ed the bank, he first
looked around carefully to see whether there were any crocodiles in the
shallows, after which he waded into the water and lifted his quarry.
The shots had dispersed the birds; there remained only two marabous,
standing between ten and twenty paces away and plunged in reverie. They
were like two old men with bald heads pressed between the shoulders.
They did not move at all. The boy gazed for a while at the loathsome
fleshy pouches hanging from their breasts, and afterwards, observing
that the wasps were beginning to circle around him more and more
frequently, he returned to the camping place.

Nell still slept; so handing the ducks to Mea, he flung himself upon a
saddle-cloth and fell into a sound sleep. They did not wake until the
afternoon--he first and Nell later. The little girl felt somewhat
stronger and the strong broth revived her strength still more; she rose
and left the tree, desiring to look at the King and at the sun.

But only now in the daylight could be seen what havoc that one night's
fever had wrought in her. Her complexion was yellow and transparent;
her lips were black; there were circles furrowed under her eyes, and
her face was as though it had aged. Even the pupils of her eyes
appeared paler than usual. It appeared also, despite her assurances to
Stas that she felt quite strong and notwithstanding the large cup of
broth which she drank immediately after awakening, that she could
barely reach the ravine unaided. Stas thought with despair of the
second attack and that he had neither medicine nor any remedy by which
he could prevent it.

In the meantime the rain poured a dozen or more times a day, increasing
the humidity of the air.

X

Days of suspense, heavy and full of fear, began. The second attack did
not come until a week after and was not so strong as the first, but
after it Nell felt still weaker. She wasted and grew so thin that she
no longer was a little girl, but the shadow of a little girl. The flame
of her life flickered so faintly that it appeared sufficient to blow at
it to extinguish it. Stas understood that death did not have to wait
for a third attack to take her and he expected it any day or any hour.

He himself became emaciated and black, for misfortune exceeded his
strength and his reason. So, gazing on her waxen countenance, he said
to himself each day: "For this I guarded her like the eye in the head;
in order to bury her here in the jungle." An