A BLACK SCOUNDREL
dred questions, no one of which she could understand or answer.
All that she could do was to point tearfully at the baby, now wailing piteously in her arms, and repeat over and over, "Fever—fever—fever."
The blacks did not understand her words, but they saw the cause of her trouble, and soon a young woman had pulled her into a hut and with several others was doing her poor best to quiet the child and allay its agony.
The witch doctor came and built a little fire before the infant, upon which he boiled some strange concoction in a small earthen pot, making weird passes above it and mumbling strange, monotonous chants. Presently he dipped a zebra's tail into the brew, and with further mutterings and incantations sprinkled a few drops of the liquid over the baby's face.
After he had gone the women sat about and moaned and wailed until Jane thought that she should go mad; but knowing that they were doing it all out of the kindness of their hearts, she endured the frightful waking nightmare of those awful hours in dumb and patient suffering.
It must have been well toward midnight that she became conscious of a sudden commotion in
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