'He looks as if he'd been sick,' I said. 'We'd better let him
sleep on!'

'Yes; let's go to bed ourselves,' said Drayton, yawning.

So we lay down on opposite sides of the fire. Such a red and
splendid fire that cold cock-crow time!

Browne kept giving sharp little moans in his sleep, just as a dog
will do of nights.

'He's started a nightmare,' said I. 'I wish we could help him to
better dreams. I'd like to see what he sees just now.'

Drayton began to drone from his side of the fire:

'I saw pale kings and princes, too; Pale warriors death-pale were
they all. They cried, "La Belle Dame sans Merci" hath thee in
thrall.

'I saw their starved lips in the gloom With horrid warning gaped
wide, And I awoke and found me here On the cold hill's side.'

I asked a question: 'What will Browne like for breakfast,
Drayton?'

'If he's come back to his civilized tastes, you'd better open
that tin of sausages,' he said. 'You've got some squish, too,
haven't you? Don't give him that bush-tea of yours!'

I was up long before Drayton. I had secured Browne's confidences
before the sun had been risen an hour. 'I've had a sort of
miserable ague,' he said. 'A cold and hot fever has been plaguing
me. Some part of this last night has been savagely horrible. But
I've sweated pounds of my weight away, and my fever's gone.
Strange, isn't it?'

'Quite ordinary in this part of Africa,' I said, sharply and
minimizingly. I handed him a shirt, and he doffed his drenched
one. He did not tell me any more just then. His eyes watched me
in a dazed, miserable way. I asked him to excuse me, and went off
with Johannes to my service. When I came back his eyes were
clearer, they had less of their look of wan-hope.

'Sinister country, this Africa,' he said. 'I was infatuated with
her yesterday. Today I can't understand just what the attraction
was. Her desolate moors seemed to make me drunk. See how she's
served me! I never felt quite so sick as I've done most of this
last day and night. Just before I woke it seemed to me I saw them
in my dreams tens and twenties of her victims; men she's charmed
and led on and on, and demoralized, ruined, killed and buried,
and helped down-hill the way of the bottomless pit. I am better
now; but I'm shaken. How thankful I'll be if only I get out of
her, and can only stop thinking about her after that.'

I listened with grave attention. Then I gave him some bread and
sausages, and he ate away ravenously. Ho