Hour after hour he tramped through the dripping grass, biting against fate. Cascaes, who did not work unless he was driven, had long since checked his tally of kernels, and gone to bed. The factory lamps had one by one gone out. The night noises of the forest that hemmed them in were in full swing. His thin clothes were sodden with the damp, and by every law of Africa he was gathering unto himself the seeds of disease. But still he tramped on, in and out amongst the huts and litter, wrestling with his misery. The thing which in the end lifted him out of this unhealthy pit of self-pity was commonplace enough in its way. As he was passing a small rude shelter of boughs and thatch, there came to his ears a very unmistakable human groan. It was a temporary hut run up by some trader who was waiting his turn to do business at the factory, and the groan was of that timbre which told that it was wrenched from a strong man by deadly pain. At another time Carter would probably have passed on. One grows callous to suffering in West Africa, and to interfere with a sick native seldom brings thanks and very frequently produces complications. But something just then moved him to play the Samaritan. He put his head through the entrance and peered into the darkness. "Well," he said, "who's here, and what's the matter?" A voice replied in stately Haûsa, "O, Effendi, I am close upon death, and it is hard to die far from one's own lands and people." "Let's have a look at you," said Carter, in what he knew of the same tongue, eked out with Kroo and Okky. He scraped a damp and reluctant match. "Holy Christopher! What have you been doing to your thigh?" "As I marched along the road to here, a leopard sprang and seized me, but the men that were with me speared him, and so I escaped with my life. They made a litter, and on it carried me to this place. And here they left me in the hands of Allah, whilst they followed up their own private affairs." "But, man, the wound's alive. Why didn't you have it dressed?" "It was written that the wound should be as it is." "Rot. You stay here another ten minutes or so till I get the tackle, and then I will clean it out for you." "Effendi, it is written that Allah sent the things that are in the wound, and with due submission I will not have them touched." "Hum," said Carter, "now this requires argument. You savvy Constantinople? I mean I'Stamboul?" "There lives the Kaleef, the chief of the Faithful of Islam." "You've got it in once. Now, are you keeping yourself posted in the Sultan's--that is the Kaleef's latest readings of the Koran? You are not. I can see you have let yourself get thoroughly behind the times. What's your name?" "Ali ben Hossein."