Was this, then, HIS dark tower?--Bassett pondered, remembering his
Browning and gazing at his skeleton-like and fever-wasted hands.
And the fancy made him smile--of Childe Roland bearing a slug-horn
to his lips with an arm as feeble as his was. Was it months, or
years, he asked himself, since he first heard that mysterious call
on the beach at Ringmanu? To save himself he could not tell. The
long sickness had been most long. In conscious count of time he
knew of months, many of them; but he had no way of estimating the
long intervals of delirium and stupor. And how fared Captain
Bateman of the blackbirder Nari? he wondered; and had Captain
Bateman's drunken mate died of delirium tremens yet?

From which vain speculations, Bassett turned idly to review all
that had occurred since that day on the beach of Ringmanu when he
first heard the sound and plunged into the jungle after it. Sagawa
had protested. He could see him yet, his queer little monkeyish
face eloquent with fear, his back burdened with specimen cases, in
his hands Bassett's butterfly net and naturalist's shot-gun, as he
quavered, in Beche-de-mer English: "Me fella too much fright along
bush. Bad fella boy, too much stop'm along bush."

Bassett smiled sadly at the recollection. The little New Hanover
boy had been frightened, but had proved faithful, following him
without hesitancy into the bush in the quest after the source of
the wonderful sound. No fire-hollowed tree-trunk, that, throbbing
war through the jungle depths, had been Bassett's conclusion.
Erroneous had been his next conclusion, namely, that the source or
cause could not be more distant than an hour's walk, and that he
would easily be back by mid-afternoon to be picked up by the Nari's
whale-boat.