They grew noisier and the women began to sing lewd songs. The soldiers too revealed signs of their frequent potations. Soon the whole crowd would go mad, Birnier knew, and sooner or later collapse, which would give him a chance to escape, unless they chained him, or, what was far more probable, they decided to bait him to death during an orgy. What they would probably do to him was unthinkable. Somehow he must find a way out by self-destruction. Even should he escape, he would be unarmed and without food, and there was every possibility that they would trail and overtake him in the morning. He was lame and footsore; also he was weak from want of food. Once, when despoiling his chop boxes, the corporal had contemptuously thrown him a half eaten tin of sardines and a cigarette. He let the cigarette lie. Nourishment he must have; and so after an inward struggle he had eaten it, having to claw out the fish like a monkey, while the big black and his women sprawled and laughed.
The soldiers, except the one on sentry who still paced a trifle erratically, were grouped on their haunches around the fire in front of the tent on the threshold of which the corporal presided with as much pomposity as if he were the great Mogul, all drinking and smoking and eating. Now and again the women would screech insults over their heads at the white; and once the corporal threw an empty bottle at him, evoking a gale of applause. The women began the belly dance, crooning while the men accompanied with the rhythmic grunt, which ever leads to hysterical exaltation.
The sun was dipping. They might come for him at any moment. He watched the sentry and contemplated making a rush, taking a venture on the man’s bad aim and unsteady hand. They would not follow him far in the dark for dread of the spirits that walk by night. The only alternative to suicide was the river, in flood and full of crocodiles, a slender chance. He determined to try it. He considered making the attempt then. But the darker the better; they would more easily miss. At any risk he must never let them get their hands upon him. He drew himself together, flexing his limbs for a leap and a rush, anxiously observing the chanting crowd around the fire in the sunset glow.