“Did that bush give you any particular impression?” asked Anscombe a minute or two later.

“Yes,” I answered, “it gave me the impression that we might catch fever there.  See the mist that lies over it,” and turning in my saddle I pointed with the rifle in my hand to what looked like a mass of cotton wool over which, without permeating it, hung the last red glow of sunset, producing a curious and indeed rather unearthly effect.  “I expect that thousands of years ago there was a lake yonder, which is why trees grow so big in the rich soil.”

“You are curiously mundane, Quatermain,” he answered.  “I ask you of spiritual impressions and you dilate to me of geological formations and the growth of timber.  You felt nothing in the spiritual line?”

“I felt nothing except a chill,” I answered, for I was tired and hungry.  “What the devil are you driving at?”

“Have you got that flask of Hollands about you, Quatermain?”

“Oh! those are the spirits you are referring to,” I remarked with sarcasm as I handed it to him.

He took a good pull and replied—­

“Not at all, except in the sense that bad spirits require good spirits to correct them, as the Bible teaches.  To come to facts,” he added in a changed voice, “I have never been in a place that depressed me more than that thrice accursed patch of bush.”

“Why did it depress you?” I asked, studying him as well as I could in the fading light.  To tell the truth I feared lest he had knocked his head when the wildebeeste upset him, and was suffering from delayed concussion.

“Can’t tell you, Quatermain.  I don’t look like a criminal, do I?  Well, I entered those trees feeling a fairly honest man, and I came out of them feeling like a murderer.  It was as though something terrible had happened to me there; it was as though I had killed someone there.  Ugh!” and he shivered and took another pull at the Hollands.

“What bosh!” I said.  “Besides, even if it were to come true, I am sorry to say I’ve killed lots of men in the way of business and they don’t bother me overmuch.”

“Did you ever kill one to win a woman?”

“Certainly not.  Why, that would be murder.  How can you ask me such a thing?  But I have killed several to win cattle,” I reflected aloud, remembering my expedition with Saduko against the chief Bangu, and some other incidents in my career.

“I appreciate the difference, Quatermain.  If you kill for cows, it is justifiable homicide; if you kill for women, it is murder.”

“Yes,” I replied, “that is how it seems to work out in Africa.  You see, women are higher in the scale of creation than cows, therefore crimes committed for their sake are enormously greater than those committed for cows, which just makes the difference between justifiable homicide and murder.”

“Good lord! what an argument,” he exclaimed and relapsed into silence.  Had he been accustomed to natives and their ways he would have understood the point much better than he did, though I admit it is difficult to explain.