s made indistinct by the glare of unclouded
sunshine. And out of the great silence of the surrounding wilderness,
its very hopelessness and savagery seemed to approach them nearer, to
draw them gently, to look upon them, to envelop them with a solicitude
irresistible, familiar, and disgusting.

Days lengthened into weeks, then into months. Gobila's people drummed
and yelled to every new moon, as of yore, but kept away from
the station. Makola and Carlier tried once in a canoe to open
communications, but were received with a shower of arrows, and had to
fly back to the station for dear life. That attempt set the country up
and down the river into an uproar that could be very distinctly heard
for days. The steamer was late. At first they spoke of delay jauntily,
then anxiously, then gloomily. The matter was becoming serious. Stores
were running short. Carlier cast his lines off the bank, but the river
was low, and the fish kept out in the stream. They dared not stroll
far away from the station to shoot. Moreover, there was no game in the
impenetrable forest. Once Carlier shot a hippo in the river. They had no
boat to secure it, and it sank. When it floated up it drifted away, and
Gobila's people secured the carcase. It was the occasion for a national
holiday, but Carlier had a fit of rage over it and talked about the
necessity of exterminating all the niggers before the country could be
made habitable. Kayerts mooned about silently; spent hours looking
at the portrait of his Melie. It represented a little girl with long
bleached tresses and a rather sour face. His legs were much swollen, and
he could hardly walk. Carlier, undermined by fever, could not swagger
any more, but kept tottering about, still with a devil-may-care air, as
became a man who remembered his crack regiment. He had become hoarse,
sarcastic, and inclined to say unpleasant things. He called it "being
frank with you." They had long ago reckoned their percentages on trade,
including in them that last deal of "this infamous Makola." They had
also concluded not to say anything about it. Kayerts hesitated at
first--was afraid of the Director.

"He has seen worse things done on the quiet," maintained Carlier, with
a hoarse laugh. "Trust him! He won't thank you if you blab. He is no
better than you or me. Who will talk if we hold our tongues? There is
nobody here."

That was the root of the trouble! There was nobody there; and being left
there alone with the