Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/285

 Rh of times, his little eyes glittered strangely, and suddenly his trunk was raised.

Stas felt that he was turning pale.

"Death!" he thought.

But the colossus turned his trunk unexpectedly toward the brink where he was accustomed to see Nell and began to trumpet more mournfully than he had ever done before.

Stas went peacefully to the passageway and behind the rock found Nell, who did not want to return to the tree without him.

The boy had an uncontrollable desire to say to her: "See what you have done! On account of you I might have been killed." But there was no time for reproof as the rain changed into a downpour and it was necessary to return as quickly as possible. Nell was drenched to the skin though Stas wrapped her in his clothing.

In the interior of the tree he ordered the negress to change Nell's dress while he himself unleashed Saba, whom previously he had tied from fear that in following his tracks he might scare away the game; afterwards he began to ransack all the clothing and luggage in the hope that he might find some overlooked pinch of quinine.

But he did not find anything. Only at the bottom of the small gallipot which the missionary had given him in Khartûm there lay a little white powder which would scarcely suffice for whitening the tip of a finger. He nevertheless determined to fill the gallipot with hot water and give this gargle to Nell to drink.

Then when the downpour had passed away and the sun began to shine again, he left the tree to look at the fish which Kali had brought. The negro had caught about twenty upon a line of thin wire. Most of them were small, but there were three about a foot long, silver speckled and surprisingly light. Mea, who was bred upon the