Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
Category: Nonfiction
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share it with him. This perhaps was his most heroic actduring the course of the journey. He himself, however, began to sufferhorribly. Before his eyes there flew continually the red patches. Hefelt a tightening of his jaws so strongly that he opened and closedthem with difficulty. His throat was dry, burning; there was no salivain his mouth; the tongue was as though wooden. And of course this wasbut the beginning of the torture for him and for the caravan.
The thunder announcing the drought resounded incessantly on thehorizon's border. About three o'clock, when the sun passed to thewestern side of the heavens, Stas ordered the caravan to rise andstarted at its head towards the east. But now hardly seventy menfollowed him, and every little while some one of them lay down besidehis pack to rise nevermore. The heat decreased a few degrees but wasstill terrible. The still air was permeated as though with the gas ofburning charcoal. The people had nothing to breathe and the animalsbegan to suffer no less. In an hour after the start again one of thehorses fell. Saba panted and his flanks heaved; from his blackenedtongue not a drop of froth fell. The King, accustomed to the dryAfrican jungle, apparently suffered the least, but he began to bevicious. His little eyes glittered with a kind of strange light. ToStas, and particularly to Nell, who from time to time talked to him, heanswered still with a gurgle, but when Kali carelessly came near him hegrunted menacingly and waved his trunk so that he would have killed theboy if he had not jumped aside in time.
Kali's eyes were bloodshot, the veins in his neck were inflated, andhis lips cracked the same as the other negroes. About five o'clock heapproached Stas and, in a hollow voice which with difficulty issued outof his throat, said:
"Great master, Kali can go no further. Let the night come here."
Stas overcame the pain in his jaws and answered with an effort:
"Very well. We will stop. The night will bring relief." "It will bring death," the young negro whispered.
The men threw the loads off their heads, but as the fever in theirthickened blood already reached the highest degree, on this occasionthey did not immediately lie down on the ground. Their hearts and thearteries in their temples, hands, and limbs pulsated as if in a momentthey would burst. The skin of their bodies, drying up and shrinking,began to itch; in their bones they were sensible of an excessivedisquiet and in their entrails and throats a fire. Some walked uneasilyamong the packets; others could be seen farther away in ruddy rays ofthe setting sun as they strolled one after another among the driedtufts as though seeking something, and this continued until theirstrength was entirely exhausted. Then they fell in turn on the groundand lay in convulsions. Kali sat, squatting near Stas and Nell,catching the air with open mouth, and began to repeat entreatinglybetween one breath and the other:
"Bwana kubwa, water."
Stas gazed at him with a glassy stare and remained silent.
"Bwana kubwa, water!"
And after a while:
"Kali is dying."
At this, Mea, who for an unknown reason endured thirst the easiest andsuffered the least of all, approached, sat close to him, and, embracinghis neck with her arms, said in her quiet, melodious voice.
"Mea wants to die together with Kali."
A long silence followed.
In the meantime the sun set and night covered the region. The skybecame dark-blue. On its southern side the Cross glistened. Above theplain a myriad of stars twinkled. The moon came out from under theearth and began to satiate the darkness with light, and on the westwith the waning and pale twilight extended the zodiacal luminosity. Theair was transformed into a great luminous gulf. The ever-increasingluster submerged the region. The palanquin, which remained forgotten onthe King's back, and the tents glistened, just as whitewashed housesglisten in a bright night. The world sank into silence and sleepencompassed the earth.
And in the presence of this stillness and this quiet of nature thepeople howled from pain and waited for death. On the silvery backgroundof the darkness the gigantic black form of the elephant was stronglyoutlined. The moon's beams illuminated besides the tents, Stas' andNell's dresses and, amid tufts of heather, the dark, shriveled bodiesof the negroes and, scattered here and there, piles of packages. Beforethe children sat, propped on his fore legs, Saba, and, raising his headtowards the moon's shield, he howled mournfully.
In Stas' soul oscillated only the remnants of thought, changed into agloomy and despairing feeling that this time there was no help and thatall those prodigious toils and efforts, those sufferings, those acts ofwill and courage, which he had performed during the terriblejourney--from Medinet to Khartum, from Khartum to Fashoda, and fromFashoda to the unknown lake--would avail naught, and that an inexorableend of the struggle and of life was approaching. And this appeared tohim all the more horrible because this end came during the time of thefinal journey, at the termination of which lay the ocean. Ah! He wouldnot now conduct little Nell to the coast; he would not convey her by asteamer to Port Said, would not surrender her to Mr. Rawlinson; hehimself would not fall into his father's arms and would not hear fromhis lips that he had acted like a brave boy and like a true Pole! Theend, the end! In a few days the sun would shine only upon the lifelessbodies and afterwards would dry them up into a semblance of thosemummies which slumber in an eternal sleep in the museums in Egypt.
From torture and fever his mind began to get confused. Ante-mortemvisions and delusions of hearing crowded upon him. He heard distinctlythe voices of the Sudanese and Bedouins yelling "Yalla! Yalla!" at thespeeding camels. He saw Idris and Gebhr. The Mahdi smiled at him withhis thick lips, asking: "Do you want to drink at the spring oftruth?"--Afterwards the lion gazed at him from the rock; later Lindegave him a gallipot of quinine and said: "Hurry, hurry, for the littleone will die." And in the end he beheld only the pale, very dear littleface and two little hands stretched out towards him.
Suddenly he trembled and consciousness returned to him for a moment,for hard by murmured the quiet whisper of Nell, resembling a moan:
"Stas--water!"
And she, like Kali previously, looked to him only for help.
But as twelve hours before he had given her the last drop, he nowstarted up suddenly, and exclaimed in a voice in which vibrated anoutburst of pain, despair, and affliction:
"Oh, Nell, I only pretended that I was drinking! For three days I havehad nothing in my mouth!"
And clasping his head with both hands he ran away in order not to lookat her sufferings. He rushed blindly among tufts of grass and heatheruntil he fell upon one of the tufts. He was unarmed. A leopard, lion,or even a big hyena would find in him an easy prey. But only Saba camerunning to him. Having smelt at him on all sides, he again began tohowl, as if summoning aid for him.
Nobody, however, hurried with aid. Only from above, the moon, quiet andindifferent, looked on him. For a long time the boy lay like dead. Hewas revived only by a cooler breath of wind, which unexpectedly blewfrom the east. Stas sat up and after a while attempted to rise toreturn to Nell.
The cooler wind blew a second time. Saba ceased howling and, turningtowards the east, began to dilate his nostrils. Suddenly he barked onceor twice a short, broken bass and dashed ahead. For some time he couldnot be heard, but soon his barking again resounded. Stas rose and,staggering on his numb legs, began to look after him. Long journeys,long stays in the jungle, the necessity of holding all his senses incontinual restraint, and continual dangers had taught the boy to paycareful heed to everything which was taking place about him. So,notwithstanding the tortures he felt at that moment, notwithstandinghis half-conscious mind, through instinct and habit he watched thebehavior of the dog. And Saba, after the lapse of a certain time, againappeared near him, but was somewhat strangely agitated and uneasy. Afew times he raised his eyes at Stas, ran around, again rushed ahead,scenting and barking in the heather; again he came back and finally,seizing the boy's clothes, began to pull him in a direction opposite tothe camp.
Stas completely recovered his senses.
"What is this?" he thought. "Either the
dog's mind, from thirst, isdisordered or he has scented water. But no! If water was near he wouldhave run to it to drink and would have wet jaws. If it was far away, hewould not have scented it--water has no smell. He is not pulling me toantelopes, for he did not want to eat during the evening. Nor to beastsof prey. Well, what is it?"
And suddenly his heart began to beat in his bosom yet more strongly.
"Perhaps the wind brought him the odor of men?--Perhaps--in thedistance there is some negro village?--Perhaps one of the kites hasflown as far--Oh, merciful Christ! Oh, Christ!--"
And under the influence of a gleam of hope he regained his strength andbegan to run towards the camp, notwithstanding the obstinacy of thedog, who incessantly barred his way. In the camp Nell's form loomedwhite before him and her weak voice reached him: after a while hestumbled over Kali lying on the ground, but he paid