away in his box, together with a half-bottle of Cognâc, “in case of sickness”, he explained. Carlier approved. “When one is sick,” he said, “any little extra like that is cheering.”

They waited. Rank grass began to sprout over the courtyard. The bell never rang now. Days passed, silent, exasperating, and slow. When the two men spoke, they snarled; and their silences were bitter, as if tinged by the bitterness of their thoughts.

One day after a lunch of boiled rice, Carlier put down his cup untasted, and said: “Hang it all! Let’s have a decent cup of coffee for once. Bring out that sugar, Kayerts!”

“For the sick,” Muttered Kayerts, without looking up.

“For the sick,” mocked Carlier. “Bosh!…Well! I am sick.”

“You are no more sick than I am, and I go without,” said Kayerts in a peaceful tone.

“Come! out with that sugar, you stingy old slave-dealer.”

Kayerts looked up quickly. Carlier was smiling with marked insolence. And suddenly it seemed to Kayerts that he had never seen that man before. Who was he? He knew nothing about him. What was he capable of? There was a surprising flash of violent emotion within him, as if in the presence of something undreamt- of, dangerous, and final. But he managed to pronounce with composure—

“That joke is in very bad taste. Don’t repeat it.”

“Joke!” said Carlier, hitching himself forward on his seat. “I am hungry—I am sick—I don’t joke! I hate hypocrites. You are a hypocrite. You are a slave-dealer. I am a slave-dealer. There’s nothing but slave- dealers in this cursed country. I mean to have sugar in my coffee to-day, anyhow!”

“I forbid you to speak to me in that way,” said Kayerts with a fair show of resolution.

“You!—What?” shouted Carlier, jumping up.

Kayerts stood up also. “I am your chief,” he began, trying to master the shakiness of his voce.

“What?” yelled the other. “Who’s chief? There’s no chief here. There’s nothing here: there’s nothing but you and I. Fetch the sugar—you pot-bellied ass.”

“Hold your tongue. Go out of this room,” screamed Kayerts. “I dismiss you—you scoundrel!”

Carlier swung a stool. All at once he looked dangerously in earnest. “You flabby, good-for-nothing civilian—take that!” he howled.

Kayerts dropped under the table, and the stool struck the grass inner wall of the room. Then, as Carlier was trying to upset the table, Kayerts in desperation made a blind rush, head low, like a cornered pig would do, and over-turning his friend, bolted along the verandah, and into his room. He locked the door, snatched his revolver, and stood painting. In less than a minute Carlier was kicking at the door furiously, howling, “If you don’t bring out that sugar, I will shoot you at sight, like a dog. Now then—one—two—three. You won’t? I will show you who’s the master.”

Kayerts thought the door would fall in, and scrambled through the square hole that served for a window in his room. There was then the whole breadth of the house between them. But the other was apparently not strong enough to break in the door, and Kayerts heard him running round. Then he also began to run laboriously on his swollen legs. He ran as quickly as he could, grasping the revolver, and unable yet to understand what was happening to him. He saw in succession Makola’s house, the store, the river, the ravine, and the low bushes; and he saw all those things again as he ran for the second time round