CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
THE SLEEP THAT IS NO SLEEP* Ten were the plagues that Israel fled, and leaving left no cure, Whose progeny self-multiplied a million-fold remain, The cloak of each one ignorance, idolatry its lure, And death the goal till, clarion-called, lost Israel come again.
Till then that loaded lash that bade the tale of bricks increase (Eye for an eye, and limb for limb!) shall fail not though ye weep; The conqueror's heel for Africa!--The fear that shall not cease!-- Desire, distrust, the alien law!--The sleep that is no sleep! -- ---------------- * It is a characteristic of the so-called Sleeping Sickness that is decimating the tribes around Victoria Nyanza that the victim, although he goes into a coma, never actually sleeps from the time of taking the disease until the end, usually more than a year later.

The natives, a tribe that came originally down from Egypt, themselves say that the dreaded sickness is a "visitation" by way of revenge on them for former sins, although what sins, and whose vengeance, they are at a total loss to explain.
-- ---------------- Kazimoto was gone five days, and then came preceded by proof of the news he brought.

He came in the evening.

In the morning, unaccountably from the northward, instead of from the westward where Uganda lay,--avoiding the regular safari route and the belt of sleeping sickness villages, came a genial, sleek, shiny Baganda, arrayed in khaki coat, red fez, and bordered loin-cloth, gifted with tongues, and self-confident beyond belief.
He knew nothing of us at first, for we sat in our hut with a smudge going, nervous about flies, even Coutlass, reckless as a rule of anything he could not see, and perfectly indifferent to death for others, now fidgety and afraid to swagger forth.
One of our Nyamwezi porters suddenly made a great shout of "Hodi!"* and came stooping through the low door, standing erect again inside to await our pleasure.

We could hear others outside, listening under the eaves.