Kingozi retired again to his cot; but for a long time he could not get to sleep. Little things annoyed him. A fever owl in a thorn tree somewhere nearby called over and over again monotonously, hurriedly, without pause, without a break in rhythm. Kingozi knew that the bird would thus continue all night long, and he tried to adjust his mind to the fact, but failed. It seemed beyond human comprehension that any living creature could keep up steadily so breathless a performance. Some of the men were chatting in low voices. Ordinarily he would not have heard them at all; now they annoyed him. He stood it as long as he could, then shouted "_Kalele!_" at them in so fierce a tone that the human silence was dead and immediate. But this made prominent other lesser noises. Kingozi's headache was worse. He tossed and turned, but at last fell into a half-waking stupor.

He was brought to full consciousness by the entrance of Cazi Moto. He opened his eyes. It was still night--a very black night, evidently, for not a ray of light entered the tent.

"What time is it, Cazi Moto?" he asked.

"Five o'clock, _bwana_."

It was time to rise if a march was to be undertaken. Kingozi waited a moment impatiently.

"Why do you not light the candle?" he demanded.

"The candle is lighted, _bwana_" replied Cazi Moto, with a slight tone of surprise.

Kingozi reached his outspread hand across to his tin box. His fingers encountered a flame, and were slightly scorched. He lay back and closed his eyes.

"The men have struck their tents?" he asked Cazi Moto after a moment.

"Yes, _bwana_, all is prepared."

Then there must be a dozen little fires, and the tent must be filled with flickering reflections. Kingozi lay for some time, thinking. He could hear Cazi Moto moving about, arranging clothes and equipment. When by the sounds Kingozi knew that the task was finished and Cazi Moto about to depart, he spoke.

"We shall not make safari to-day," he said. Cazi Moto stopped.

"_Bwana?_"

"We shall not make safari to-day."

Cazi Moto's mind adjusted itself to this new decision. Then, without comment, he glided out to reverse all his arrangements.

Left alone Kingozi lay on his back and bent his will power to getting control of the situation.

He was blind.

At first the mere thought sent so numbing a chill through all his faculties that he needed the utmost of his fortitude to prevent an insensate and aimless panic. Gradually he gained control of this.

Then he groped for the candle. By experiment he found that at a distance of a foot or so the illumination registered. Then there was no paralysis of the nerve itself. Desperately he marshalled his unruly thoughts, striving to look back into the remote past of his student days. Fragments of knowledge came to him, but nothing on which to build a theory of what was wrong.

"It's mechanical; it's mechanical," he muttered over and over to himself, but could not seem to progress beyond this point. All he could conclude was that it was _not_ ophthalmia or trachoma. He had seen a good deal of these two plagues of Egypt, and their symptoms were absent here. He concentrated until his mind was weary, and his will............