said, "you should go home, or at any rate run North for a
spell in Grand Canary. If you fool with this health-palaver any longer,
you'll peg out."

The Dane stared wistfully out across the blue South Atlantic waters,
which twinkled beyond the littered garden and the sand beach. "Yes," he
said, "I'd like well enough to go back to my old woman in Boston again,
and eat pork and beans, and hear her talk of culture, and the use of
missionaries, and all that good old homey rot; but I guess I can't do
that yet. I've got to shake this sickness off me right here, first."

"And I tell you you'll never be a sound man again so long as you lib
for Congo. Take a trip home, Captain, and let the salt air blow the
diseases out of you."

"If I go to sea," said the pilot wearily, "I shall be stitched up within
the week, and dropped over to make a hole in the water. I don't know
whether I'm going to get well anywhere, but if I do, it's right here.
Now just hear me. You're the only living soul in this blasted Congo Free
State that I can trust worth a cent, and I believe you've got grit
enough to get me cured if only you'll take the trouble to do it. I'm too
weak to take on the job myself; and, even if I was sound, I reckon it
would be beyond my weight. I tell you it's a mighty big contract. But
then, as I've seen for myself, you're a man that likes a scuffle."

"You're speaking above my head. Pull yourself together, Captain, and
then, perhaps, I'll understand what you want."

Nilssen drew the quinine bottle toward him, tapped out a little hill of
feathery white powder into a cigarette paper, rolled it up, and
swallowed the dose. "I'm not raving," he said, "or anywhere near it; but
if you want the cold-drawn truth, listen here: I'm poisoned. I've got
fever on me, too, I'll grant, but that's nothing more than a fellow has
every week or so in the ordinary way of business. I guess with quinine,
whiskey, and pills, I can smile at any fever in Africa, and have done
this last eight years. But it's this poison that gets me."

"Bosh," said Kettle. "If it was me that talked about getting poisoned,
there'd be some sense in it. I know I'm not popular here. But you're a
man that's liked. You hit it off with these Belgian brutes, and you
make the niggers laugh. Who wants to poison you?"

"All right," said Nilssen; "you've been piloting on the Congo some six
months now, and so of course you know all about it. But let me know a
bit better. I've watc