It is part of the sickness. You were awfully gentle with me, Roger."

"I saw that you were pretty bad. We shall have to get to work to-morrow, and get things into order. They are in a bad way in the village there. There are twenty-nine cases left. We might save sixteen of them."

"Is there any trace of how they got it? Do they know?"

"They don't talk any language known to Merrylegs."

"I see. What are they like? Are they a good lot?"

"Yes. They are good type negroes. They look as if they might have something better in them than negro blood. Something Arabian. And there's this ruin here."

"It will be fun looking at the ruin. I wonder if it's like the Rhodesian ruins. I've seen those. If it is, there ought to be gold here. Wrought gold as well as crude. But we mustn't think of that."

"No. Let's have no side-issues. I suppose we'd better start an isolation camp to-morrow."

"Yes. Get them all out and burn the village. Then we'll start the treatment."

"It would be rather a feather in our caps if we found a tsetse-cide. A bird would be better than nothing. Or an ichneumon-fly to pierce the pupæ."

"I was young myself once," said Lionel. "I know exactly how it feels." There was a pause after this. Lionel seemed to chuckle.

"Can't you go to sleep again, Lionel?"

"No. It's too close."

"It's jolly looking at the stars. And I can see right out into the wilderness. The moon is wonderful. It is very vast out here. And lonely. It gives one a strange sense of being full of memories. I wonder who built these ruins."

"Phoenicians, I suppose. In Africa one puts everything down to Phoenicians. In the Mediterranean it used to be some other fellows; now it's Iberians. Aryans had a great vogue forty years ago; but they're dead, now. Then there were those sloppy Celts. It'll be the Hittites when we get back."

"Did you see Great Zimbabwe?"

"Yes. But they're all called Zimbabwe. It's a native name for ruins. It's an uncanny place. It lies all open. There's no roof to it. None of them have any roof. Nothing but great high walls, and two hideous cones of stone, and a lot of corpses under the floors. There are ancient gold workings all around it. It is said to be an astronomical temple, as well as the site of a great mining town. Do you know much about astronomy?"

"No. I know Sirius."

"I know Sirius. Can you see him?"

"I can't see it from here. Perhaps it isn't visible."

"It seems to me to be clouding up. Listen."

"Is that a lion roaring?"

"Jump out a minute." Lionel was turned out, standing at the door of the tent.

"What's the matter?" Roger asked.

"A thunderstorm," said Lionel. "Get on your things. I prepared for this. Wrap that tarpaulin round you, and come on out. Don't wait. Come on."

Outside in the night the heavens were fast darkening under a whirling purplish cloud. From time to time the expanse of cloud glimmered into a livid reddish colour with the passage of lightning. It was as though the whole lower heaven lightened. Thunder was rolling. Great burning streaks tore the sky across, loosing thunder and flame. Roger saw the bearers moving from their fire to the shelter of the lee of the ruins. A faint sultry blast fanned against his face, bringing that smell of death to him. He turned away, choking. "Get away from the tent," Lionel shouted in his ear, over the roar of the thunder. "Tie this rope round me. It's going to be bad. Get under the lee of the wall there. Run." They hurried to the shelter, on the tottering legs of those who have just recovered from fever. As they ran, Roger trod on something rope-like and moving, which (squirming round) struck his boot with a sharp tap.

"There's a snake," he cried, giving a jump.

"Did he get you?"

"No. Only my boot."

"Lucky for you. There may be death-adders here. Rattle with your feet. Here we are. This will do."

There came a sharp pattering of heavy rain-drops, which beat the ground like shot falling on to tin. In the glimmer of a long flash, which burnt for a full ten seconds, Roger saw Lionel probing the ground for snakes with an outstretched foot. He was hooded and cowled with tarpaulin from the boat. He was scratching a match, sleepy with heat-damp, to get a light for a cigarette. The match flared, putting the face in strong colour below the shade of the cowl. The sky was being charged by a dark host. There came a sort of elemental sighing, as the obscuring of the vertical stars began. Out of the whole air came the sighing. It was a noise like waterfalls and pine forests. Then with a shattering crash the storm burst. The whole sky broke into a blaze, as though a vast bath of fire had suddenly been hurled over. There was a roaring as of the earth being split. After an instant's pause, there came an explosion so terrific that the two men huddled up together instinctively. It grew colder on the instant. It grew icy cold. The tent stood out clearly, in every detail, for a few bright seconds. Then the rain poured down, as though the bottom of the sky had broken. The next flash shewed only a streaming greyness of water, pouring down, with a weight and force new to Roger. It was a blinding rain, one could not face it. It made the world one grey torrent. It made the earth paste beneath the feet. Brooks were rushing down the hill within half a minute of its beginning. The flashes and thundering never ceased. Crouching up to the wall, Roger could only gulp air that was half water. The force of the storm staggered him. The fury of the thunder daunted him. The splendour of the lightning was so ghastly that at each blast he bent back against the wall. A tree was struck on the wall above him. He expected to be struck at each flash. There was no question of bravery. The racket and the glare were worse than the fiercest shell-fire. The lightning seemed to run across the sky and along the ground, and out of the ground. One smelt it. It had the smell of something burning; some metal.

The next instant he was digging his fingers into the crenellations to save himself from being blown away. The wind came swooping down with a rush which beat the breath out of him. For one second the rain seemed to pause. It was merely changing its direction to the horizontal. The air seemed to be no longer present. There was nothing but a rushing, stinging, blinding torrent of water. After the wind began, Roger was not properly conscious of anything. He stood backed up to the wall, with his eyes and mouth tight shut, his ears buffeted and streaming, his nose wrinkled by the effort to keep his eyes shut. Across his eyelids he sensed the glimmer of the lightning, now blinding, now merely vivid. Everything else was leaping, howling uproar, driving wet, driving cold, dominated by the explosions aloft. All confusion was left loose to feed the fear of death in him. So they stood shoulder to shoulder, for something like an hour, when a change came.

The wind died away, after blowing its fiercest. The rain stopped. The livid glimmering of the lightning passed off into the distance. The stars came out. Roger squelched about in the mud, trying to get some sensation into his freezing feet. Lionel's teeth were chattering. Lionel with numbed fingers was trying to light a sopping match for the sodden cigarette already between his lips.

"Pretty bad one," said Lionel. "The tent's gone."

"It will be dawn soon," said Roger, looking at the wreck of the tent. "It's over now." He shivered.

"Not yet," said Lionel. "That's only half of it. There's the other half to come yet. I wonder how the bearers took it."

"I'll go and see," said Roger.

"Stay where you are," said Lionel. "You won't have time." The moon shewed for a brief moment--a sickly moon already threatened by scud. The clouds were rolling up again.

"This will be in our faces," said Lionel, raising his voice. "These are circular storms." The wind was muttering far off. All the earth was filled with a gloomy murmur. "Let's get into the wreck of the tent," Lionel added in a shout. "Into the wreck of the tent. We may die of cold if we don't." They hove up the heavy canvas so that they might creep within, under the folds. They cowered there close together, waiting, chilled to the bone.

"It's jolly cold," said Roger, with chattering teeth.

"Yes," said Lionel. "I've known a man die in one of these. Hold tight. Here it comes."

It came with such a shock of thunder and fire of lightning that they both started. They felt the folds of the tent surge and lift above them as the wind beat upon it. Some flap had blown loose. It flogged at Roger like a bar of hard wood. He understood then what sailors meant by wind. He felt a sort of exultation for a moment. Then one terrible blast flung him on his side, and rolled a great weight of wet canvas on him. He felt it quiver and hesitate. The wind seemed to be heaving and heaving, with multitudinous little howling devils. They were heaving up and heaving under. The whole mass hesitated. He was moved, he was swayed. He felt the fabric pause and totter upward and sink down. "We're going," he muttered, gulping. Afterwards, he maintained that nothing but the weight of the rain kept him from being blown away. Water was gurgling in the ground beneath him. Water was running up his sleeves, and down his neck. Water spouted on him as he beat away the folds to get air. A grand and ghastly fire was running across heaven. Shocks were striking the earth all around him. Another tree was blasted. Thunder broke out above in a long rippling crescendo of splitting cracks. That, and the pouring of a cataract into his face made him draw back the fold. He cowered. He had lost touch with Lionel. He did not know where Lionel was. His foot struck something hard. Groping down, hungry for companionship, he found that it was the broken tent-pole. Another gust lifted him. It gathered strength. It swept the folds from his hands and sent the edge flogging, flogging, flogging, with its lashes of rope and tent-pegs. The full fury of the storm was on him. The tent was bundling itself up into ruin against the boxes. He was sitting in wet mud assailed by every devil of bad weather. Lionel was by his side shouting into his ear. "Don't stand," came the far-away voice. "Get struck." He nodded when next the flames ran round. It seemed likely that he would be struck. It was a quick death, so people said. He found himself saying aloud that it would be terrible if Lionel were struck. What then? What would he do then? He craned round into the beating rain to try to get a glimpse of the bearers. He could see nothing but rain and that reddish running glimmer of living light.

He did not feel much. He was too cold, too weak, too frightened. If he had been able to define his feelings he would have said that he was thinking it impossible that he could ever have been dry, or warm, or happy. His old life was a far-off inconceivable dream. That he had ever sat by a fire seemed inconceivable. That there was such a thing as a sun seemed inconceivable. That life could be dignified, tender, or heroic seemed inconceivable. "If this isn't misery," he muttered, shaking, "I don't know what is. I don't know what is." He felt suddenly that water was running under him in a good strong stream, several inches deep. Putting his hand down, it slopped up to the wrist in a current. He groped with his hand. As he put it down some beetle in the water pinched him briskly, turning him sick for a moment with the memory of the snake which had struck his boot. Standing up hurriedly, the water rose above his boots. Looking up, an opening in the clouds shewed him the moon, a beaten swimmer in a mill-race. The storm was breaking.