"What I started to tell you, however, happened before I was finally stricken and will make you think of the tales often heard of shipwrecked men who, having given up all hope at the pumps, turn in despair and break open the captain's lockers, drinking themselves into a state of bestiality. It is the coward's way of meeting death, or perhaps it means the great final protest of the physical against the spiritual--a mad defiance of the inevitable--and confirms what some of our physiologists have always maintained--that only a thin stratum of self-control divides us from something lower than the beast. "We had buried one of our bravest and best comrades, one whose name is still held in reverence by all who knew him, and after we had laid him in the ground an orgy began, which I am ashamed to say--for I was no better than the rest--was as cowardly as it was bestial. My portable india-rubber bath-tub, being the largest vessel in the camp, was the punch-bowl, and into it was dumped every liquor we had in the place: Portuguese wine, Scotch whiskey, Bass's ale, brown stout, cognac--nothing escaped. You can imagine what followed. Those of our natives who helped themselves, after a wild outburst of savagery, soon relapsed into a state of unconsciousness. The exhilaration of the white man lasted longer, and was followed by a fighting frenzy which filled the night with horror. Men tore their clothes from their backs and, half-naked, danced in a circle, the flickering light of the camp-fire distorting their bodies into demons. It was hell let loose! "I have got rather a strong head, but one cup of that mixture sent my brain reeling. My fear was that my will would give way and I be tempted to drink a second dipperful and so knocked completely out. With this idea firmly in my mind, I watched my chance and escaped outside the raging circle, where I found a pool into which I plunged my head. This sobered me a little and I kept on in the darkness until I reached the edge of the hill overlooking the missionary's settlement, the shouts of the frenzied men growing fainter and fainter. "As I sat there my brain began to clear. I noticed the dull light of the moon shrouded in a deadly fog that rose from the valley below. In its mysterious dimness the wraiths of mist and fog became processions of ghosts stealing slowly up the hill--spirits of the dead on their way to judgment. The swollen moon swimming in the drowsy vapor was an evil eye from which there was no escape--searching the souls of men--mine among them--I, who had been spared death and in return had defied all the laws of decency. The cries of the forest rang in my ears, loud and insistent. The howl of a pariah dog, the hoot of an owl, became so many questions--all directed toward me--all demanding an answer for my sins. Even the hum of myriads of insects seemed concerned with me, disputing in low tones and deciding on my punishment.