s who had known Jim Albro nodded solemnly, one to
another, as if sharing a profound and secret thrill. For this was the
man's real triumph--and we felt it then, regardless of the outcome--that
alone, beyond any conceivable aid for the first time in his life,
speechless, helpless, at the end of all those amiable arts which had
given him his way so often with men and devils, and women, too, Jim
Albro was still the Jim Albro "that you couldn't keep down."

His body was consuming and shriveling with its own heat. He had to
scheme for each scant breath he drew, spreading the dress and collapsing
it at short intervals to renew the foul air. He had to view the tempting
tribute laid out before the altar: juicy mangoes and figs and sugar
cane, wild berries and young drinking coconuts freshly opened, with the
new, cool milk frothing up at the brim. He had to receive the homage of
a people, and to count by the wheeling sun how many hours of torment
were left him. Worse than all, he had to withstand the pitiless irony of
it, the derisive grin of fate that drives men mad. He did these things,
and he would not yield. He did not mean to. And lest you should think
the phrase a mere flourish--observe the testimony of the Book....

* * * * *

The tribes flocked in that second day to do him honor. There was a great
gathering in the square. Some vivid pantomime was displayed before the
high seat. Some unusual rites were enacted before the temple, when the
bamboo pipes and drums were going and the doctors wore their vermilion
mop wigs and masks of ceremony and chains of naked dancers were stamping
and circling to the chant. Jim Albro watched and noted it all behind his
solid inch of plate glass; not passively, not indifferently, but with
close attention and the very liveliest interest. Aye, this god took an
interest in the welfare of his people!

Heaven knows what he saw in the Papuans of Barange. By all accounts they
are a plum-black race of rather superior ferocity--six feet is their
medium stature and their favorite dish a human ear, nicely broiled. So
the old traders report, and never an explorer has improved the
description. It required some one who could sit down among them without
losing his head--quite literally--to learn more. Albro filled the bill.
He had nothing to do but to sit. And while he sat he busied himself with
the thoughts that have made the strangest, and blindest, reading in the
diary.