streaks of perspiration and an expression of deadly fatigue and
stubborn will.

He had a pistol in each hand and repeated a few words of command over
and over again, while from the brown, gleaming heads about us came, in
sometimes angry, sometimes mournful, sometimes mocking tones, loud, but
to me unintelligible, replies. I saw the fierce, self-interested,
indifferent faces, with the wild eyes, and I realized how narrow was
the boundary separating our life from death.

Still the scorching wild beast odor of the place comes back to me and I
hear the sound of a monotonous tune, with fiddling and beating of drums
in the distance, and the papery rustling of the palm leaves above our
heads. This disagreeable condition must have continued a long while. At
that time all mankind, the whole world, seemed hostile and desolate to
me.

I knew, indeed, that my father would conquer. He did not want to die,
and I had a childlike faith in his tremendous will-power. And so it
actually turned out, and I was neither surprised nor glad. The irksome
life of wandering continued, and I had a bitter feeling that it was my
father who shut me out from the world and made it hostile to me.

We did after all finally procure a guide that day and made a long march
on foot along scorching sandy roads, weak and tired as we were, guided
only by a half-witted boy, humming and chewing wisps of straw. Then I
began to realize what suffering means. My father did not speak, nor
would he endure any complaints from me. I bore up against it bravely,
as bravely as I could, but I began to ponder much at that time. "How
long would I be able to endure this?" I thought. "And why does he do