"But, my lad, I won't ask you to go for nothing. I don't suppose you are
out here on the Congo just for your health. You've said you've got a
wife at home, and I make no doubt you're as fond of her and as eager to
provide for her as I am for any of mine. Well and good. Here's an offer.
Get me cured, and I'll dash you the ju-ju to make what you can out
of it."

Kettle stretched out his fingers. "Right," he said. "We'll trade on
that." And the pair of them shook hands over the bargain.

It was obvious, if the thing was to be done at all, it must be set about
quickly. Nilssen was an utter wreck. Prolonged residence in this
pestilential Congo had sapped his constitution; the poison was
constantly eating at him; and he must either get relief in a very short
time, or give up the fight and die. So that same afternoon saw Kettle
journeying in a dug-out canoe over the beer-colored waters of the river,
up stream, toward the witch-doctor's village.

Two savages (one of them suffering from a bad attack of yaws) propelled
the craft from her forward part in erratic zig-zags; amidships sat
Captain Kettle in a Madeira chair under a green-lined white umbrella;
and behind him squatted his personal attendant, a Krooboy, bearing the
fine old Coast name of Brass Pan. The crushed marigold smell from the
river closed them in, and the banks crept by in slow procession.

The main channels of the Congo Kettle knew with a pilot's knowledge; but
the canoe-men soon left these, and crept off into winding backwaters,
with wire-rooted mangroves sprawling over the mud on their banks, and
strange whispering beast-noises coming from behind the thickets of
tropical greenery. The sun had slanted slow; ceibas and silk-cotton