He was becoming confidential now, but I fancy my unresponsive attitude must have exasperated him at last, for he judged it necessary to inform me he feared neither God nor devil, let alone any mere man. I said I could see that very well, but what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets -- and rivets were what really Mr. Kurtz wanted, if he had only known it. Now letters went to the coast every week...

     "My dear sir," he cried, "I write from dictation."

     I demanded rivets. There was a way -- for an intelligent man. He changed his manner; became very cold, and suddenly began to talk about a hippopotamus; wondered whether sleeping on board the steamer (I stuck to my salvage night and day) I wasn't disturbed. There was an old hippo that had the bad habit of getting out on the bank and roaming at night over the station grounds. The pilgrims used to turn out in a body and empty every rifle they could lay hands on at him. Some even had sat up o' nights for him. All this energy was wasted, though.

     "That animal has a charmed life," he said; "but you can say this only of brutes in this country. No man -- you apprehend me? -- no man here bears a charmed life."