" So the "innocent child" seated
himself between the consul and the chartered trader, and they patted
his fat calves and red curls and took his minute hands in their
tanned fists, eying him hungrily, like two cannibals. But the little
boy was quite unconscious and inconsiderate of their hunger, and,
with the cruelty of children, pulled himself free and ran away.
"He was such a nice little kiddie," they said, apologetically, as
though they felt they had been caught in some act of weakness.
"I haven't got a card with me; I haven't needed one for two years,"
said the lieutenant, genially. "But fancy your knowing Sparks! He
has the next station to mine; I'm at one end of the Shire River and
he's at the other; he patrols from Fort Johnson up to the top of the
lake. I suppose you've heard him play the banjo, haven't you? That's
where we hit it off--we're both terribly keen about the banjo. I
suppose if it wasn't for my banjo, I'd go quite off my head down
here. I know Sparks would. You see, I have these chaps at Chinde to
talk to, and up at Tete there's the Portuguese governor, but Sparks
has only six white men scattered along Nyassa for three hundred
miles."
I had heard of Sparks and the six white men. They grew so lonely
that they agreed to meet once a month at some central station and
spend the night together, and they invited Sparks to attend the
second meeting. But when he arrived he found that they had organized
a morphine club, and the only six white men on Lake Nyassa were
sitting around a table with their sleeves rolled up, giving
themselves injections.
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