Both of the listeners found heart to smile at the latter sentence before Dane's resentment mastered him.
"It is particularly considerate of him, but his proposition has some sense in it," said Maxwell aside. "You are acting surgeon-major, Hilton. What do you suggest?"
"You can go straight to perdition, or anywhere else that pleases you, so long as you don't waste our time!" thundered Dane; and with a salute which expressed no resentment, but only relief, Rideau withdrew.
"How long does this thing generally last?" asked Dane.
"Sometimes it clears a village out in a fortnight, more often it hangs round a month, or even longer, picking out odd victims; and before that time has gone we shall have the rains."
"Which will prevent any further mining, probably cut off our road to the coast, and render life here almost impossible," Dane said hoarsely.
"Exactly. There can be no more mining now."
As the two men's eyes met, each knew just what his comrade was thinking.
"We must see them through," said Dane, and Maxwell answered, as though this decision had never been in doubt: "Of course!"
With that they fell to work again, for there was much to do, which was fortunate, because, otherwise, the thought of what both would certainly lose and what one was risking for the sake of naked heathen, many of whom were little higher in intelligence than dumb cattle, might have maddened them. Still, even the most stupid had trusted the white men, and, in their own fashion, served them well.
The weeks that followed left only a hazy impression of hurry, effort, fatigue that was almost overwhelming, and anxiety which spurred wornout mind and body to further action, with the two white men who lived through them. Some of the sick they cured, and though it is possible their lack of knowledge hastened the end of others, their intentions at least were benevolent, and while they often went hungry the convalescent were always fed. They put heart into the hopeless and buried the dead, stormed, exhorted, and jested by turn all day long, and sat watching the worst cases when the hot night fell. Dane was never afterward able to recollect the exact mixtures he dispensed, which Maxwell said was probably fortunate; but as a result of their labors, while all would otherwise have perished, part at least of their followers escaped. They had also capable assistants. Amadu, Maxwell's man, had fought under a great Emir who had made his name a terror in the Soudan; and Monday, so Dane gathered, had carried the standard of a successful robber chieftain somewhere far up in the land of the brown men who swear by the Prophet; but both had the full courage of their fatalist convictions, and what their masters bade them that they did. The rank and file of the orderlies were thick-headed heathen who grinned each time their leader stormed at them.