He is sick in himself," and the tears that filled her grey eyes showed me that she spoke what she believed.

As a matter of fact she was right, for on the night after we reached the town, Stephen was seized with an attack of some bad form of African fever, which in his weak state nearly cost him his life, contracted, no doubt, at that unhealthy Crocodile Water.
Our reception at Beza was most imposing, for the whole population, headed by old Bausi himself, came out to meet us with loud shouts of welcome, from which we had to ask them to desist for Stephen's sake.
So in the end we got back to our huts with gratitude of heart.

Indeed, we should have been very happy there for a while, had it not been for our anxiety about Stephen.

But it is always thus in the world; who was ever allowed to eat his pot of honey without finding a fly or perhaps a cockroach in his mouth?
In all, Stephen was really ill for about a month.

On the tenth day after our arrival at Beza, according to my diary, which, having little else to do, I entered up fully at this time, we thought that he would surely die.