The Adventures of Miss Gregory: A Season of Miracles

Timotheo waved her to be silent. "In a season of miracles," he repeated. "We were at the old Mission, recently returned from a journey through the accursed country of M'Kombi, and the fruits of our labor were a malaria and an ague that left of the Padre the mere rag of a man. That Mission--it was built in the old times by folk who had yet to learn of fevers. It squats at the brim of the river, a long, slanting front of old gray stone, and within it is all little damp rooms like tombs. In one of these the Padre had his camp-bed, and on it he would burn and shiver from twelve o'clock to twelve o'clock. It was very melancholy there--nothing to do, nothing to see but the eternal river, no one to talk to. There was a pair of very wild and very timid Kaffirs to cook and clean up; there was the Padre with his teeth chattering like castanbetas; and there was I, solitary among them as a crow in a fowl-run. All day long the gaunt palms wagged their heads and the brown water sli