he irritability lurks in the
shades of boundless forests where men may starve for want of animal
sustenance; it hovers over the broad bosoms of a hundred slow rivers
haunted by the mysterious crocodile, the weird hippopotamus. It is
everywhere, and by reason of it men quarrel about trifles and descend to
brutal passion over a futile discussion.

Victor Durnovo had sent his boatmen into the forest to find a few
bananas, a few handsful of firewood, and while they were absent he gave
vent to that wild unreasoning passion which is inhaled into the white
man's lungs with the air of equatorial Africa. For there are moral
microbes in the atmosphere of different countries, and we must not judge
one land by the laws of another. There is the fatalism of India, the
restlessness of New York, the fear of the Arctic, the irritability of
Africa.

"Curse this country!" he shouted, "curse it--curse it! River and
tree--man and beast!"

He rose and slouched down to his boat, which lay moored to a snag
alongside the bank, trodden hard to the consistency of asphalte by a
hundred bare feet. He stepped over the gunwale and made his way aft with
a practised balancing step. The after part of the canoe was decked in
and closed with lock and key. The key hung at his watch-chain--a large
chain with square links and a suggestive doubtfulness of colour. It
might have been gold, but the man who wore it somehow imparted to it a
suggestion of baser metal.

He opened the locker and took from it a small chest. From this he
selected a bottle, and, rummaging in the recesses of the locker, he
found an unwashed tumbler. Into half a glass of water he dropped a
minute quantity from the bottle and drank off the mixture. The passion
had left him now, and quite suddenly he looked yellow and very weak. He
was treating himself scientifically for the irritability to which he had
given way. Then he returned to the bank and laid down at full length.
The skin of his face must have been giving him great pain, for it was
scarlet in places and exuding from sun-blisters. He had long ago given
up wiping the perspiration from his brow, and evidently did not care to
wash his face.

Presently a peacefulness seemed to come over him, for his eyes lost
their glitter and his heavy lids drooped. His arms were crossed behind
his head--before him lay the river.

Suddenly he sat upright, all eagerness and attention. Not a leaf
stirred. It was about five o'clock in the evening,