ctised on."

She shuddered.

"Then what was the end of it?"

"That I can't tell you much about; a man doesn't remember the next
few days after a thing of that kind, as a rule. But there was a ship's
surgeon near, and it seems that when they found I was not dead, somebody
called him in. He patched me up after a fashion--Riccardo seems to think
it was rather badly done, but that may be professional jealousy. Anyhow,
when I came to my senses, an old native woman had taken me in for
Christian charity--that sounds queer, doesn't it? She used to sit
huddled up in the corner of the hut, smoking a black pipe and spitting
on the floor and crooning to herself. However, she meant well, and
she told me I might die in peace and nobody should disturb me. But the
spirit of contradiction was strong in me and I elected to live. It
was rather a difficult job scrambling back to life, and sometimes I
am inclined to think it was a great deal of cry for very little wool.
Anyway that old woman's patience was wonderful; she kept me--how long
was it?--nearly four months lying in her hut, raving like a mad thing at
intervals, and as vicious as a bear with a sore ear between-whiles.
The pain was pretty bad, you see, and my temper had been spoiled in
childhood with overmuch coddling."

"And then?"

"Oh, then--I got up somehow and crawled away. No, don't think it was
any delicacy about taking a poor woman's charity--I was past caring for
that; it was only that I couldn't bear the place any longer. You talked
just now about my courage; if you had seen me then! The worst of the
pain used to come on every evening, about dusk; and in the afternoon
I used to lie alone, and watch the sun get lower and lower---- Oh, you
can't understand! It makes me sick to look at a sunset now!"

A long pause.

"Well, then I went up country, to see if I could get work anywhere--it
would have driven me mad to stay in Lima. I got as far as Cuzco, and
there------ Really I don't know why I'm inflicting all this ancient
history on you; it hasn't even the merit of being funny."

She raised her head and looked at him with deep and serious eyes.
"PLEASE don't talk that way," she said.

He bit his lip and tore off another piece of the rug-fringe.

"Shall I go on?" he asked after a moment.

"If--if you will. I am afraid it is horrible to you to remember."

"Do you think I forget when I hold my tongue? It's worse then. But
don't imagine it's the thing itself that hau