the pit of the man's stomach had not been the most sanguinary
result, for the charge of shot, at a distance of a yard, had blown
the head of one of the debaters into nothingness.

Even Balatta joined the others in flight, and, ere they returned,
his senses already reeling from the oncoming fever-attack, Bassett
had regained possession of the gun. Whereupon, although his teeth
chattered with the ague and his swimming eyes could scarcely see,
he held on to his fading consciousness until he could intimidate
the bushmen with the simple magics of compass, watch, burning
glass, and matches. At the last, with due emphasis, of solemnity
and awfulness, he had killed a young pig with his shot-gun and
promptly fainted.

Bassett flexed his arm-muscles in quest of what possible strength
might reside in such weakness, and dragged himself slowly and
totteringly to his feet. He was shockingly emaciated; yet, during
the various convalescences of the many months of his long sickness,
he had never regained quite the same degree of strength as this
time. What he feared was another relapse such as he had already
frequently experienced. Without drugs, without even quinine, he
had managed so far to live through a combination of the most
pernicious and most malignant of malarial and black-water fevers.
But could he continue to endure? Such was his everlasting query.
For, like the genuine scientist he was, he would not be content to
die until he had solved the secret of the sound.

Supported by a staff, he staggered the few steps to the devil-devil
house where death and Ngurn reigned in gloom. Almost as infamously
dark and evil-stinking as the jungle was the devil-devil house--in