in an abysmal unconsciousness, unmindful of the dreadful sounds that came from the forest, never hearing the ominous rustling of the reeds along the shore, nor the startled, half-human cry of a dying monkey and the steady crunch-crunch of the leviathans pasturing in the brilliant moonlight. They did not hear the roaring of the beasts driven in by the drouth and burning heat from the distant, barren plains. Nothing seemed to touch them, no fear, save that they might fail in their great mission. There were times in those first months when, unable to bear it longer, he burst out to Naomi with the belief that Swanson was only a stupid lout no better than the natives.
And Naomi, taking his hand, would always say, "We must pray, Philip. We must ask God for strength. He will understand and reward our sufferings."
Sometimes he knelt with her while they prayed together for strength. She possessed a sweetness and a calm assurance that at moments made the whole thing all the more unbearable to him.
But no good came of her prayers, not even of the savage remorse which claimed him on such occasions. He was tormented, not alone by a sense of his own weakness, but also by a shameful sense of disloyalty; in that savage world the three of them must cling to each other and to God, even though the place made for them a prison from which there was no escape, wherein their nerves grew frayed from the mere constant association with one another. If they fell asunder, only horror and destruction faced them.
"God," Naomi would say, with the odd, unearthly certainty which colored all her fearless character,
