The League of the Leopard by Harold Bindloss

The weeks that followed left only a hazy impression of hurry, effort, fatigue that was almost overwhelming, and anxiety which spurred wornout mind and body to further action, with the two white men who lived through them. Some of the sick they cured, and though it is possible their lack of knowledge hastened the end of others, their intentions at least were benevolent, and while they often went hungry the convalescent were always fed. They put heart into the hopeless and buried the dead, stormed, exhorted, and jested by turn all day long, and sat watching the worst cases when the hot night fell. Dane was never afterward able to recollect the exact mixtures he dispensed, which Maxwell said was probably fortunate; but as a result of their labors, while all would otherwise have perished, part at least of their followers escaped. They had also capable assistants.

Amadu, Maxwell's man, had fought under a great Emir who had made his name a terror in the Soudan; and Monday, so Dane gathered, had carried the standard of a successful robber chieftain somewhere far up in the land of the brown men who swear by the Prophet; but both had the full courage of their fatalist convictions, and what their masters bade them that they did. The rank and file of the orderlies were thick-headed heathen who grinned each time their leader stormed at them.