have come back with the fever and that I am nursing you.
Fortunately there's no doctor handy to come making inconvenient
examinations."

Hatteras knew something of surgery, and under his directions Walker
poulticed and bandaged him until he recovered. The bandaging, however,
was amateurish, and, as a result, the muscles contracted in Hatteras'
thigh and he limped--ever so slightly, still he limped--he limped
to his dying day. He did not, however, on that account abandon his
explorations, and more than once Walker, when his lights were out and
he was smoking a pipe on the verandah, would see a black figure with
a trailing walk cross his compound and pass stealthily through the
wicket in the fence. Walker took occasion to expostulate with his
friend.

"It's too dangerous a game for a man to play for any length of time.
It is doubly dangerous now that you limp. You ought to give it up."

Hatteras made a strange reply.

"I'll try to," he said.

Walker pondered over the words for some time. He set them side by side
in his thoughts with that confession which Hatteras had made to
him one evening. He asked himself whether, after all, Hatteras'
explanation of his conduct was sincere, whether it was really a
desire to know the native thoroughly which prompted these mysterious
expeditions; and then he remembered that he himself had first
suggested the explanation to Hatteras. Walker began to feel
uneasy--more than uneasy, actually afraid on his friend's account.
Hatteras had acknowledged that the country fascinated him, and
fascinated him through its hideous side. Was this masquerading as a
black man a further proof of the fascination? Was it, as it were, a
step downwards towards a closer association? Walker sought to laugh
the notion from his mind, but it returned and returned, and here and
there an incident occurred to give it strength and colour.

For instance, on one occasion after Hatteras had been three weeks
absent, Walker sauntered over to the Residency towards four o'clock
in the afternoon. Hatteras was trying cases in the court-house, which
formed the ground floor of the Residency. Walker stepped into the
room. It was packed with a naked throng of blacks, and the heat was
overpowering. At the end of the hall sat Hatteras. His worn face shone
out amongst the black heads about him white and waxy like a gardenia
in a bouquet of black flowers. Walker invented his simile and realised
its appositeness at one and the s