How serious the bite might be I had no means of ascertaining. To my hand, when I felt of the place, there seemed to be only a raw, smarting wound, on the top of a great hot swelling. I felt sure that no thews had been actually severed by the terrible teeth, for had any been, I should not have been able to row the boat nor to use my arm in any manner whatsoever. Nevertheless I knew I was wounded badly, and I all but cried with the pain it cost me to move the craft. Until I had reached the lake, the fear of the Blacks made me work, despite my physical anguish. When I knew I was comparatively safe, I sank forward and, I confess, fainted like a girl. It was probably as much as an hour before I recovered my senses fully. For the last fifteen minutes or so of this time I was semi-conscious, but incapable of motion, while my brain merely whirled in a vortex with that female Link, the boat and the nuggets of gold. When at last I again acquired the power of moving, I filled my hand with water from the lake repeatedly and dashed it on my face and on my bitten shoulder. But I could not row; I needed further rest. My head was beginning to ache. My brain insisted on revolving the story of my greed for gold. Again I fought the battle of silence with the watch-dog of the tribe; again I worked like a gnome in that steaming, hot cauldron; again I staggered away with my plunder. Then I saw that female Link, who, searching in the thicket, must have found the body of the watch-dog, lying in his gore. He might have been her mate. Crazed, she followed on the trail that led from the spot, with the tribe at her heels. She reached the cauldron and then got again on the tracks I was making to the river. At that I screamed and thought I was crazy myself. Aroused by this repeated nightmare, I struggled with the oars again. It seemed as if I could not budge the boat; this made me work like a fury. The heat of the sun grew intolerable; I could feel it baking the blood in my head; it was all on the side of the Blacks. The lake was a sheen of blinding light and heat; it mocked me and held me back. Again and again came the lurid panorama of events. I could see through everything, jungle, thicket and bag made of skin—see those pieces of gold—mine! mine!—shining like the blazing sun, hot and baking. All that gold on the ground was mine, but it mocked me and cooked my brain with its heat and steam.