IX
One night at supper Nell, having raised a piece of smoked meat to her lips, suddenly pushed it away, as if with loathing, and said:
"I cannot eat to-day."
Stas, who had learned from Kali where the bees were and had smoked them out daily in order to get their honey, was certain that the little one had eaten during the day too much honey, and for that reason he did not pay any attention to her lack of appetite. But she after a while rose and began to walk hurriedly about the camp-fire describing an ever larger circle.
"Do not get away too far, for something might seize you," the boy shouted at her.
He really, however, did not fear anything, for the elephant's presence, which the wild animals scented, and his trumpeting, which reached their vigilant ears, held them at a respectable distance. It assured safety alike to the people and to the horses, for the most ferocious beasts of prey in the jungle, the lion, the panther, and the leopard, prefer to have nothing to do with an elephant and not to approach too near his tusks and trunk.
Nevertheless, when the little maid continued to run around, more and more hurriedly, Stas followed her and asked:
"Say, little moth! Why are you flying like that about the fire?"
He asked still jestingly, but really was uneasy and his uneasiness increased when Nell answered:
"I don't know. I can't sit down in any place."
"What is the matter with you?"
"I feel so strangely—"
And then suddenly she rested her head on his bosom and as though confessing a fault, exclaimed in a meek voice, broken by sobs:
"Stas, perhaps I am sick—"
"Nell!"
Then he placed his palm upon her forehead which was dry and icy. So he took her in his arms and carried her to the camp-fire.
"Are you cold?" he asked on the way.
"Cold and hot, but more cold—"
In fact her little teeth chattered and chills continually shook her body. Stas now did not have the slightest doubt that she had a fever.
He at once ordered Mea to conduct her to the tree, undress her and place her on the ground, and afterwards to cover her with whatever she could find, for he had seen in Khartûm and Fashoda that fever-stricken people were covered with sheeps' hide in order to perspire freely. He determined to sit at Nell's side the whole night and give her hot water with honey to drink. But she in the beginning did not want to drink. By the light of the little lamp hung in the interior of the tree he observed her glittering eyes. After a while she began to complain of the heat and at the same time shook under the saddle-cloth and plaids. Her hands and forehead continued cold, but had Stas known anything about febrile disorders, he would have seen by her extraordinary restlessness that she must have a terrible fever. With fear he observed that when Mea entered with hot water the little girl gazed at her as though with a certain amazement and even fear and did not seem to recognize her. With him she spoke consciously. She said to him that she could not lie down and begged him to permit her to rise and run about; then again she asked whether he was not angry at her because she was sick, and when he assured her that he was not, her eyelashes were suffused with the tears which surged to her eyes, and she assured him that on the morrow she would be entirely well.
That evening, or that night, the elephant was somehow strangely disturbed and continually trumpeted so as to awake Saba and cause him to bark. Stas observed that this irritated the patient; so he left the tree to quiet them. He silenced Saba easily, but as it was a harder matter to bid the elephant to be silent, he took with him a few melons to throw to him, and stuff his trunk at least for a time. Returning, he observed, by the light of the camp-fire, Kali who, with a piece of smoked meat on his shoulders, was going in the direction of the river.
"What are you doing there, and where are you going?" he asked the negro.
And the black boy stopped, and when Stas drew near to him said with a mysterious countenance:
"Kali is going to another tree to place meat for the wicked Mzimu."
"Why?"
"That the wicked Mzimu should not kill the 'Good Mzimu.'"
Stas wanted to say something in reply, but suddenly grief seized his bosom; so he only set his teeth and walked away in silence.
When he returned to the tree Nell's eyes were closed, her hands, lying on the saddle-cloth, quivered indeed strongly, but it seemed that she was slumbering. Stas sat down near her, and from fear of waking her he sat motionless. Mea, sitting on the other side, readjusted every little while pieces of ivory protruding out of her ears, in order to defend herself in this manner from drowsiness. It became still; only from the river below, from the direction of the overflow, came the croaking of frogs and the melancholy piping of toads.
Suddenly Nell sat up on the bedding.
"Stas!"
"I am here, Nell."
And she, shaking like a leaf in the breeze, began to seek his hands and repeat hurriedly:
"I am afraid! I am afraid! Give me your hand!"
"Don't fear. I am with you."
And he grasped her palm which this time was heated as if on fire; not knowing what to do he began to cover that poor, emaciated hand with kisses.
"Don't be afraid, Nell! don't be afraid!"
After which he gave her water with honey to drink, which by that time had cooled. This time Nell drank eagerly and clung to the hand with the utensil when he tried to take it away from her lips. The cool drink seemed to soothe her.
Silence ensued. But after the lapse of half an hour Nell again sat up on the bedding and in her wide-open eyes could be seen terrible fright.
"Stas!"
"What is it, dear?"
"Why," she asked in a broken voice, "do Gebhr and Chamis walk around the tree and peer at me?"
To Stas in an instant it seemed as if thousands of ants were crawling over him.
"What are you saying, Nell?" he said. "There is nobody here. That is Kali walking around the tree."
But she, staring at the dark opening, cried with chattering teeth:
"And the Bedouins too! Why did you kill them?"
Stas clasped her with his arms and pressed her to his bosom.
"You know why! Don't look there! Don't think of that! That happened long ago!"
"To-day! to-day!"
"No, Nell, long ago."
In fact it was long ago, but it had returned like a wave beaten back from the shore and again filled with terror the thoughts of the sick child.
All words of reassurance appeared in vain. Nell's eyes widened more and more. Her heart palpitated so violently that it seemed that it would burst at any moment. She began to throw herself about like a fish taken out of the water, and this continued almost until morning. Only towards the morning was her strength exhausted and her head dropped upon the bedding.
"I am weak, weak," she repeated. "Stas, I am flying somewhere down below."
After which she closed her eyes.
Stas at first became terribly alarmed for he thought that she had died. But this was only the end of the first paroxysm of the dreadful African fever, termed deadly, two attacks of which strong and healthy people can resist, but the third no one thus far had been able to withstand. Travelers had often related this in Port Said in Mr. Rawlinson's home, and yet more frequently Catholic missionaries returning to Europe, whom Pan Tarkowski received hospitably. The second attack comes after a few days or a fortnight, while if the third does not come within two weeks it is not fatal as it is reckoned as the first in the recurrence of the sickness. Stas knew that the only medicine which could break or keep off the attack was quinine in big doses, but now he did not have an atom of it.
For the time being, however, seeing that Nell was breathing, he became somewhat calm and began to pray for her. But in the meantime the sun leaped from beyond the rocks of the ravine and it was day. The elephant already demanded his breakfast and from the direction of the overflow which the river made resounded the cries of aquatic birds. Desiring to kill a brace of guinea-fowl for broth for Nell, the boy took his gun and strolled along the river towards a clump of shrubs on which these birds usually perched for the night. But he felt the effect of lack of sleep so much and his thoughts were so occupied with the little girl's illness that a whole flock of guinea-fowl passed close by him in a trot, one after another, bound for the watering place, and he did not observe them at all. This happened also because he was continually praying. He thought of the slaying of Gebhr, Chamis, and the Bedouins, and lifting his eyes upwards he said with a voice choking with tears:
"I did this for Nell, oh Lord, for Nell! For I could not free her otherwise; but if it is a sin, punish me, but let her regain her health."
On the way he met Kali, who had gone to see whether the wicked Mzimu ate the meat offered to him the previous night. The young negro, loving the little "bibi," prayed also for her, but he prayed in an entirely different fashion. He particularly told the wicked Mzimu that if the "bibi" recovered her health he would bring him a piece of meat every day, but if she died, though he feared him and though he might afterwards perish, he would first so flay his hide that the wicked Mzimu would remember it for ages. He felt greatly encouraged when the meat deposited the previous night disappeared. It might indeed have been carried away by some jackal, but the Mzimu might assume the shape of a jackal.
Kali informed Stas of this propitious incident; the latter, however, stared at him as if he did not understand him at all and went on further. Passing a clump of shrubs in which he did not find any guinea-fowl, he drew nearer the river. Its banks were overgrown with tall trees from which were suspended like long stockings the nests of titmice, beautiful little yellow birds with black wings, and also wasps' nests resembling big roses, but colored like gray blotting-paper. In one place the river formed an expansion a few score paces wide, overgrown in part by papyrus. On this expansion aquatic birds always swarmed. There were storks just like our European storks, and storks with thick bills ending with a hook, and birds black as velvet, with legs red as blood, and flamingoes and ibises, and white spoon-bills with bills like spoons, and cranes with crowns on their heads, and a multitude of curlews, variegated and gray as mice, flying quickly back and forth as if they were tiny sylvan sprites on long, thin, snipe-like legs.
Stas killed two large ducks, beautiful, cinnamon colored, and treading upon dead butterflies, of which thousands strewed the bank, he first looked around carefully to see whether there were any crocodiles in the shallows, after which he waded into the water and lifted his quarry. The shots had dispersed the birds; there remained only two marabous, standing between ten and twenty paces away and plunged in reverie. They were like two old men with bald heads pressed between the shoulders. They did not move at all. The boy gazed for a while at the loathsome fleshy pouches hanging from their breasts, and afterwards, observing that the wasps were beginning to circle around him more and more frequently, he returned to the camping place.
Nell still slept; so handing the ducks to Mea, he flung himself upon a saddle-cloth and fell into a sound sleep. They did not wake until the afternoon—he first and Nell later. The little girl felt somewhat stronger and the strong broth revived her strength still more; she rose and left the tree, desiring to look at the King and at the sun.
But only now in the daylight could be seen what havoc that one night's fever had wrought in her. Her complexion was yellow and transparent; her lips were black; there were circles furrowed under her eyes, and her face was as though it had aged. Even the pupils of her eyes appeared paler than usual. It appeared also, despite her assurances to Stas that she felt quite strong and notwithstanding the large cup of broth which she drank immediately after awakening, that she could barely reach the ravine unaided. Stas thought with despair of the second attack and that he had neither medicine nor any remedy by which he could prevent it.
In the meantime the rain poured a dozen or more times a day, increasing the humidity of the air.