And there was another difference
as well: he was sick, terribly sick before the meal was over, and this
sudden nausea after food was more eloquent than words of what the man
had passed through on his dreadful, foodless, ghost-haunted journey of
forty miles to our camp. In the darkness he thought he would go crazy,
he said. There were voices in the trees, and figures were always lifting
themselves out of the water, or from behind boulders, to look at him and
make awful signs. Jake constantly peered at him through the underbrush,
and everywhere the shadows were moving, with eyes, footsteps, and
following shapes.
We tried hard to talk of other things, but it was no use, for he was
bursting with the rehearsal of his story and refused to allow himself
the chances we were so willing and anxious to grant him. After a good
night's rest he might have had more self-control and better judgment,
and would probably have acted differently. But, as it was, we found it
impossible to help him.
Once the pipes were lit, and the dishes cleared away, it was useless to
pretend any longer.
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