“How're you feelin'?” the philosopher asked.
“Weak. How about you?”
“Phew! I'll be glad when all this walkin' an' ridin' is over an' done with. It's playin' merry havoc with me gammy leg.”
“Your leg is just dented, Herbert.”
“Aye, but it aches somethin' terrible.”
“That's not possible.”
“Aye. Do you think, Boss, that I've lost some qualities that a man possesses only 'cos he's flesh?”
“What sort of qualities?”
“A conscience, for example; a self-generated moral standard by which a man judges his own actions. Old Darwin said it's the most important distinction between humankind an' other species.”
“And you think it's a characteristic of corporeality?”
“Aye, an evolution of a creature's instinct to preserve its own species. Compare us to the lower animals. What happens when a sow has a runt in her litter? She eats it. What happens if a bird hatches deformed? It's bloomin' well pecked to death. What do gazelles do with a lame member of the herd? They leave it to die, don't they? Humans are the dominant species 'cos we're heterogeneous, but to support all our individual specialisations, we have to suppress the natural desire to allow the weak an' inferior to fall by the wayside, as it were, 'cos how can we evaluate each other when reality demands somethin' different from every individual? A manual labourer might consider a bank clerk too physically weak; does that mean he should kill the blighter? The clerk might think the labourer too unintelligent; is that reason enough to deny him the means to live? In the wild, such judgements apply, but not in human society, so we have conscience to intercede, to inhibit the baser aspects of natural evolution an' raise it to a more sophisticated level. As I suggested to you once before, Boss, where mankind is concerned, survival of the fittest refers not to physical strength, but to the ability to adapt oneself to circumstances. The process wouldn't function were it not for conscience.”
Burton considered this, and there was silence between them for a good few minutes.
Spencer picked up a stone and threw it at a shadowy form-a hyena that had wandered too close.
“You're suggesting,” Burton finally said, “that conscience has evolved to suppress in us the instinct that drives animals to kill or abandon the defective, because each of us is only weak or strong depending on who's judging us and the criteria they employ?”
“Precisely. Without conscience we'd end up killin' each other willy-nilly until the whole species was gone.”
“So you associate it with the flesh because it ensures our species' physical survival?”
“Aye. It's an adaptation of an instinct what's inherent in the body.”
“And you suspect that your transference into this brass mechanism might have robbed you of your conscience?”
“I don't know whether it has or hasn't, Boss. I just wonder. I need to test it.”
They sat a little longer, then Burton was overcome by weariness and retired to the tent.
Travel the following morning proved the easiest since their arrival in Africa. The ground was firm, trees-baobabs-were widely spaced, and undergrowth was thinly distributed. Small flowers grew in abundance.
As they entered this district, Pox and Malady launched themselves from Spencer's shoulders and flew from tree to tree, rubbing their beaks together and insulting each other rapturously.
“It's love,” Swinburne declared.
Almost before they realised it, they found cultivated land underfoot and a village just ahead. It was too close to avoid, so hongowas paid and, in return, a hut was assigned for their use.
They rested and took stock.
Sadhvi's medicine was driving the fever out of Burton. He ached all over but his temperature had stabilised and strength began to seep back into his limbs.
Trounce, though, was suffering. The spear wound in his arm had become slightly infected, and his legs were ulcerating again.
“I shall be crippled at this rate,” he complained. He sat on a stool and allowed Swinburne to roll up his trouser legs.
“Yuck!” the poet exclaimed. “What hideous pins you have, Pouncer!”
“You're not seeing them at their best, lad.”
“Nor would I want to! Now then, it just so happens that I'm the sole purveyor of Sister Raghavendra's Revitalising Remedies. Incredible Cures and Terrific Tonics, all yours for a coil of wire and three shiny beads! What do you say?”
“I say, stop clowning and apply the poultice or I'll apply the flat of my hand to the back of your head.”
Swinburne got to work.
“Shame you can't do nothin' for mine,” Spencer piped.
Burton, who, with Bombay, had been parleying with the village elders, walked over and plonked himself on the ground beside the Yard man.
“We need to navigate in a slightly more northeasterly direction,” he said. “It will save us from having to pass through a densely populated region.”
They departed before sun-up the next morning, descended into a deep and miry watercourse, struggled through bullrushes, then climbed to the peak of a hill just as the sun threw its rays over the horizon. The next few hours were spent crossing uneven ground cut through with marshy rivulets, each filled with tall, tough reeds. There were cairns dotted over the land for as far as the eye could see, as well as stubby malformed trees in which hundreds of black vultures sat in sinister contemplation.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of Death,” Swinburne announced.
“Spongy-brained measles rash!” Pox added.
A steep incline led them up onto firmer ground and into a forest. The two parakeets once again left Spencer's shoulders and travelled overhead, with Pox teaching Malady new insults.
Burton rode onto a fairly well-defined trail.
“This is the path I think Speke is following,” he said.
“Wow!” Bombay answered. “It is the one he took before, when I was with him.”
“Then we should proceed with caution.”
They stopped to eat, then rode on at a brisk pace until they emerged from the trees at the head of a shadowed valley. Its sides were thickly wooded and a clear stream ran through its middle with reasonably open ground to either side. There were pandana palms in profusion, rich groves of plantains, and thistles of extraordinary size. In the distance, the land rolled in high undulations to grassy hills, which Burton identified as the districts of Karague and Kishakka.
Late in the afternoon, they approached a village and were surprised when the inhabitants, upon sighting them, ran away.
“By Jove! That hasn't happened since we had the harvestman,” Trounce observed.
Riding among the huts, they noticed that the usual stocks of food were missing. There were also a couple of ominous-looking stains on the ground in the central clearing.
“It looks like they received some non-too-friendly visitors,” the king's agent said. He unpacked two boxes of beads from one of the horses and placed them at the entrance to the chief's dwelling. “Let's leave them a gift, if for no other reason than to demonstrate that not all muzungo mbayaare bad.”
The remainder of the day was spent travelling through the rest of the valley before crossing fine, rising meadowlands to a stratified sandstone cliff, beneath which they rested for the night.
Another early start. Hilly country. Herds of cattle. Forests of acacias.
All around them, the trees were alive with a profusion of small birds, whistling and chirping with such vigour that, for the entire day, the men had to raise their voices to be heard above the din.
They left the boisterous tree-dwellers behind as the sun was riding low in the sky and drew to a halt on a summit, looking across a broad, junglethick basin. On the far side, they spotted movement on the brow of a hummock. Trounce lifted the field glasses, clipped them onto his head, and adjusted the focusing wheels.