Before I could reply, Lemois, who had followed the course of the discussion with the keenest interest, interrupted with a deprecating shrug of his shoulders, his fingers widened out. "But not another bird story, if you please, Monsieur Brierley. We want something deeper and stronger. We have touched upon a great subject to-night, and have only scraped the surface." Herbert leaned forward until he caught Lemois' eye. "Say the rest, Lemois. You have something to tell us." "I! No--I have nothing to tell you. My life has been too stupid. I am always either bowing to my guests or making sauces for them over Pierre's fire. I could only tell you about things of which I have _heard_. You, Monsieur Herbert, can tell us of things with which you have _lived_. I want to listen now to something we will remember, like your story of the cannibal's wife. Almost every night since you have been here I go to bed with a great song ringing in my ears. You, Monsieur Herbert, must yourself have seen such tragedies in men's lives, when in the space of a lightning's flash their souls were stripped clean and they left naked." Herbert played with his fork for a moment, threw it back upon the cloth, and then said in a decided tone: "No--it is not my turn; I've talked enough to-night. Open up, Le Blanc, and give us something out of the old Latin Quartier--there were tragedies enough there." "Only what absinthe and starvation brought--and a ring now and then on the wrong girl's finger--or none at all, as the case might have been. But you've got a story, Herbert, if you will tell it, which will send Lemois to bed with a whole orchestra sounding in his ears." Herbert looked up. "Which one?" "The fever camp at Bangala." Herbert's face became instantly grave and an expression of intense thought settled upon it. We waited, our eyes fixed upon him. "No--I'd rather not, Le Blanc," he said slowly. "That belongs to the dead past, and it is best to leave it so." "Tell it, Herbert," I coaxed. "Both you and Le Blanc have heard it." "But Lemois and the others haven't." "Got any cannibals or barbecues in it, Herbert?" inquired Louis. "No, just plain white man all the way through, Louis. Two of them are still alive--I and another fellow. And you really want it again, Le Blanc? Well, all right. But before I begin I must ask you to pardon my referring so often to my African experiences"--and he glanced in apology around the table--"but I was there at a most impressionable age, and they still stand out in my mind--this one in particular. You may have read of the horrors that took place at Bangala in what at the time was known as the fever camp, where some of the bravest fellows who ever entered the jungles met their deaths. Both natives and white men had succumbed, one after another, in a way that wiped out all hope.