ring
body.'

"I am not giving you his exact words, Louise, not all of them, but I
am giving you as near as I can the effect untamed, mighty, irresistible
nature produced on his mind. Lying there, his shrivelled white face
supported on one shrunken hand, his body emaciated so that the bones of
his knees and elbows protruded from his ragged clothes, he seemed like
some prophet of old, lifting his voice in the wilderness, proclaiming a
new faith and a new life.

"Nor can I give you any idea of the way the words came, nor of the
glassy brilliance of his eyes, set in a face dry as a skull, the
yellow teeth chattering between tightly stretched lips. Oh! it was
horrible--horrible!

"The second day he was strong enough to stand, but not to walk. The
rain, due now every hour, comes without warning, making the swamps
impassable, and there was no time to lose. I left two men to care for
him, and hurried back to camp to get some sort of a stretcher on which
to bring him out.

"That night, sitting under our lamp--we were alone at the time, my
men being again away--I gave the young Belgian the details of my trip,
telling him the man's name and object in coming into the wilderness,
describing his sufferings and relating snaps of his talk. He listened
with a curious expression on his face, his eyes growing strangely
bright, his fingers twitching like those of a nervous person unused to
tales of suffering and privation.

"'And he will live?' he said, with a smile, as I finished.

"'Certainly; all he wanted was something in his stomach; he's got that.
He'll be here to-morrow.'

"For some time he did not speak; then he rose from his seat, looked at
me steadily for a moment, grasped my hand, and with a certain tenderness
in his voice, said:

"'Thank you.'

"'For what?' I asked in surprise.

"'For being kind. I'll go to the spring and get a drink, and then I'll
go to sleep. Good night!'

"I watched him disappear into the dark, wondering at his mood. Hardly
had I regained my seat when a pistol shot rang out. He had blown the top
of his head off.

"That night I buried him in the soft ooze near the spring, covering him
so the hyenas could not reach his body.

"The next morning my men arrived, carrying the stranger. He had been
plucky and had insisted on walking a little, and the party arrived
earlier than I expected. When he had thanked me for what I had done, he
began an inspection of my rude dwelling and the smaller lean-t