“I caught hold of the sides of the hammock, but it was some time before I could manage to pull myself up. Then I looked down.
“A man was lying along on his face on the floor, just as he had crawled into my hut and fallen. The yellowed fingers of one hand clawed on my boot, and that was the only sign that he was alive. He lay quite quiet, except for the slow working of his fingers. And I sat quite quiet, staring down on him with the infinite leisure that follows a temperature of one hundred and five. It was only by slow degrees I realized that this was Derek Scott come back, and that he was probably dying.
“I got to my feet, and bent over him, but I couldn’t raise him, of course. I was afraid he’d die before anyone came. So I took my revolver and aimed as well as I could at that tin roof beneath which my man Pedro was eating his dinner. The barrel went up and down with the walls of the hut, but I must have hit the roof, for the next thing I knew was a lot of smoke and noise, and Pedro’s face, eyes and mouth open, rushing out of it. There seemed no interval before I found myself sitting in the hammock, and saying over and over again, ‘But where’s the little chap? Where’s the little French chap?’
“Scott was still on the floor, but his head was on my man’s shoulder, and Pedro was gently feeding him with sips of brandy and condensed milk. He turned and looked at me, and his eyes were clear and considering as ever, though his answer didn’t sound quite sane. He said, ‘The clocks wouldn’t tick.’
“He said it as if it explained everything. Then he unstrapped a tin case from his belt, laid his head on it, and was instantly asleep.
“I cried out, ‘Is it the fever, Pedro?’ But my man said, ‘No, Senor, it is the hunger.’ He rolled Scott up very cleverly in a blanket. ‘This Senor has had the fever, but it is not upon him now. Without doubt he is a little mad from being in the forest so long. But when he wakes he will be stronger. So much I heard, and no more. Unconsciousness came down on me like a wave. But into the dark heart of that wave I carried the certainty that Pedro knew all about the matter and that he hated Henkel. How or why I was certain of this I don’t know. But I was.
“I woke in the cool of the evening. The fresh breeze off the river was like the breath of life, and Pedro’s face, thrust close to mine, no longer grew large and small by fits. I noticed that it was quite grey, and that his lips twitched as he muttered, ‘Senor, Senor . . .’