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He didn't seem particularly scared; he was serious, that's all; his eyes were set in that peculiar, wide-pupiled stare of the man contemplating his own fixed idea. "'No, seh; Ah cain't affawd it, he repeated. "The absurdity of the thing suddenly tingled in me like wine. 'All right! I shouted, in a contagion of insanity; 'all right, take the darned thing! "And I got out.
I must begin to judge again, only it would never do that man any good. "A hundred memories came back to me, glared at me in the illumination of that new fact. I remember the camisa, the bare feet. I saw him running down the lane with his bunch of stolen bananas. I recalled that absurd scene on the waters; I heard him say: 'No, seh; Ah cain't affawd to take chances; Ah cain't affawd it.
"But Miller said, 'Ah cain't affawd to take chances, seh; you must git out. "He spoke calmly, with great seriousness, but without undue emphasis as one enunciating an uncontrovertible natural law. I glanced up into his face, and it was in harmony with his voice.
He would not go, he said it plainly. 'No, seh; Ah cain't take chances; Ah cain't affawd it. He said this without much fire, almost tranquilly, exactly as he had, you remember, at the time of our shipwreck. It was not so amusing now, however. Here, on land, amid this swarming, mysterious hostility, at this crisis, it seemed a shocking betrayal of the solidarity that bound all us white men.
He was sitting upright, staring straight ahead and a little down, as if in careful consideration. As I stepped toward him the pliable bamboo floor undulated; the movement was carried to him and he began to nod, very gently and gravely. He seemed to be saying: 'No, Ah cain't affawd it. It was atrocious. Finally I was by his side and he was again motionless, staring thoughtfully.
He remained seated on his bed, his revolver across his knees, looking straight at some spot on the floor; whenever I'd become particularly effective he'd merely look harder at the spot, as if for him it contained something of higher significance a command, a rule, a precept I don't know what, and then he'd say, 'No, Ah cain't; Ah cain't affawd it. "I burst out of there, a-roar like a bombshell.
"'Ah cain't affawd to take chances; Ah cain't affawd it. Of course he couldn't. "And so he had fought on blindly, stubbornly, and, at last, with that pitiful faculty we have, all of us, of defeating our own plans, he had killed himself, he had killed the capital, the golden goose. "Yes, I found confirmation, but, after all, I did not need it.
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