the rule as well as keep guard over Brown.
But the drums were so thunderous and the shrill fifes so lusty that the
askaris could not hear conversation pitched in low tones.

"Brown says," said Fred, returning from the first march, "that he
sleeps with only a sheet of corrugated iron between him and the ward
where the chain-gang lies. He can talk with Kazimoto when he happens
to be at that end of the chain. They've nothing but planks to lie on,
any of them. He says Kazimoto seems determined to kill the lieutenant
who sentenced him, and as soon as he's off the chain we'd better grab
him and hurry him out of the country."

"Six months!" said I. "Splendid advice! How many of us will be alive
or at liberty six months from now? Not I, at any rate!"

"How d'you suppose they discipline the chain-gang?" Fred asked,
ignoring my growing hopelessness.

"With the lash," said I. "I've seen!"

"That's by day," said Fred. "They've better ways at night. One plan
is no supper or breakfast; but the champion scheme is the doctor's.
On complaint by the askaris that a man on the chain has shirked his
work, or answered back, or been obstreperous, the doctor serves him out
a handful of strong pills and sees him swallow them. They don't
unchain them at night. D'you get the idea?"

"Not yet."

"Every time the man has to go outside he must wake the whole gang and
take them with him! They're weary after working twelve hours at a
stretch. After the second or third time up they begin to object pretty
strenuously. After the third or fourth time he's so unpopular that
he'd almost rather die than wake them. Imagine the result, and what he
suffers!"

Despondency began to have hold of me, and I no longer wished to live.
The doctor's momentary daily visits increased my loathing for the crew
who tyrannized there in the name of Progress, and I could see no way of
retaliating. I became seized with a sort of delirious conviction that
if only I could die and be out of the way my friends would be far
better able to contrive without me. There is no convalescence in a
mood of that sort, and each morning found me nearer death than the
last. Then malaria developed, to give me the finishing touch, and
although strangely enough I grew less instead of more delirious, Fred
and Will at last made no secret of their belief that I was doomed.

I myself was as sure of death as they were of dinner, and had better
appetite for my fate than they for