In the dark the muzzle-loaders of the Manyuema were employed to fire signals. About 9 P.M. we thought we heard the little boy’s voice. The halloo was sounded, and a reply came from the other end of the camp. One of the great ivory horns boomed out its deep sound. Then the cry came from the opposite side. Some of the men said that it must be Saburi’s ghost wailing his death. The picture of the little fellow seeing the dark night come down upon him with its thick darkness in those eerie wilds, with fierce dwarfs prowling about, and wild boar and huge chimpanzee, leopards and cheetahs, with troops of elephants trampling and crashing the crisp phrynia, and great baboons beating hollow trees--everything terrifying, in fact, round about him--depressed us exceedingly. We gave him up for lost. It had been an awful day. In the afternoon a boy had died. Three persons were lost. The condition of the majority was most disheartening. Some could not stand, but fell down in the effort. These sights began to act on my nerves, until I began to feel not only moral sympathy, but physical as well, as though bodily weakness was infectious. On my bed that night the thought of the absent men troubled me; but however distasteful was the idea that a terrible misfortune--such as being lost in the woods, or collapsing from hunger before they reached the groves--it became impossible not to regard the darkest view and expect the worst, in order, if possible, to save a remnant of the Expedition that the news might be carried to the Pasha and thence to civilisation some day. I pictured the entire column perished here in this camp, and the Pasha wondering month after month what had become of us, and we corrupting and decaying in this unknown corner in the great forest, and every blaze on the trees healed up, and every trail obliterated within a year, and our burial-place remaining unknown until the end of time. Indeed, it appeared to me as if we were drifting steadily towards just such a fate. Here were about 200 men without food going thirty-five miles to seek it. Not 150 would perhaps reach it; the others would throw themselves, like the Madis, to the ground, to wait, to beg from others, if perchance they returned. If an accident to the 50 bravest men happen, what then? Some are shot down by dwarfs; the larger aborigines attack the others in a body. The men have no leader; they scatter about, they become bewildered, lose their way, or are speared one after another. While we are waiting, ever waiting for people who cannot return, those with me die first by threes, sixes, tens, twenties, and then, like a candle extinguished, we are gone. Nay, something had to be done.