Page:In Desert and Wilderness (Sienkiewicz, tr. Drezmal).djvu/295

Rh gazed at her as though with a certain amazement and even fear and did not seem to recognize her. With him she spoke consciously. She said to him that she could not lie down and begged him to permit her to rise and run about; then again she asked whether he was not angry at her because she was sick, and when he assured her that he was not, her eyelashes were suffused with the tears which surged to her eyes, and she assured him that on the morrow she would be entirely well.

That evening, or that night, the elephant was somehow strangely disturbed and continually trumpeted so as to awake Saba and cause him to bark. Stas observed that this irritated the patient; so he left the tree to quiet them. He silenced Saba easily, but as it was a harder matter to bid the elephant to be silent, he took with him a few melons to throw to him, and stuff his trunk at least for a time. Returning, he observed, by the light of the camp-fire, Kali who, with a piece of smoked meat on his shoulders, was going in the direction of the river.

"What are you doing there, and where are you going?" he asked the negro.

And the black boy stopped, and when Stas drew near to him said with a mysterious countenance:

"Kali is going to another tree to place meat for the wicked Mzimu."

"Why?"

"That the wicked Mzimu should not kill the 'Good Mzimu.'"

Stas wanted to say something in reply, but suddenly grief seized his bosom; so he only set his teeth and walked away in silence.

When he returned to the tree Nell's eyes were closed, her hands, lying on the saddle-cloth, quivered indeed strongly, but it seemed that she was slumbering. Stas sat down