heartily. He remembered observations which Alec on more
than one occasion had made to recall him to a sense of his great
insignificance. 'It's not for nothing the natives call him _Thunder and
Lightning_.'

'But when things look black, his spirits go up like one o'clock,'
proceeded the doctor. 'And the worse they are the more cheerful he is.'

'I know. When you're starving with hunger, dead tired and soaked to the
skin, and wish you could just lie down and die, MacKenzie simply bubbles
over with good humour. It's a hateful characteristic. When I'm in a bad
temper, I much prefer everyone else to be in a bad temper, too.'

'These last three days he's been positively hilarious. Yesterday he was
cracking jokes with the natives.'

'Scotch jokes,' said Walker. 'I daresay they sound funny in an African
dialect.'

'I've never seen him more cheerful,' continued the other, sturdily
ignoring the gibe. 'By the Lord Harry, said I to myself, the chief
thinks we're in a devil of a bad way.'

Walker stood up and stretched himself lazily.

'Thank heavens, it's all over now. We've none of us had any sleep for
three days, and when I once get off I don't mean to wake up for a week.'

'I must go and see the rest of my patients. Perkins has got a bad dose
of fever this time. He was quite delirious a little while ago.'

'By Jove, I'd almost forgotten.'

People changed in Africa. Walker was inclined to be surprised that he
was fairly happy, inclined to make a little jest when it occurred to
him; and it had nearly slipped his memory that one of the whites had
been killed the day before, while another was lying unconscious with a
bullet in his skull. A score of natives were dead, and the rest of them
had escaped by the skin of their teeth.

'Poor Richardson,' he said.

'We couldn't spare him,' answered the doctor slowly. 'The fates never
choose the right man.'

Walker looked at the brawny doctor, and his placid face was clouded. He
knew to what the Scot referred and shrugged his shoulders. But the
doctor went on.

'If we had to lose someone it would have been a damned sight better if
that young cub Allerton had got the bullet which killed poor
Richardson.'

'He wouldn't have been much loss, would he?' said Walker, after a
silence.

'MacKenzie has been very patient with him. If I'd been in his shoes I'd
have sent him back to the coast when he sacked Macinnery.'

Walker did not answer, and the doctor proceeded to moralise.