I just re read this short story, after more than 30 years. I never forgot it the first time tho. That climactic scene, inspired by Homer's The Iliad, where Achilles chases Hector is reproduced here with excellent results. Here, Kayerts chases and kills Carlier after a trivial dispute for sugar. They are European men working for Belgian company that deal in Ivory from a remote outpost in El Congo. By the time they fight and run endlessly around the run down hut, and Kayerts kills Carlier, just like Achilles finishes Hector in the Iliad, both men are ill and weak by the unsanitary conditions they live in, by a plague. The end is violent, irrational and the two men are simply isolated from the rest of the world sentenced to live side by side with the only companion of a black clerk and his wife. The story also reminds that masterpiece by Celine: Journey To The End of The Night, and, of course, that other little jewel by Conrad himself: Heart Of Darkness.