too, that they had sent him to this Godforsaken Congo post
instead of court-martialing him, as he had so justly deserved;
but now six months of the monotony, the frightful isolation and
the loneliness had wrought a change. The young man brooded
continually over his fate. His days were filled with morbid
self-pity, which eventually engendered in his weak and
vacillating mind a hatred for those who had sent him here--
for the very men he had at first inwardly thanked for saving him
from the ignominy of degradation.
He regretted the gay life of Brussels as he never had
regretted the sins which had snatched him from that
gayest of capitals, and as the days passed he came to
center his resentment upon the representative in Congo
land of the authority which had exiled him--his captain
and immediate superior.
This officer was a cold, taciturn man, inspiring little
love in those directly beneath him, yet respected and
feared by the black soldiers of his little command.
Werper was accustomed to sit for hours glaring at his
superior as the two sat upon the veranda of their
common quarters, smoking their evening cigarets in a
silence which neither seemed desirous of breaking.
The senseless hatred of the lieutenant grew at last into a
form of mania. The captain's natural taciturnity he
distorted into a studied attempt to insult him because
of his past shortcomings. He imagined that his
superior held him in contempt, and so he chafed and
fumed inwardly until one evening his madness became
suddenly homicidal. He fingered the butt of the
revolver at his hip, his eyes narrowed and his brows
contracted. At last he spoke.
"You have insulted me for the last time!" he cried,
springing to his feet. "I am an officer and a
gentleman, and I shall put up with it no longer without
an accounting from you, you pig."
The captain, an expression of surprise upon his
features, turned toward his junior. He had seen men
before with the jungle madness upon them--the madness
of solitude and unrestrained brooding, and perhaps a
touch of fever.
He rose and extended his hand to lay it upon the
other's shoulder. Quiet words of counsel were upon his
lips; but they were never spoken. Werper construed his
superior's action into an attempt to close with him.
