The two men watched the steamer round the bend, then, ascending arm in arm the slope of the bank, returned to the station.  They had been in this vast and dark country only a very short time, and as yet always in the midst of other white men, under the eye and guidance of their superiors.  And now, dull as they were to the subtle influences of surroundings, they felt themselves very much alone, when suddenly left unassisted to face the wilderness; a wilderness rendered more strange, more incomprehensible by the mysterious glimpses of the vigorous life it contained.  They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds.  Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.  The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd:  to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion.  But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart.  To the sentiment of being alone of one’s kind, to the clear perception of the loneliness of one’s thoughts, of one’s sensations—­to the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wise alike.

Kayerts and Carlier walked arm in arm, drawing close to one another as children do in the dark; and they had the same, not altogether unpleasant, sense of danger which one half suspects to be imaginary.  They chatted persistently in familiar tones.  “Our station is prettily situated,” said one.  The other assented with enthusiasm, enlarging volubly on the beauties of the situation.  Then they passed near the grave.  “Poor devil!” said Kayerts.  “He died of fever, didn’t he?” muttered Carlier, stopping short.  “Why,” retorted Kayerts, with indignation, “I’ve been told that the fellow exposed himself recklessly to the sun.  The climate here, everybody says, is not at all worse than at home, as long as you keep out of the sun.  Do you hear that, Carlier?  I am chief here, and my orders are that you should not expose yourself to the sun!” He assumed his superiority jocularly, but his meaning was serious.  The idea that he would, perhaps, have to bury Carlier and remain alone, gave him an inward shiver.  He felt suddenly that this Carlier was more precious to him here, in the centre of Africa, than a brother could be anywhere else.  Carlier, entering into the spirit of the thing, made a military