After seven weeks separation, Andrew joins Nell and Fen at Lake Tam. He is overcome by his physical attraction to Nell, especially now that she is less sickly. Andrew is impressed by Nell’s ability to integrate with the tribe: “[S]he with only seven weeks under her belt was more of the Tam than I ever would be of any tribe, no matter how long I stayed” (120). When Andrew, Nell, and Fen gather to have lunch, Andrew faints to the ground.

Written from the perspective of Nell’s notebook, Chapter 12 documents her care for Andrew during his fever. He is delirious and refuses to drink water until she pretends to be his “British battle-axe” (127) mother. Fen grumbles about Andrew turning up sick, but Nell knows that it is because sickness frightens him, owing to his own mother’s death from flu.

While Andrew convalesces, Fen hatches a plan to go back to the Mumbanyo and retrieve a sacred object, whose whereabouts he has discovered. He argues that he and Andrew “could sell it to the museum for a right heap of cash,” stating that the books written about it would eclipse Nell’s: “It would fix us up for life […].