A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh [87]
holding the calabash. Presently Tony drank some more, screwing up his face and shuddering slightly at the bitterness. Mr. Todd stood beside him until the draught was finished; then he threw out the dregs on to the mud floor. Tony lay back in the hammock sobbing quietly. Soon he fell into a deep sleep. Tony's recovery was slow. At first, days of lucidity alternated with delirium; then his temperature dropped and he was conscious even when most ill. The days of fever grew less frequent, finally occurring in the normal system of the tropics, between long periods of comparative health. Mr. Todd dosed him regularly with herbal remedies. "It's very nasty," said Tony, "but it does do good." "There is medicine for everything in the forest," said Mr. Todd; "to make you well and to make you ill. My mother was an Indian and she taught me many of them. I have learned others from time to time from my wives. There are plants to cure you and give you fever, to kill you and send you mad, to keep away snakes, to intoxicate fish so that you can pick them out of the water with your hands like fruit from a tree. There are medicines even I do not know. They say that it is possible to bring dead people to life after they have begun to stink, but I have not seen it done." "But surely you are English?" "My father was-at least a Barbadian. He came to Guiana as a missionary. He was married to a white woman but he left her in Guiana to look for gold. Then he took my mother. The Pie-wie women are ugly but very devoted. I have had many. Most of the men and women living in this savannah are my children. That is why they obey-for that reason and because I have the gun. My father lived to a great age. It is not twenty years since he died. He was a man of education. Can you read?" "Yes, of course." "It is not everyone who is so fortunate. I cannot." Tony laughed apologetically. "But I suppose you haven't much opportunity here." "Oh yes, that is just it. I have a great many books. I will show you when you are better. Until five years ago there was an Englishman-at least a black man, but he was well educated in Georgetown. He died. He used to read to me every day until he died. You shall read to me when you are better." "I shall be delighted to." "Yes, you shall read to me," Mr. Todd repeated, nodding over the calabash. During the early days of his convalescence Tony had little conversation with his host; he lay in the hammock staring up at the thatched roof and thinking, about Brenda. The days, exactly twelve hours, each, passed without distinction. Mr. Todd retired to sleep at sundown, leaving a little lamp burning-a hand-woven wick drooping from a pot of beef fat-to keep away vampire bats. The first time that Tony left the house Mr. Todd took him for a little stroll around the farm. "I will show you the black man's grave," he said, leading him to a mound between the mango trees. "He was very kind. Every afternoon until he died, for two hours, he used to read to me. I think I will put up a cross-to commemorate his death and your arrival-a pretty idea. Do you believe in God?" "I suppose so. I've never really thought about it much." "I have thought about it a great deal and I still do not know... Dickens did." "I suppose so." "Oh yes, it is apparent in all his books. You will see." That afternoon Mr. Todd began the construction of a headpiece for the Negro's grave. He worked with a large spokeshave in a wood so hard that it grated and rang like metal. At last when Tony had passed six or seven consecutive nights without fever, Mr. Todd said, "Now I think you are well enough to see the books." At one end of the but there was a kind of loft formed by a rough platform erected in the caves of the roof. Mr. Todd propped a ladder against it and mounted. Tony followed, still unsteady after his illness. Mr. Todd sat on the platform and Tony stood at the top of the ladder looking over. There was a heap of small bundles there, tied up with rag, palm leaf and raw hide. "It has been hard to keep out the worms and ants. Two are practically destroyed. But there is an oil