Section 11 Summary

This section begins with the phrase, "Often on my way, I heard the beasts..."

Bardamu makes his way through the jungle with the help of some natives, even being carried at times when he is too sick with malarial fever to walk. The natives deliver him to a priest's hospital in the coastal town of San Tapeta. Bardamu is delirious in bed for a few days, wondering why the natives failed to just throw him in the river or eat him. Barduma soon learns why they did not, when, through his fever, he senses that whatever he is lying on is always in movement. Bardamu also feels the air grow cooler. Bardamu realizes that, while he lay dying, he has been swindled. Bardamu was sold to a sea captain, who hopes to revive him and thus, get a new oarsman. Relatively content to...