But she began to blink with her eyelids as if she were meditating over something and said:
"If I had bitter powders like that which made me feel so well after the night with the lions—do you remember?—then I would not think the least bit of dying—not even so much!"
And she indicated upon her little finger just how little in that case she would be prepared to die.
"Ah!" Stas declared, "I do not know what I would not give for a pinch of quinine."
And he thought that if he had enough of it, he would at once treat Nell with two powders, even, and then he would wrap her in plaids, seat her before him on a horse, and start immediately in a direction opposite to the one in which the camp of the dervishes was located.
In the meantime the sun set and the jungle was suddenly plunged in darkness.
The little girl chattered yet for half an hour, after which she fell asleep and Stas meditated further about the dervishes and quinine. His distressed but resourceful mind began to labor and form plans, each one bolder and more audacious than the other. First he began to ponder over whether that smoke in the southern direction necessarily came from Smain's camp. It might indeed be dervishes, but it also might be Arabs from the ocean coast, who made great expeditions into the interior for ivory and slaves. These had nothing in common with the dervishes who injured their trade. The smoke might also be from a camp of Abyssinians or from some negro village at the foot-hills which the slave hunters had not yet reached. Would it not be proper for him to satisfy himself upon this point?
The Arabs from Zanzibar, from the vicinity of Bagamoyo, from Witu and from Mombasa, and in general from the
