Gamba is a fictional character from the horror short story "Winged Death", by H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald.
Biography[]
Gamba was a messenger who worked for Allen, the head factor of the small trading post of M'gonga, close to the Ugandan border. In 1929, Dr. Thomas Slauenwite secretly used him as part of an experiment to test the lethality of the hybridised devil-flies that he intended to use to kill Dr. Moore.
On August 17, Slauenwite arranged so that one of his flies would get loose and bite Gamba, having previously arranged a similar incident for Batta. Slauenwite killed the fly and treated Gamba, for which the latter was grateful. Unbeknownst to all but him, his experiment involved giving actual medicine to Gamba while only pretending to medicate Batta. Accordingly, Batta perished, while Gamba made a full recovery. (HPL: "Winged Death")