"You have insulted me for the last time!" he cried, springing to
his feet. "I am an officer and a gentleman, and I shall put up
with it no longer without an accounting from you, you pig."

The captain, an expression of surprise upon his features, turned
toward his junior. He had seen men before with the jungle madness
upon them--the madness of solitude and unrestrained brooding, and
perhaps a touch of fever.

He rose and extended his hand to lay it upon the other's shoulder.
Quiet words of counsel were upon his lips; but they were never
spoken. Werper construed his superior's action into an attempt
to close with him. His revolver was on a level with the captain's
heart, and the latter had taken but a step when Werper pulled the
trigger. Without a moan the man sank to the rough planking of the
veranda, and as he fell the mists that had clouded Werper's brain
lifted, so that he saw himself and the deed that he had done in
the same light that those who must judge him would see them.

He heard excited exclamations from the quarters of the soldiers
and he heard men running in his direction. They would seize him,
and if they didn't kill him they would take him down the Congo to
a point where a properly ordered military tribunal would do so just
as effectively, though in a more regular manner.

Werper had no desire to die. Never before had he so yearned for
life as in this moment that he had so effectively forfeited his
right to live. The men were nearing him. What was he to do? He
glanced about as though searching for the tangible form of a
legitimate excuse for his crime; but he could find only the body