THEPOOLS OF SILENCE

BYH. De VERE STACPOOLE

AUTHOR OF"THE BLUE LAGOON, " "THE CRIMSON AZALEAS, ""GARRYOWEN, " ETC. 

NEW YORKDUFFIELD & COMPANY1910

Copyright, 1910, byDUFFIELD & COMPANY

Published, July, 1910THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

 CHAPTER PAGE I. A Lecture Of Thenard's 3 II. Dr. Duthil 11 III. Captain Berselius 19 IV. Schaunard 30 V. Marseilles 42

PART TWO

 VI. Matadi 51 VII. Yandjali 56 VIII. The Voice Of The Congo Forest 64 IX. Big Game 72 X. M'bassa 80 XI. Andreas Meeus 84 XII. Night at the Fort 94

PART THREE

 XIII. The Pools of Silence 101 XIV. Behind the Mask 110 XV. The Punishment 115 XVI. Due South 123 XVII. Sun-washed Spaces 127 XVIII. Far Into Elephant Land 130 XIX. The Great Herd 140 XX. The Broken Camp 152 XXI. The Feast of the Vultures 159 XXII. The Lost Guide 164 XXIII. Beyond the Skyline 173 XXIV. The Sentence of the Desert 181 XXV. Toward the Sunset 187 XXVI. The Fading Mist 192 XXVII. I Am the Forest 200 XXVIII. God Sends a Guide 204 XXIX. The Vision of the Pools 212

PART FOUR

 XXX. The Avenger 219 XXXI. The Voice of the Forest by Night 230 XXXII. Moonlight on the Pools 236 XXXIII. The River of Gold 245 XXXIV. The Substitute 252 XXXV. Paris 258 XXXVI. Dreams 266 XXXVII. Berselius Beholds His Other Self 273XXXVIII. The Revolt of a Slave 280 XXXIX. Maxine 283 XL. Pugin 296 XLI. The Return of Captain Berselius 304 XLII. Amidst the Lilies 315

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

A LECTURE OF THENARD'S

The sun was setting over Paris, a blood-red and violent-looking sun, likethe face of a bully staring in at the window of a vast chill room. 

The bank of cloud above the west, corrugated by the wind, seemed notunlike the lowermost slats of a Venetian blind; one might have fanciedthat a great finger had tilted them up whilst the red, callous, cruel facetook a last peep at the frost-bitten city, the frost-boundcountry--Montmartre and its windows, winking and bloodshot; Bercy and itsbarges; Notre Dame, where icicles, large as carrots, hung from the lips ofthe gargoyles, and the Seine clipping the _cité_ and flowing to the cleanbut distant sea. 

It was the fourth of January and the last day of Félix Thénard'spost-graduate course of lectures at the Beaujon Hospital. 

Post-graduate lectures are intended not for students, using the word inits limited sense, but for fully fledged men who wish for extra trainingin some special subject, and Thénard, the famous neurologist of theBeaujon, had a class which practically represented the whole continent ofEurope and half the world. Men from Vienna and Madrid, Germany and Japan, London and New York, crowded the benches of his lecture room. Even theRepublic of Liberia was represented by a large gentleman, who seemedcarved from solid night and polished with palm oil. 

Dr. Paul Quincy Adams, one of the representatives of America at thelectures of Thénard, was just reaching the entrance of the Beaujon as thelast rays of sunset were touching the heights of Montmartre and the firstlamps of Paris were springing alight. 

He had walked all the way from his rooms in the Rue Dijon, for omnibuseswere slow and uncomfortable, cabs were dear, and money was, just atpresent, the most unpleasant thing that money can convert itself into--anobject. 

Adams was six feet two, a Vermonter, an American gentleman whose chestmeasurements were big, almost, as his instincts were fine. He had foughthis way up, literally from the soil, putting in terms as seaside _café_waiter to help to pay his college fees; putting aside everything buthonour in his grand struggle to freedom and individual existence, andfinishing his college career with a travelling scholarship which broughthim to Paris. 

Individualism, the thing that lends something of greatness to eachAmerican, but which does not tend to the greatness of the nation, was themainspring of this big man whom Nature had undoubtedly designed with hereye on the vast plains, virgin forests, and unfordable rivers, and acrosswhose shoulder one half divined the invisible axe of the pioneer. 

He was just twenty-three years of age, yet he looked thirty: plain enoughas far as features go, his face was a face to remember in time of trouble. It was of the American type that approximates to the Red Indian, and youguessed the power that lay behind it by the set of the cheek-bones, thebreadth of the chin and the restfulness of the eyes. Like the Red Indian, Paul Quincy Adams was slow of speech. A silent man with his tongue. 

He entered the hospital and passed down a long corridor to the cloakroom, where he left his overcoat and from there, by another corridor, he foundhis way to the swing-door of the lecture theatre. It wanted five minutesto the hour. He peeped over the muffing of the glass; the place was nearlyfull, so he went in and took his seat, choosing one at the right hand endof the first row of the stalls--students' vernacular for the lowest row ofthe theatre benches. 

The theatre was lit with gas. It had whitewashed walls bare as the wallsof a barn; a permanent blackboard faced the audience, and the air wassuffocatingly hot after the crisp, cold air of the streets. It would belike this till about the middle of the lecture, when Alphonse the porterwould pull the rope of the skylight and ventilate the place with an arcticblast. 

This room, which had once been an anatomical theatre, and always a lectureroom, had known the erect form of Lisfranc; the stooping shoulders ofMajendie had cast their shadow on its walls; Flourens had lectured here onthat subject of which he had so profound a knowledge--the brain; theechoes of this room had heard the foundations of Medicine shift andchange, the rank heresies of yesterday voiced as the facts of to-day--and_vice versa_. 

Adams, having opened his notebook and sharpened his pencil, sat listeningto the gas sizzling above his head; then he turned for a moment andglanced at the men behind him: the doctor from Vienna in a broadly braidedfrock-coat with satin facings, betraying himself to all men by the end ofthe clinical thermometer protruding from his waistcoat pocket; the twoJapanese gentlemen--brown, incurious, and inscrutable--men from anotherworld, come to look on; the republican from Liberia, and the rest. Then heturned his head, for the door on the floor of the theatre had opened, giving entrance to Thénard. 

Thénard was a smallish man in a rather shabby frock-coat; his beard wasscant, pointed, and gray-tinged; he had a depressed expression, thegeneral air of a second-rate tradesman on the verge of bankruptcy; and ashe entered and crossed to the _estrade_ where the lecture table stood andthe glass of water, he shouted some words vehemently and harshly toAlphonse, the theatre attendant, who, it seemed, had forgotten to placethe box of coloured chalks on the table--the sacred chalks which thelecturer used for colouring his diagrams on the blackboard. 

One instantly took a dislike to this shabby-looking _bourgeois_, with theharsh, irritable voice, but after awhile, as the lecture went on, oneforgot him. It was not the profundity of the man's knowledge, great thoughit was, that impressed one; or the subtlety of his reasoning or thelucidity of his expression, but his earnestness, his obvious disregard foreverything earthly but Truth. 

This was borne in on one by every expression of his face, every gesture ofhis body, every word and every tone and inflection of his voice. 

This was the twelfth and last lecture of the course. It was on the "BrainConceived as a Machine Pure and Simple. "

It was a cold and pitiless lecture, striking at the root of poetry andromance, speaking of religions, not religion, and utterly ignoring theidea which stands poised like a white-winged Victory over all otherideas--the Soul. 

It was pitiless because it did these things, and it was terrible becauseit was spoken by Thénard, for he was just standing there, a little, oldishman, terribly convincing in his simplicity, absolutely without prejudice, as ready to acknowledge the soul and its attributes as to refuse them, standing there twiddling his horsehair watch-chain, and speaking from theprofundity of his knowledge with, at his elbow, a huge army of facts, instances, and cases, not one of which did not support his logicaldeductions. 

I wish I could print his lecture in full. I can only give some fewsentences taken at haphazard from the peroration. 

"The fundamental basis of all morality can be expressed by the wordsLeft--or Right. 'Shall I take the path to the right, when my child isbeing threatened with death by a pterodactyl, or shall I take the path tothe left when a mastodon is threatening to put a foot on my dinner?'

"The prehistoric man asking himself that question in the dawn of time laidthe foundation of the world's morality. Do we know how he answered it?Yes--undoubtedly he saved his dinner. 

"The prehistoric woman crouching in the ferns, wakened from sleep by thecries of her child on the left and the shouting of her man on the right, found herself face to face with the question, 'Shall I courtself-destruction in attempting to save _It_, or shall I seek safety with_Him_?' Do we know how she answered that question? Undoubtedly she tookthe path to the left. 

"The woman's Right was the man's Left, and she took it not from any motiveof goodness but just because her child appealed to her as powerfully ashis dinner appealed to the man. And which was the nobler instinct? Inprehistoric times, gentlemen, they were both equally noble, for theinstinct of the man was as essential to the fact that you and I are heregathered together in enlightened Paris, as the instinct of the woman. 

"Right or Left? That is still the essence of morals--all the rest isembroidery. Whilst I am talking to you now, service is being held at theMadeleine, the Bourse is closed (looking at his watch), but other gaminghouses are opening. The _Café de Paris_ is filling, the Little Sisters ofthe Poor are visiting the sick. 

"We feel keenly that some people are doing good and some people are doingevil. We wonder at the origin of it all, and the answer comes from theprehistoric forest. 

"'I am Determination. I can choose the Right or I can choose the Left. Whilst dwelling in the man's heart my choice lies _that_ way, in thewoman's heart _that_ way. 

"'I am not religion, but between the man and the woman I have created anessential antagonism of motive which will be the basis of all futurereligions and systems of ethics. I have already dimly demarcated a linebetween ferocity and greed, and a thing which has yet no name, but whichwill in future ages be called Love. 

"'_I_ am a constant quantity, but the dim plan I have traced in theplastic brain will be used by the ever-building years; spires and domesshall fret the skies, priests unroll their scrolls of papyri, infinitedevelopments of the simple basic Right and Left laid down by me shallcombine to build a Pantheon of a million shrines to a million gods--whoare yet only three: the tramp of the mastodon, the cry of the child in thepterodactyl's grip, and myself, who in future years shall be the onlysurviving god of the three--Determination. '

 * * * * *

"The Pineal Gland had no known function, so Descartes declared it to bethe seat of the soul. 'There is nothing in here. Let us put something in, 'and he put in the idea of the soul. That was the old method. 

"Morphology teaches us now that the Pineal Gland is the last vestige of aneye which once belonged to a reptile long extinct. That is the new method;the results are not so pretty, but they are more exact. "

 * * * * *

"You have finished your post-graduate work, and I suppose you are about toleave Paris like the others. Have you any plans?"

The lecture was over, the audience was pouring out of the theatre, andAdams was talking to Thénard, whom he knew personally. 

"Well, no, " said Adams. "None very fixed just at present. Of course Ishall practise in my own country, but I can't quite see the opening yet. "

CHAPTER II

DR. DUTHIL

Thénard, with his case-book and a bundle of papers under his arm, stoodfor a moment in thought. Then he suddenly raised his chin. 

"How would you like to go on a big-game shooting expedition to theCongo?"

"Ask a child would it like pie, " said the American, speaking in English. Then, in French, "Immensely, monsieur. Only it is impossible. "

"Why?"

"Money. "

"Ah, that's just it, " said Thénard. "A patient of mine, Captain Berselius, is starting on a big-game shooting expedition to the Congo. He requires amedical man to accompany him, and the salary is two thousand francs amonth and all things found----"

Adams's eyes lit up. 

"Two thousand a month!"

"Yes; he is a very rich man. His wife is a patient of mine. When I wasvisiting her yesterday the Captain put the thing before me--in fact, gaveme _carte blanche_ to choose for him. He requires the services of amedical man--an Englishman if possible----"

"But I'm an American, " said Adams. 

"It is the same thing, " replied Thénard, with a little laugh. "You are allbig and strong and fond of guns and danger. "

He had taken Adams by the arm and was leading him down the passage towardthe entrance hall of the hospital. 

"The primitive man is strong in you all, and that is why you are so vitaland important, you Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Celts, and Anglo-Teutons. Come inhere. "

He opened the door of one of the house-surgeon's rooms. 

A youngish looking man, with a straw-coloured beard, was seated before thefire, with a cigarette between his lips. 

He rose to greet Thénard, was introduced to Adams, and, drawing an oldcouch a bit from the wall, he bade his guests be seated. 

The armchair he retained himself. One of the legs was loose, and he wasthe only man in the Beaujon who had the art of sitting on it withoutsmashing it. This he explained whilst offering cigarettes. 

Thénard, like many another French professor, unofficially was quite onewith the students. He would snatch a moment from his work to smoke acigarette with them; he would sometimes look in at their little parties. Ihave seen him at a birthday party where the cakes and ale, to say nothingof the cigarettes and the unpawned banjo, were the direct products of apawned microscope. I have seen him, I say, at a party like this, drinkinga health to the microscope as the giver of all the good things on thetable--he, the great Thénard, with an income of fifteen to twenty thousandpounds a year, and a reputation solid as the four massive text-books thatstood to his name. 

"Duthil, " said Thénard, "I have secured, I believe, a man for our friendBerselius. " He indicated Adams with a half laugh, and Dr. Duthil, turningin his chair, regarded anew the colossus from the States. The great, large-hewn, cast-iron visaged Adams, beside whom Thénard looked like ashrivelled monkey and Duthil like a big baby with a beard. 

"Good, " said Duthil. 

"A better man than Bauchardy, " said Thénard. 

"Much, " replied Duthil. 

"Who, then, was Bauchardy?" asked Adams, amused rather by the way in whichthe two others were discussing him. 

"Bauchardy?" said Duthil. "Why, he was the last man Berselius killed. "

"Silence, " said Thénard, then turning to Adams, "Berselius is a perfectlystraight man. On these hunting expeditions of his he invariably takes adoctor with him; he is not a man who fears death in the least, but he hashad bitter experience of being without medical assistance, so he takes adoctor. He pays well and is entirely to be trusted to do the right thing, as far as money goes. On that side the contract is all right. But there isanother side--the character of Berselius. A man, to be the companion ofCaptain Berselius, needs to be big and strong in body and mind, or hewould be crushed by the hand of Captain Berselius. Yes, he is a terribleman in a way--_un homme affreux_--a man of the tiger type--and he is goingto the country of the big baboons, where there is the freedom of actionthat the soul of such a man desires----"

"In fact, " said Adams, "he is a villain, this Captain Berselius?"

"Oh, no, " said Thénard, "not in the least. Be quiet, Duthil, you do notknow the man as I do. I have studied him; he is a Primitive----"

"An Apache, " said Duthil. "Come, dear master, confess that from the momentyou heard that this Berselius was intent on another expedition, youdetermined to throw a foreigner into the breach. 'No more French doctors, if possible, ' said you. Is not that so?"

Thénard laughed the laugh of cynical confession, buttoning his overcoat atthe same time and preparing to go. 

"Well, there may be something in what you say, Duthil. However, there theoffer is--a sound one financially. Yes. I must say I dread that twothousand francs a month will prove a fatal attraction, and, if Mr. Adamsdoes not go, some weaker man will. Well, I must be off. "

"One moment, " said Adams. "Will you give me this man's address? I don'tsay I will take the post, but I might at least go and see him. "

"Certainly, " replied Thénard, and taking one of his own cards from hispocket, he scribbled on the back of it--

 CAPTAIN ARMAND BERSELIUS 14 AVENUE MALAKOFF

Then he went off to a consultation at the Hotel Bristol on a Balkanprince, whose malady, hitherto expressed by evil living, had suddenlytaken an acute and terrible turn and Adams found himself alone with Dr. Duthil. 

"That is Thénard all over, " said Duthil. "He is the high priest ofmodernism. He and all the rest of the neurologists have divided updevilment into provinces, and labelled each province with names all endingin _enia_ or _itis_. Berselius is a Primitive, it seems; this Balkanprince is--I don't know what they call him--sure to be something Latin, which does not interfere in the least with the fact that he ought to beboiled alive in an antiseptic solution. Have another cigarette. "

"Do you know anything special against Captain Berselius?" asked Adams, taking the cigarette. 

"I have never even seen the man, " replied Duthil, "but from what I haveheard, he is a regular buccaneer of the old type, who values human lifenot one hair. Bauchardy, that last doctor he took with him, was a friendof mine. Perhaps that is why I feel vicious about the man, for he killedBauchardy as sure as I didn't. "

"Killed him?"

"Yes; with hardship and overwork. "

"Overwork?"

"_Mon Dieu_, yes. Dragged him through swamps after his infernal monkeysand tigers, and Bauchardy died in the hospital at Marseilles of spinalmeningitis, brought on by the hardships of the expedition--died as mad asBerselius himself. "

"As mad as Berselius?"

"Yes; this infernal Berselius seemed to have infected him with his ownhunting fever, and Bauchardy--_mon Dieu_, you should have seen him duringhis illness, shooting imaginary elephants, and calling for Berselius. "

"What I want to get at is this, " said Adams. "Was Bauchardy driven intothese swamps you speak of, and made to hunt against his will--treatedcruelly, in fact--or did Berselius take his own share of the hardships?"

"His own share! Why, from what I can understand, he did all the hunting. Aman of iron with the ferocity of a tiger--a very devil, who made othersfollow him as poor Bauchardy did, to his death----"

"Well, " said Adams, "this man interests me somehow, and I intend to have alook at him. "

"The pay is good, " said Duthil, "but I have warned you fully, if Thénardhasn't. Good evening. "

The Rue Dijon, where Adams lived, was a good way from the Beaujon. He madehis way there on foot, studying the proposition as he went. 

The sporting nature of the proposal coming from the sedate Thénard rathertickled him. 

"He wants to pit me against this Berselius, " said Adams to himself, "sameas if we were dogs. That's the long and short of it. Yes, I can understandhis meaning in part; he's afraid if Berselius engages some week-kneedindividual, he'll give the weak-kneed individual more than he can take. Hewants to stick a six-foot Yankee in the breach, instead of a five-footfroggie, all absinthe and cigarette ends. Well, he was frank, at allevents. Hum, I don't like the proposition--and yet there'ssomething--there's something--there's something about it I _do_ like. Thenthere's the two thousand francs a month, and not a penny out of pocket, and there's the Congo, and the guggly-wuggly alligators, and the great bighairy apes, and the feel of a gun in one's hand again. Oh, my!"

"All the same, it's funny, " he went on, as he drew near the Boulevard St. Michel. "When Thénard spoke of Berselius there was something more thanabsence of friendship in his tone. Can old man Thénard have a down on thisBerselius and does he in his heart of hearts imagine that by allotting P. Quincy Adams to the post of physician extraordinary to the expedition, hewill get even with the Captain? My friend, remember that hymn the EnglishSalvationists were yelling last Sunday outside the American PresbyterianChurch in the Rue de Berry--'Christian, walk carefully, danger is near. 'Not a bad motto for Paris, and I will take it. "

He walked into the _Café d'Italie_, which, as everyone knows, is next toMouton's, the pork shop, on the left-hand side of the Boul' Miche, as yougo from the Seine; called for a boc, and then plunged into a game ofdominoes with an art student in a magenta necktie, whom he had never metbefore, and whom, after the game, he would, a million to one, never meetagain. 

That night, when he had blown out his candle, he reviewed Thénard'sproposition in the dark. The more he looked at it the more attraction ithad for him, and--"Whatever comes of it, " said he to himself, "I will goand see this Captain Berselius to-morrow. The animal seems worth thetrouble of inspection. "

CHAPTER III

CAPTAIN BERSELIUS

Next morning was chill and a white Seine mist wrapped Paris in its folds. It clung to the trees of the Avenue Champs Elysées, and it half veiled theAvenue Malakoff as Adams's _fiacre_ turned into that thoroughfare and drewup at No. 14, a house with a carriage drive, a porter's lodge, andwrought-iron gates. 

The American paid off his cab, rang at the porter's lodge, was instantlyadmitted, and found himself in an enormous courtyard domed in with glass. He noted the orange and aloe trees growing in tubs of porcelain, as theporter led him to the big double glass doors giving entrance to thehouse. 

"He's got the money, " thought Adams, as the glass swing-door was opened bya flunkey as magnificent as a Lord Mayor's footman, who took the visitor'scard and the card of M. Thénard and presented them to a functionary with alarge pale face, who was seated at a table close to the door. 

This personage, who was as soberly dressed as an archbishop, and hadaltogether a pontifical air, raised himself to his feet and approached thevisitor. 

"Has monsieur an appointment----"

"No, " said Adams. "I have come to see your master on business. You cantake him my card--yes, that one--Dr. Adams, introduced by Dr. Thénard. "

The functionary seemed perplexed; the early hour, the size of the visitor, his decided manner, all taken together, were out of routine. Only for amoment he hesitated, then leading the way across the warm andflower-scented hall, he opened a door and said, "Will monsieur take aseat?" Adams entered a big room, half library, half museum; the doorclosed behind him, and he found himself alone. 

The four walls of the room showed a few books, but were mostly coveredwith arms and trophies of the chase. Japanese swords in solid ivoryscabbards, swords of the old Samurai so keen that a touch of the edgewould divide a suspended hair. Malay krisses, double-handed Chineseexecution swords; old pepper-pot revolvers, such as may still be found onthe African coast; knob-kerries, assegais, steel-spiked balls swingingfrom whips of raw hide; weapons wild and savage and primitive as thosewith which Attila drove before him the hordes of the Huns, and modernweapons of to-day and yesterday; the big elephant gun which has beensupplanted by the express rifle; the deadly magazine rifle, the latestproducts of Schaunard of the Rue de la Paix and Westley Richards ofLondon. 

Adams forgot time as he stood examining these things; then he turned hisattention to the trophies, mounted by Borchard of Berlin, that prince oftaxidermists. Here stood a great ape, six feet and over--_monstrumhorrendum_--head flung back, mouth open, shouting aloud to the imaginationof the gazer in the language that was spoken ere the earliest man liftedhis face to the chill mystery of the stars. In the right fist was clutchedthe branch of a M'bina tree, ready lifted to dash your brains out--thewhole thing a miracle of the taxidermist's art. Here crawled an alligatoron a slab of granitic rock; an alligator--that is to say, the despair ofthe taxidermist--for you can make nothing out of an alligator; alive andnot in motion he looks stuffed, stuffed, he looks just the same. Hartbeest, reedbuck, the maned and huge-eared roan antelope, gazelle, andbush-buck, all were here, skull or mask, dominated by the vast head of thewildebeest, with ponderous sickle-curved horns. 

Adams had half completed the tour of the walls when the door of thelibrary opened and Captain Berselius came in. Tall, black-bearded andferocious looking--that was the description of man Adams was prepared tomeet. But Captain Berselius was a little man in a frock-coat, rather worn, and slippers. He had evidently been in _négligé_ and, to meet the visitor, slipped into the frock-coat, or possibly he was careless, taken up withabstractions, dreams, business affairs, plans. He was rather stout, withan oval, egg-shaped face; his beard, sparse and pointed and tinged withgray, had originally been light of hue; he had pale blue eyes, and he hada perpetual smile. 

It is to be understood by this that Captain Berselius's smile was, so tospeak, hung on a hair-trigger; there was always a trace of it on his faceround the lips, and in conversation it became accentuated. 

At first sight, during your first moments of meeting with CaptainBerselius, you would have said, "What a happy-faced and jolly littleman!"

Adams, completely taken aback by the apparition before him, bowed. 

"I have the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Adams, introduced by Dr. Thénard?"said Captain Berselius, motioning the visitor to a chair. "Pray take aseat, take a seat--yes----" He took a seat opposite the American, crossedhis legs in a comfortable manner, caressed his chin, and whilst chattingon general subjects stared full at the newcomer, as though Adams had beena statue, examining him, without the least insolence, but in that thoroughmanner with which a purchaser examines the horse he is about to buy or thephysician of an insurance company a proposer. 

It was now that Adams felt he had to deal with no common man in CaptainBerselius. 

Never before had he conversed with a person so calmly authoritative, soperfectly at ease, and so commanding. This little commonplace-looking, negligently dressed man, talking easily in his armchair, made the spaciousAdams feel small and of little account in the world. Captain Berseliusfilled all the space. He was _the_ person in that room; Adams, though hehad personality enough, was nowhere. And now he noticed that the perpetualsmile of the Captain had no relation to mirth or kindliness, it was notworn as a mask, for Captain Berselius had no need for masks; it was amysterious and unaccountable thing that was there. 

"You know M. Thénard intimately?" said Captain Berselius, turning suddenlyfrom some remarks he was making on the United States. 

"Oh, no, " said Adams. "I have attended his clinics; beyond that----"

"Just so, " said the other. "Are you a good shot?"

"Fair, with the rifle. "

"You have had to do with big game?"

"I have shot bear. "

"These are some of my trophies, " said the Captain, rising to his feet. Hetook his stand before the great ape and contemplated it for a moment. "Ishot him near M'Bassa on the West Coast two years ago. The natives at thevillage where we were camping said there was a big monkey in a tree nearby. They seemed very much frightened, but they led me to the tree. He knewwhat a gun was; he knew what a man was, too. He knew that his hour ofdeath had arrived, and he came roaring out of the tree to meet me. Butwhen he was on the ground, with the muzzle of my Mannlicher two yards fromhis head, all his rage vanished. He saw death, and to shut out the sighthe put his big hands before his face----"

"And you?"

"I shot him through the heart. This room does not represent all my work. The billiard room and the hall contain many of my trophies; they areinteresting to me, for each has a history. That tiger skin there in frontof the fireplace once covered a thing very much alive. He was a full-sizedbrute, and I met him in a rice field near Benares. I had not even time toraise my gun when he charged. Then I was on my back and he was on top ofme. He had overshot the mark a bit--I was not even scratched. I laylooking up at his whiskers; they seemed thick as quills, and I countedthem. I was dead to all intents and purposes, so I felt no fear. That wasthe lesson this gentleman taught me; it is as natural to be dead as to bealive. I have never been afraid of death since. Well, something must havedistracted his attention and frightened him, for he lifted himself, passedover me like a cloud, and was gone. Well, so much for the tiger. And nowfor business. Are you prepared to act as medical attendant to my newexpedition?"

"Well, " said Adams, "I would like a little time to consider----"

"Certainly, " said Captain Berselius, taking out his watch. "I will giveyou five minutes, as a matter of form. Thénard, in a note to me thismorning, informs me he has given you all details as to salary. "

"Yes, he gave me the details. As you give me so short a time to make mydecision about you, I suppose you have already made your decision aboutme?"

"Absolutely, " said Berselius. "Two minutes have passed. Why waste theother three? For you have already made up your mind to come. "

Adams sat down in a chair for a moment, and in that moment he did a greatdeal of thinking. 

He had never met a man before at all like Berselius. He had never beforecome across a man with such a tremendous personality. Berselius fascinatedyet repelled him. That there was evil in this man he felt, but he feltalso that there was good. Much evil and much good. And beyond this hedivined an animal ferocity latent--the ferocity of a tiger--a cold andpitiless and utterly divorced from reason ferociousness, the passion of aprimitive man, who had never known law except the law of the axe wieldedby the strongest. And yet there was something in the man that he liked. Heknew by Berselius's manner that if he did not take the offer now, he wouldlose it. He reckoned with lightning swiftness that the expedition wouldbring him in solid cash enough to start in a small way in the States. Hewas as poor as Job, as hungry for adventure as a schoolboy, and he onlyhad a moment to decide in. 

"How many men are making up your party?" suddenly asked Adams. 

"You and I alone, " replied Berselius, putting his watch in his pocket toindicate that the time was almost expired. 

"I will come, " said Adams, and it seemed to him that he said the wordsagainst his will. 

Captain Berselius went to a writing table, took a sheet of paper and wrotecarefully and with consideration for the space of some five minutes. Thenhe handed the paper to Adams. "These are the things you want, " said he. "Iam an old campaigner in the wilds, so you will excuse me for specifyingthem. Go for your outfit where you will, but for your guns to Schaunard, for he is the best. Order all accounts to be sent in to my secretary, M. Pinchon. He will settle them. Your salary you can take how you will. If itis useful to you, I can give you a cheque now on the Crédit Lyonnais, ifyou will state the amount. "

"Thank you, thank you, " said Adams. "I have quite sufficient money for myneeds, and, if it is the same to you, I would rather pay for my outfitmyself. "

"As you please, " said Captain Berselius, quite indifferently. "ButSchaunard's account and the account for drugs and instruments you willplease send to M. Pinchon; they are part of the expedition. And now, "looking at his watch, "will you do me the pleasure of staying to_déjeuner_?"

Adams bowed. 

"I will notify you to-night at your address the exact date we start, " saidCaptain Berselius as he led the way from the room. "It will be within afortnight. My yacht is lying at Marseilles, and will take us to Matadi, which will be our base. She will be faster than the mail-boats and verymuch more comfortable. "

They crossed the hall, Captain Berselius opened a door, motioned hiscompanion to enter, and Adams found himself in a room, half morning room, half boudoir. A bright log fire was burning, and on either side of thefireplace two women--a girl of about eighteen and a woman of thirty-fiveor so--were seated. 

The elder woman, Madame Berselius, a Parisienne, pale, stout, yetwell-proportioned, with almond-shaped eyes; full lips exquisitely cut inthe form of the true cupid's bow; and with a face vigorous enough, butveiled by an expression at once mulish, blindish, and indolent--was atype. 

The type of the poodle woman, the parasite. With the insolent expressionof a Japanese lady of rank, an insult herself to the human race, you willsee her everywhere in the highest social ranks of society. At theZoölogical Gardens of Madrid on a Sunday, when the grandees of Spain taketheir pleasure amidst the animals at Longchamps, in Rotten Row, WashingtonSquare, Unter den Linden, wherever money is, growing like an evil fungus, she flourishes. 

Opposite Madame Berselius sat her daughter, Maxine. 

Adams, after his first glance at the two women, saw only Maxine. 

Maxine had golden-brown hair, worn after the fashion of Cléo de Mérode's, gray eyes, and a wide mouth, with pomegranate-red lips. Goethe's dictumthat the highest beauty is unobtainable without something of disproportionwas exemplified in the case of Maxine Berselius. "Her mouth is too wide, "said the women, who, knowing nothing of the philosophy of art, hit uponthe defect that was Maxine's main charm. 

Berselius introduced Adams to his wife and daughter, and scarcely had hedone so than a servant, in the blue-and-gold livery of the house, flungopen the door and announced that _déjeuner_ was served. 

Adams scarcely noticed the room into which they passed; a room whosescheme of colour was that watery green which we associate with the sceneryof early spring, the call of the cuckoo, and the river echoes where theweir foams and the willow droops. 

The tapestry hanging upon the walls did not distract from this scheme. Taken from some château of Provence, and old almost as the story ofNicolete, it showed ladies listening to shepherds who played on flutes, capering lambs, daffodils blowing to the winds of early spring under a skygray and broken by rifts of blue. 

Adams scarcely noticed the room, or the tapestry, or the food placedbefore him; he was entirely absorbed by two things, Maxine and CaptainBerselius. 

Berselius's presence at the table evidently cast silence and a cloak ofrestraint upon the women. You could see that the servants who served himdreaded him to the very tips of their fingers, and, though he was chattingeasily and in an almost paternal manner, his wife and daughter had almostthe air of children, nervous, and on their very best behaviour. This wasnoticeable, especially, in Madame Berselius. The beautiful, indolent, arrogant face became a very humble face indeed when she turned it on theman who was evidently, literally, her lord and master. Maxine, thoughoppressed by the presence, wore a different air; she seemed abstracted andutterly unconscious of what a beautiful picture she made against theold-world tapestry of spring. 

Her eyes sometimes met the American's. They scarcely spoke to each otheronce during the meal, yet their eyes met almost as frequently as thoughthey had been conversing. As a matter of fact, Adams was a new type of manto her, and on that account interesting; very different was this son ofAnak, with the restful, forceful face, to the curled and scented dandiesof the Chaussée d'Antin, the "captains with the little moustaches, " thefrequenters of the _foyer de Ballet_, the cigarette-dried mummies of theGrand Club. It was like the view of a mountain to a person who had onlyknown hills. 

Maxine, in her turn, was a new type of woman to Adams. This perfect flowerfrom the Parisian hot-house was the rarest and most beautiful thing he hadmet in the way of womanhood. She seemed to him a rose only just unfolded, unconscious of its own freshness and beauty as of the dew upon its petals, and saying to the world, by the voice of its own loveliness, "Behold me!"

"Well, " said Captain Berselius, as he took leave of his guest in thesmoking room, "I will let you know to-night the day and hour of ourdeparture. All my business in Paris will be settled this afternoon. Youhad better come and see me the day before we start, so that we can makeour last arrangements. _Au revoir. _"

CHAPTER IV

SCHAUNARD

The young man turned down the Avenue Malakoff, after he had leftBerselius's house, in the direction of the Avenue des Champs Elysées. 

In twenty-four hours a complete change had taken place in his life. Hisline of travel had taken a new and most unexpected course; it was asthough a train on the North German had, suddenly, by some mysteriousarrangement of points and tracks, found itself on the Paris-Lyons andMediterranean Railway. 

Yesterday afternoon the prospect before him, though vague enough, wasAmerican. A practice in some big central American town. It would be a hardfight, for money was scanty, and in medicine, especially in the States, advertisement counts for very much. 

All that was changed now, and the hard, definite prospect that had elboweditself out of vagueness stood before him: Africa, its palms and poisonousforests, the Congo--Berselius. 

Something else besides these things also stood before him very definitelyand almost casting them into shade. Maxine. 

Up to this, a woman had never stood before him as a possible part of hisfuture, if we except Mary Eliza Summers, the eleven-year-old daughter ofold Abe Summers, who kept the store in Dodgeville, Vermont, yearsago--that is to say, when Paul Quincy Adams was twelve, an orchard-robbinghooligan, whose chief worry in life was that, though he could thrash hiseldest brother left-handed, he was condemned by the law of entail to wearhis old pants. 

When a man falls in love with a woman--really in love--though theattainment of his desire be all but impossible, he has reached the goal oflife; no tide can take him higher toward the Absolute. He has reachedlife's zenith, and never will he rise higher, even though he live to wielda sceptre or rule armies. 

Adams reached the Place de la Concorde on foot, walking and taking his waymechanically, and utterly unconscious of the passers-by. 

He was studying in minute detail Maxine Berselius, the pose of her headoutlined against the tapestry, the curves of her lips that could speak sowell without speaking, the little shell-like ears, the brown-gold coils ofher hair, her hands, her dress. 

He was standing undetermined as to his route, and whether he would crossover to the Rue St. Honoré or turn toward the Seine, when someone grippedhis arm from behind, and, turning, he found himself face to face with Dr. Stenhouse, an English physician who had set up in Paris, practising in theBoulevard Haussmann and flourishing exceedingly. 

"Well, this is luck, " said Stenhouse. "I lost your address, or I wouldhave written, asking you to come and see us. I remembered it was over onthe other side of the water somewhere, but where exactly I could notremember. What are you doing with yourself?"

"Nothing, just at present. "

"Well, see here. I'm going to the Rue du Mont Thabor to see a patient;walk along with me--it's quite close, just behind the Rue St. Honoré. "

They crossed the Place de la Concorde. 

"You have finished your post-graduate work, I expect, " said Stenhouse. "Are you going to practise in the States?"

"Ultimately, I may, " replied Adams. "I have always intended doing so; butI have to feel my way very cautiously, for the money market is not in aparticularly flourishing state with me. "

"Good heavens!" said Stenhouse, "when is it with a medical man, especiallywhen he is just starting? I've been through that. See here, why don't youstart in Paris?"

"Paris?"

"Yes, this is the place to make money. You say you are thinking ofstarting in some American city; well, let me tell you, there are very fewAmerican cities so full of rich Americans as Paris. "

"Well, " said Adams, "the idea is not a bad one, but just for the present Iam fixed. I am going on a big-game shooting expedition to the Congo. "

"As doctor?"

"Yes, and the salary is not bad--two thousand francs a month andeverything found, to say nothing of the fun. "

"And the malaria?"

"Oh, one has to run risks. "

"Whom are you going with?"

"A man called Berselius. "

"Not Captain Berselius?" asked Stenhouse, stopping dead. 

"Yes, Captain Berselius, of No. 14 Avenue Malakoff. I have just returnedfrom having _déjeuner_ with him. "

Stenhouse whistled. They were in the Rue du Mont Thabor by this, in frontof a small _café_. 

"Well, " said Adams, "what's wrong?"

"Everything, " replied the other. "This is the house where my patientlives. Wait for me, for a moment, like a good fellow. I shan't detain youlong, and then we can finish our talk, for I have something to tell you. "

He darted into the _café_ and Adams waited, watching the passers-by andsomewhat perturbed in mind. Stenhouse's manner impressed himuncomfortably, for, if Captain Berselius had been the devil, theEnglishman could not have put more disfavour into his tone. And he (Adams)had made a compact with Captain Berselius. 

The Rue du Mont Thabor is a somewhat gloomy little street, and it fittedAdams's mood as he waited, watching the passers-by and the small affairsof the little shops. 

At the end of five minutes Stenhouse returned. 

"Well?" said Adams. 

"I have had no luncheon yet, " replied Stenhouse. "I have been so rushed. Come with me to a little place I know in the Rue St. Honoré, where I canget a cup of tea and a bun. We will talk then. "

"Now, " said Stenhouse, when he was seated at a little marble-topped tablewith the cup of tea and the bun before him. "You say you have engagedyourself to go to the Congo with Captain Berselius. "

"Yes. What do you know about him?"

"That's just the difficulty. I can only say this, and it's betweenourselves, the man's name is a byword for a brute and a devil. "

"That's cheerful, " said Adams. 

"Mind you, " said Stenhouse, "he is in the very best society. I have methim at a reception at the Elysée. He goes everywhere. He belongs to thebest clubs; he's a _persona grata_ at more courts than one, and anintimate friend of King Leopold of Belgium. His immense wealth, or part ofit, comes from the rubber industry--motor tires and so forth. And he's madafter big game. That's his pleasure--killing. He's a killer. That is thebest description of the man. The lust of blood is in him, and theastounding thing, to my mind, is that he is not a murderer. He has killedtwo men in duels, and they say that it is a sight to see him fighting. Mind you, when I say 'murderer, ' I do not mean to imply that he is a manwho would murder for money. Give the devil his due. I mean that he isquite beyond reason when aroused, and if you were to hit Captain Berseliusin the face he would kill you as certain as I'll get indigestion from thatbun I have just swallowed. The last doctor he took with him to Africa diedat Marseilles from the hardships he went through--not at the hands ofBerselius, for that would have aroused inquiry, but simply from thehardships of the expedition; but he gave frightful accounts to thehospital authorities of the way this Berselius had treated the natives. Hedrove that expedition right away from Libreville, in the French Congo, toGod knows where. He had it under martial law the whole time, clubbing andthrashing the niggers at the least offence, and shooting with his own handtwo of them who tried to desert. "

"You must remember, " said Adams, taking up the cudgels for Berselius andalmost surprised himself at so doing, "that an expedition like that, if itis not held together by a firm hand, goes to pieces, and the result isdisaster for everyone. And you know what niggers are. "

"There you are, " laughed Stenhouse. "The man has obsessed you already, andyou'll come back, if you go, like Bauchardy, the man who died in thehospital at Marseilles, cursing Berselius, yet so magnetized by the powerof the chap that you would be ready to follow him again if he said 'Come, 'and you had the legs to stand on. That is how Bauchardy was. "

"The man, undoubtedly, has a great individuality, " said Adams. "Passinghim in the street one might take him for a very ordinary person. Meetinghim for the first time, he looks all good nature; that smile----"

"Always, " said Stenhouse. "Beware of a man with a perpetual smile on hisface. "

"Yes, I know that, but this smile of Berselius's is not worn as a cloak. It seems quite natural to the man, yet somehow bad, as if it came from aprofound and natural cynicism directed against all things--including allthings good. "

"You have put it, " said Stenhouse, "in four words. "

"But, in spite of everything, " said Adams, "I believe the man to havegreat good qualities: some instinct tells me so. "

"My dear sir, " said Stenhouse, "did you ever meet a bad man worth twopenceat his trade who had not good qualities? The bad man who is half good--soto speak--is a much more dangerous villain than the barrier bully withoutheart or soul. When hell makes a super-excellent devil, the devil putsgoodness in just as a baker puts soda in his bread to make it rise. Lookat Verlaine. "

"Well, " said Adams, "I have promised Berselius, and I will have to go. Besides, there are other considerations. "

He was thinking of Maxine, and a smile lit up his face. 

"You seem happy enough about it, " said Stenhouse, rising to go. "Well, 'hewho will to Cupar maun to Cupar. ' When do you start?"

"I don't know yet, but I shall hear to-night. "

They passed out into the Rue St. Honoré, where they parted. 

"Good luck, " said Stenhouse, getting into a _fiacre_. 

"Good-bye, " replied Adams, waving his hand. 

Being in that quarter of the town, and having nothing especial to do, hedetermined to go to Schaunard's in the Rue de la Paix, and see about hisguns. 

Schaunard personally superintends his own shop, which is the firstgun-shop on the Continent of Europe. Emperors visit him in person and hereceives them as an equal, though far superior to them in the science ofsport. An old man now, with a long white beard, he remembers thefowling-pieces and rifles which he supplied to the Emperor Maximilianbefore that unfortunate gentleman started on his fatal expedition insearch of a throne. He is a mathematician as well as a maker of guns; histelescopic sights and wind gauges are second to none in the world, and hisshop front in the Rue de la Paix exposes no wares--it has just a wireblind, on which are blazoned the arms of Russia, England, and Spain. 

But, inside, the place is a joy to a rightly constituted man. Behind glasscases the long processions of guns and rifles, smooth, sleek, nut-brownand deadly, are a sight for the eyes of a sportsman. 

The duelling pistol is still a factor in Continental life, and the casescontaining them at Schaunard's are worth lingering over, for the modernduelling pistol is a thing of beauty, very different from the murderoushair-trigger machines of Count Considine--though just as deadly. 

To Schaunard, pottering amongst his wares, appeared Adams. 

The swing-door closed, shutting out the sound of the Rue de la Paix, andthe old gun-merchant came forward through the silence of his shop to meethis visitor. 

Adams explained his business. He had come to buy some rifles for abig-game expedition. Captain Berselius had recommended him. 

"Ah! Captain Berselius?" said Schaunard, and an interested look came intohis face. "True, he is a customer of mine. As a matter of fact, his gunsfor his new expedition are already boxed and directed for Marseilles. Ah, yes--you require a complete outfit, I suppose?"

"Yes, " said Adams. "I am going with him. "

"Going with Captain Berselius as a friend?"

"No, as a doctor. "

"True, he generally takes a doctor with him, " said Schaunard, running hisfingers through his beard. "Have you had much experience amidst big game, and can you make out your own list of requirements, or shall I help youwith my advice?"

"I should be very glad of your advice. No, I have not had much experiencein big-game shooting. I have shot bears, that's all----"

"Armand!" cried Schaunard, and a pale-faced young man came forward fromthe back part of the shop. 

"Open me this case. "

Armand opened a case, and the deft hand of the old man took down adouble-barrelled cordite rifle, light-looking and of exquisiteworkmanship. 

"These are the guns we shoot elephants with nowadays, " said Schaunard, handling the weapon lovingly. "A child could carry it, and there isnothing living it will not kill. " He laughed softly to himself, and thendirected Armand to bring forward an elephant gun of the old pattern. In aninstant the young man returned, staggering under the weight of the immenserifle, shod with a heel of india-rubber an inch thick. 

Adams laughed, took the thing up with one hand, and raised it to hisshoulder as though it had been a featherweight. 

"Ah!" said he, "here's a gun worth shooting with. "

Schaunard looked on with admiration at the giant handling the giganticgun. 

"Oh, for you, " said he, "it's all very well. _Ma foi_, but you suit oneanother, you both are of another day. "

"God bless you, " said Adams, "you can pick me up by the bushel in theStates. I'm _small_. Say, how much is this thing?"

"_That!_" cried Schaunard. "Why, what on earth could you want with such anobsolete weapon as that?"

"Tell me--does this thing hit harder, gun for gun--not weight for weight, mind you--but gun for gun--than that double-barrel you are holding in yourhands?"

"Oh, yes, " said Schaunard, "it hits harder, just as a cannon would hitharder, but----"

"I'll have her, " said Adams. "I've taken a fancy to her. See here, CaptainBerselius is paying for my guns; they are his, part of the expedition--Iwant this as my own, and I'll pay you for her out of my own pocket. Howmuch is she?"

Schaunard, whose fifty years of trading had explained to him the fact thatwhen an American takes a whim into his head it is best for all parties tolet him have his own way, ran his fingers through his beard. 

"The thing has no price, " said he. "It is a curiosity. But if you musthave it--well, I will let you have it for two hundred francs. "

"Done, " said Adams. "Have you any cartridges?"

"Oh, yes, " replied Schaunard. "Heaps. That is to say, I have the oldcartridges, and I can have a couple of hundred of them emptied andre-filled and percussioned. Ah, well, monsieur, you must have your ownway. Armand, take the gun; have it attended to and packed. And now thatmonsieur has his play-toy, " finished the old man, with one of his silentlittle laughs, "let us come to business. "

They did, and nearly an hour was spent whilst the American chose a doublehammerless-ejector cordite rifle and a . 256 sporting Mannlicher, forSchaunard was a man who, when he took an interest in a customer, could bevery interesting. 

When business was concluded Schaunard gave his customer various tips as tothe treatment of guns. "And now, " said he, opening the door as Adams wastaking his departure, "I will give you one more piece of advice about thisexpedition. It is a piece of private advice, and I will trust you not totell the Captain that I gave it to you. "

"Yes. What is the advice?"

"Don't go. "

Adams laughed as he turned on his heel, and Schaunard laughed as he closedthe door. 

A passer-by might have imagined that the two men had just exchanged a goodjoke. 

Before Adams had taken three steps, the door of the shop re-opened, andSchaunard's voice called again. 

"Monsieur. "

"Yes?" said Adams, turning. 

"You need not pay me for the gun till you come back. "

"Right, " said Adams, laughing. "I will call in and pay you for it when Icome back. _Au revoir. _"

"_Adieu. _"

CHAPTER V

MARSEILLES

On the day of departure Berselius was entertained at _déjeuner_ by theCerele Militaire. He brought Adams with him as a guest. 

Nearly all the sporting members of the great club were present to speedthe man who after Schillings was reckoned on the Continent the mostadventurous big-game hunter in the world. 

Despite what Stenhouse, Duthil, and Schaunard had said, Adams by this timeinclined to a half-liking for Berselius; the man seemed so far from andunconscious of the little things of the world, so destitute of pettiness, that the half liking which always accompanies respect could not but find aplace in Adams's mind. 

Guest at a table surrounded by sixty of the wealthiest and most powerfulofficers of a military nation, Berselius did not forget his companion, butintroduced him with painstaking care to the chief men present, includedhim in his speech of thanks, and made him feel that though he was takingBerselius's pay, he was his friend and on a perfect social equality withhim. 

Adams felt this keenly. On qualifying first he had obtained an appointmentas travelling physician to an American, a prominent member of the New Yorksmart set, a man of twenty-two, a motorist, a yachtsman, clean shaved asan actor and smug as a butler, one of those men who make the greatAmerican nation so small in the eyes of the world--the world that cannotsee beyond the servants' hall antics of New York society to the greatplains where the Adamses hew the wood and draw the water, build the citiesand bridge the rivers, and lay the iron roads, making rail-heads of theroar of the Atlantic and the thunder of the Pacific. 

This gentleman treated Adams as a paid attendant and in such a manner thatAdams one morning lifted him from his bed by the slack of his silk pajamasand all but drowned him in his own bath. 

He could not but remember the incident as he sat watching Berselius socalm, so courtly, so absolutely destitute of mannerism, so incontestablythe superior, in some magnetic way, of all the other men who werepresent. 

Maxine and M. Pinchon, the secretary, were to accompany them toMarseilles. 

A cold, white Paris fog covered the city that night as they drove to thestation, and the fog detonators and horns followed them as they glided outslowly from beneath the great glass roof. Slowly at first, then moreswiftly over rumbling bridges and clicking point, more swiftly still, breaking from the fog-banked Seine valley, through snarling tunnel andchattering cutting, faster now and freer, by long lines of poplar trees, mist-strewn, and moonlit ponds and fields, spectral white roads, littlewinking towns; and now, as if drawn by the magnetic south, swaying to therock-a-bye of speed, aiming for the lights of Dijon far away south, to thetune of the wheels, "seventy-miles-an-hour--seventy-miles-an-hour. "

Civilization, whatever else she has done, has written one poem, the"Rapide. " True to herself, she makes it pay a dividend, and prostitutes itto the service of stockbrokers, society folk, and gamblers bound forMonaco--but what a poem it is that we snore through between a day in Parisand a day in Marseilles. A poem, swiftly moving, musical with speed, asong built up of songs, telling of Paris, its chill and winter fog, of thewinter fields, the poplar trees and mist; vineyards of the Côte d'Or;Provence with the dawn upon it, Tarascon blowing its morning bugle to thesun; the Rhone, and the vineyards, and the olives, and the white, whiteroads; ending at last in that triumphant blast of music, light and colour, Marseilles. 

_La Joconde_, Berselius's yacht, was berthed at the Messagerie wharf, andafter _déjeuner_ at the Hotel Noailles, they took their way there onfoot. 

Adams had never seen the south before as Marseilles shows it. The vividlight and the black shadows, the variegated crowd of the CanabierProlongue had for him an "Arabian Nights" fascination, but the wharvesheld a deeper fascination still. 

Marseilles draws its most subtle charm from far away in the past. Beakedtriremes have rubbed their girding cables against the wharves of the oldPhocée; the sunshine of a thousand years has left some trace of its gold, a mirage in the air chilled by the mistral and perfumed by the ocean. 

At Marseilles took place the meeting between Mary Magdalen and LaetaAcilia, so delightfully fabled by Anatole France. The Count of MonteCristo landed here after he had discovered his treasure, and hereCaderouse after the infamy at "La Reservée" watched old Dantès starving todeath. Multitudes of ships, fabled and real, have passed from the harbourto countries curious and strange, but never one of them to a strangercountry than that to which _La Joconde_ was to bear Berselius and hiscompanion. 

Gay as Naples with colour, piercing the blue sky with a thousand spars, fluttering the flags of all nations to the wind, shot through with thesharp rattle of winch-chains, and perfumed with garlic, vanilla, fumes ofcoal tar, and the tang of the sea, the wharves of Marseilles lay beforethe travellers, a great counter eternally vibrating to the thunder oftrade; bales of carpets from the Levant, tons of cheeses from Holland, wood from Norway, copra, rice, tobacco, corn, silks from China and Japan, cotton from Lancashire; all pouring in to the tune of the winch-pauls, thecry of the stevedores, and the bugles of Port Saint Jean, shrill beneaththe blue sky and triumphant as the crowing of the Gallic cock. 

Between the breaks in the shipping one could see the sea-gulls fishing andthe harbour flashing, here spangled with coal tar, here whipped to deepestsapphire by the mistral; the junk shops, grog shops, parrot shops, rope-walks, ships' stores and factories lining the quays, each lending aperfume, a voice, or a scrap of colour to the air vibrating with light, vibrating with sound, shot through with voices; hammer blows from thecopper sheathers in the dry docks, the rolling of drums from Port St. Nicholas, the roaring of grain elevators, rattling of winch-chains, trumpeting of ship sirens, mewing of gulls, the bells of Notre Dame andthe bells of St. Victor, all fused, orchestrated, into one triumphantsymphony beneath the clear blue sky and the trade flags of the world. 

_La Joconde_ was berthed beside a Messagerie boat which they had to crossto reach her. 

She was a palatial cruising yacht of twelve hundred tons' burden, builtsomewhat on the lines of Drexel's _La Margharita_, but with less width offunnel. 

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when they went on board; all theluggage had arrived, steam was up, the port arrangements had been made, and Berselius determined to start at once. 

Maxine kissed him, then she turned to Adams. 

"_Bon voyage. _"

"Good-bye, " said Adams. 

He held her hand for a fraction of a second after his grasp had relaxed. 

Then she was standing on the deck of the Messagerie boat, waving good-byeacross the lane of blue water widening between _La Joconde_ and her berthmate. 

At the harbour mouth, looking back across the blue wind-swept water, hefancied he could still see her, a microscopic speck in the great pictureof terraced Marseilles, with its windows, houses, flags, and domesglittering and burning in the sun. 

Then the swell of the Gulf of Lyons took _La Joconde_ as a nurse takes aninfant and rocks it on her knee, and France and civilization were slowlywrapped from sight under the veils of distance. 

PART TWO

CHAPTER VI

MATADI

It was evening. _La Joconde_, Berselius's yacht, lay moored at the wharfof Matadi; warpling against the starboard plates, whimpering, wimpling, here smooth as glass, here eddied and frosted, a sea of golden light, agliding mirror, went the Congo. 

A faint, faint haze dulled the palms away on the other side; from thewharf, where ships were loading up with rubber, ivory, palm-oil, and balesof gum copal, the roar and rattle of steam-winches went across the water, far away across the glittering water, where the red flamingoes wereflying, to that other shore where the palm trees showed their fringe ofhot and hazy green. 

The impression of heat which green, the coolest of all colours, canproduce, damp heat, heart-weakening heat, that is the master impressionproduced by the Congo on the mind of man. All the other impressionsare--to paraphrase Thénard--embroideries on this. 

Yet how many other impressions there are! The Congo is Africa in a frankmood. Africa, laying her hand on her heart and speaking, or rather, whispering the truth. 

This great river flooding from Stanley Pool and far away beyond, drawswith it, like a moving dream, the pictures of the roaring rapids and thesilent pools, the swamps filled with darkness of vegetation and murderouslife; the unutterable loneliness of vast forests. The water brook of thehartbeest and antelope, it brings with it their quiet reflections, just asit brings the awful horn and the pig-like face of the rhinoceros. Whatthings have not slaked their thirst in this quiet water flooding pastMatadi--and wallowed in it? Its faint perfume hints at that. 

On the deck of the yacht, under the double awning, Berselius was seated, and, close to him, Adams. They had arrived only yesterday, and to-morrowthey were proceeding by rail to Leopoldville, which was to be the realbase of the expedition, leaving _La Joconde_ behind at Matadi. 

The yacht would return to France. 

"What a lot of stuff they are loading on those ships, " said Adams, turningin his chair as the roar and rattle of the winch chains, that had ceasedfor a moment, flared up again like a flame of sound. "What are the exportshere?"

"Gum copal--nuts--rubber--tusks--everything you can get out of there, "answered Berselius, lazily waving a hand to indicate the Congo basin. 

Adams, leaning back in his deck chair, followed with his eyes the sweep ofBerselius's hand, "over there"; little did he dream of what those wordsheld in their magic. 

Then Berselius went below. 

The moon rose; lights speckled the misty wharf and a broad road of silverlay stretched across the moving water to the other bank that, under themoonlight, lay like a line of cotton-wool. It was the mist tangled by andtangling the trees. 

Adams paced the deck, smoking and occasionally pausing to flip off hiscigar-ash on the bulwark rail. He was thinking of Maxine Berselius. Shehad come to Marseilles to see them off, and----

Not a word had been exchanged between them that a third person did nothear or might not have heard, yet they had told each other the whole ofthat delightful story in which the hero is I and the heroine You. 

Adams on his side and Maxine on hers did not in the least contemplatepossibilities. A social river, wide as the Congo, and flowing from asmysterious a source, lay between them. Maxine was rich--so rich that thecontrast of her wealth with his own poverty shut the door for Adams on theidea of marriage. He could not hope to take his true place in the worldfor years, and he would not stoop to take a woman's money or assistance. 

He was too big to go through a back door. No, he would enter the socialtemple by walking between the pillars of the portico, or smashing anentrance way through the wall with his fist. 

He was a type of the true American man, the individual who trusts inhimself; an unpleasant person very often, but the most essentially malecreation in Nature. 

Though he could not contemplate Maxine as a wife, he did as a woman. In astate of savagery he would have carried her off in his arms; surrounded ashe was by the trammels of civilization, he contented himself withimagining her in that position. 

It is quite possible that no other woman would ever inspire the samepassion in him. He knew this, yet he did not grumble; for he waspractical, and his practical nature had a part in his wildest dreams. 

Go to New York and look at the twenty-storied, sky-scrapers built by theAdamses. They look like houses out of a story by Dean Swift. The wildestdreams of architecture. Yet they don't fall down; they serve theirpurpose, for the dreamers who built them were at bottom practical men. 

As he paced the deck, smoking and contemplating the moonlit river, Maxinegave place in his mind to her father. 

Berselius up to this had shown himself in no unfavourable light. Up tothis he had been almost companionable. 

Almost! They had dined together, paced the deck together, discussed allsorts of subjects, yet not by the fraction of an inch had he advanced inhis knowledge of the man. A wall of ice divided Berselius from hisfellow-men. Between him and them a great gulf was fixed, a gulf narrowenough to speak across, but of an impenetrable depth. Berselius was alwaysso assured, so impassively calm, so authoritative, his conversation sopenetrative, so lit by intuition and acquired knowledge, that Adamssometimes in his company felt that elation which comes to us when we findourselves in the presence of a supreme mind. At other times thisoverpowering personality weighed upon him so much that he would leave thesaloon and pace the deck so as to become himself again. 

 * * * * *

Next morning they left by rail for Leopoldville, where they found waitingfor them the _Leopold_, a shallow-draught steamer of some two hundredtons. 

CHAPTER VII

YANDJALI

The _Leopold_ was officered entirely by Belgians, and it would have beenalmost impossible to find a pleasanter set of men. Tilkins, the captain, especially, won Adams's regard. He was a huge man, with a wife and familyin Antwerp, and he was eternally damning the Congo and wishing himselfback in Antwerp. 

They transhipped to a smaller boat, the _Couronne_, and one morningshortly after breakfast three strokes on the steamer bell announced theirapproach to Yandjali. 

Imagine a rough landing-stage, a handful of houses, mostly mud-built, thefunereal heat-green of palm and banana, a flood of tropical sunshinelighting the little wharf, crammed with bales of merchandise. 

Such was Yandjali, and beyond Yandjali lay the forest, and in front ofYandjali flowed the river, and years ago _boom-boom_ down the river'sshining surface, from away up there where the great palms gave place toreeds and water-grass, you might have heard the sound of the hippopotamibellowing to the sun, a deep organ note, unlike the sound emitted by anyother creature on earth. You do not hear it now. The great brutes havelong ago been driven away by man. 

On the wharf to greet the steamer stood the District Commissioner, Commander Verhaeren; behind him six or seven half-naked, savage-lookingblacks, each topped with a red fez and armed with an Albini rifle, stoodgazing straight before them with wrinkled eyes at the approaching boat. 

Verhaeren and Berselius were seemingly old friends; they shook hands andBerselius introduced Adams; then the three left the wharf and walked up tothe District Commissioner's house, a frame building surrounded by palmtrees and some distance from the mud huts of the soldiers and porters. 

The Yandjali of this story, not to be confounded with Yandjali notoriousin Congo history for its massacre, is not in a rubber district, though onthe fringe of one; it is a game district and produces cassava. The CongoState has parcelled out its territory. There are the rubber districts, thegum copal districts, the food districts, and the districts where ivory isobtained. In each of these districts the natives are made to work andbring in rubber, gum copal, food, or ivory, as a tax. The DistrictCommissioner, or _Chef de Poste_, in each district draws up a schedule ofwhat is required. Such and such a village must produce and hand over somany kilos of rubber, or copal, so much cassava, so many tusks, etc. 

Verhaeren was a stout, pale-faced man, with a jet-black beard, agood-tempered looking man, with that strange, lazy, semi-Oriental lookwhich the Belgian face takes when the owner of it is fixed to a post, withnothing to do but oversee trade, and when the post is on the confines ofcivilization. 

Away up country, lost in the dim, green, heat-laden wilderness, you willfind a different type of man; more alert and nervy, a man who neversmiles, a preoccupied looking man who, ten years or five years ago, losthis berth in an office for misconduct, or his commission in the army. A_déclassé_. He is the man who really drives the Congo machine, the lastwheel in the engine, but the most important; the man whose deeds are notto be written. 

Verhaeren's living room in the frame house was furnished with steamer deckchairs, a table and some shelves. Pinned to the wall and curling up at thecorners was a page torn from _La Gaudriole_, the picture of a girl intights; on one of the shelves lay a stack of old newspapers, on another astack of official papers, reports from subordinates, invoices, and thoseeternal "official letters, " with which the Congo Government deluges itsemployees, and whose everlasting purport is "Get more ivory, get morerubber, get more copal. "

Verhaeren brought out some excellent cigars and a bottle of Vanderhum, andthe three men smoked and talked. He had acted as Berselius's agent for theexpedition, and had collected all the gun-bearers and porters necessary, and a guide. It was Berselius's intention to strike a hundred miles westup river almost parallel to the Congo, and then south into the heart ofthe elephant country. They talked of the expedition, but Verhaeren showedlittle knowledge of the work and no enthusiasm. The Belgians of the Congohave no feeling for sport. They never hunt the game at their doors, exceptfor food. 

When they had discussed matters, Verhaeren led the way out for Berseliusto inspect his arrangements. 

The porters were called up. There were _forty_ of them, and Adams thoughtthat he had never before seen such a collection of depressed lookingindividuals; they were muscular enough, but there was something in theirfaces, their movements and their attitude, that told a tale of spiritsbroken to servitude by terror. 

The four gun-bearers and the headman were very different. The headman wasa Zappo Zap, a ferocious looking nigger, fez-tipped, who could speaktwenty words of French, and who was nicknamed Félix. The gun-bearers wererecruited from the "soldiers" of the state by special leave fromheadquarters. 

Adams looked with astonishment at the immense amount of luggage they werebringing. "Chop boxes, " such as are used on the east coast, containedstores; two big tents, a couple of "Roorkee" chairs, folding-beds andtables, cork mattresses, cooking utensils, made up the pile, to saynothing of the guns which had just been taken from their cases. 

"What did you bring this thing for?" asked Berselius, pointing to Adams'selephant gun, which the Zappo Zap headman was just stripping from itscovering. 

"To shoot with, " said Adams, laughing. 

Berselius looked at the big man handling the big gun, and gave a shortlaugh. 

"Well, bring it, " said he; "but I don't envy your gun-bearers. "

But Félix, the headman, did not seem of the same opinion. The enormousrifle evidently appealed to his ferocious heart. It was a god-gun this, and no mistake, and its lustre evidently spread to Adams, the owner ofit. 

Félix was a very big man, almost as big as Adams: a member of the greatcannibal fighting tribe of Zappo Zaps, he had followed Verhaeren, who hadonce held a post in the Bena Pianga country, to Yandjali; he had a sort ofattachment for Verhaeren, which showed that he possessed some sort ofheart. All the Zappo Zaps have been enrolled by the Congo Government as"soldiers"; they have a bad name and cause a lot of heart-searching to theBrussels administration, for when they are used in punitive expeditions toburn villages of recalcitrant rubber-getters, they, to use a localexpression, "_will_ eat when they have killed. " When they are used _enmasse_, the old cannibal instinct breaks out; when the killing is overthey go for the killed, furious as dogs over bones. God help the man whowould come between them and their food!

Of these men Félix was a fine specimen. A nature man, ever ready to slay, and cruel as Death. A man from the beginning of the world. 

If Félix had possessed a wife, he and she might have stood for the man andwoman mentioned by Thénard in his lecture. 

The basic man and woman in whose dim brains Determination had begun towork, sketching the vague line on either side of which lies the Right andLeft of moral action. 

A true savage, never to be really civilized. For it is the fate of thesavage that he will never become one of us. Do what you will and pray howyou will, you will never make up for the million years that have passedhim by, the million years during which the dim sketch which is the basisof all ethics has lain in his brain undeveloped, or developed only into afew fantastic and abortive God shapes and devil shapes. 

He will never become one of us. Extraordinary paradox--he never can becomea Leopold or a Félix Fuchs!

Berselius disbanded the porters with a wave of the hand, and he and hiscompanions began a round of the station. Verhaeren, with a cigar in hismouth, led the way. 

He opened the door of a go-down, and Adams in the dim light, saw bale uponbale of stuff; gum copal it proved to be, for Yandjali tapped a hugedistrict where this stuff is found, and which lies forty miles to thesouth. There was also cassava in large quantities, and the place had aheady smell, as if fermentation were going on amidst the bales. 

Verhaeren shut the door and led on till, rounding a corner, a puff of hotair brought a stench which caused Adams to choke and spit. 

Verhaeren laughed. 

It was the Hostage House that sent its poisonous breath to meet them. 

A native corporal and two soldiers stood at the palisade which circled theHostage House. The women and children had just been driven back from thefields where they had been digging and weeding, and they had been servedwith their wretched dinners. They were eating these scraps of food likeanimals, some in the sun amidst the tufts of grass and mounds of ordure inthe little yard, some in the shadow of the house. 

There were old, old women like shrivelled monkeys; girls of twelve andfifteen, some almost comely; middle-aged women, women about to becomemothers, and a woman who had become a mother during the past night lyingthere in the shelter of the Hostage House. There were little pot-belliednigger children, tiny black dots, who had to do their bit of work in thefields with the others; and when the strangers appeared and looked overthe rail, these folk set up a crying and chattering, and ran aboutdistractedly, not knowing what new thing was in store for them. They werethe female folk and children of a village, ten miles away south; they werehere as "hostages, " because the village had not produced its full tale ofcassava. They had been here over a month. 

The soldiers laughed, and struck with the butts of their rifles on thepalisading, as if to increase the confusion. Adams noticed that the younggirls and women were of all the terrified crowd seemingly the mostterrified. He did not know the reason; he could not even guess it. A goodman himself, and believing in a God in heaven, he could not guess thetruth. He knew nothing of the reason of these women's terror, and helooked with disgust at the scene before him, not entirely comprehending. Those creatures, so filthy, so animal-like, created in his mind suchabhorrence that he forgot to make allowances for the fact that they werepenned like swine, and that perchance in their own native state, free intheir own villages, they might be cleaner and less revolting. He could nothear the dismal cry of the "Congo niggers, " who of all people on the earthare the most miserable, the most abused, the most sorrow-stricken, themost dumb. He did not know that he was looking at one of the filthy actsin the great drama that a hundred years hence will be read with horror bya more enlightened world. 

They turned from the degrading sight and went back to Verhaeren's housefor dinner. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE VOICE OF THE CONGO FOREST

Just after daybreak next morning the expedition started. 

Berselius, Adams, the gun-bearers and Félix headed the line; a long wayafter came the porters and their loads, shepherded by half a dozensoldiers of the state specially hired for the business. 

Before they had gone a mile on their route the sun was blazing strongly, sharp bird-calls came from the trees, and from the porters tramping undertheir loads a hum like the hum of an awakened beehive. These people willtalk and chatter when the sun rises; club them, or threaten them, or loadthem with burdens as much as you please, the old instinct of the birds andbeasts remains. 

At first the way led through cassava and manioc fields and past clumps ofpalms; then, all at once, and like plunging under a green veil or into theheart of a green wave, they entered the forest. 

The night chill was just leaving the forest, the great green gloom, festooned with fantastic rope-like tendrils, was drinking the sunlightwith a million tongues; you could hear the rustle and snap of branchesstraightening themselves and sighing toward heaven after the long, damp, chilly night. The tropical forest at daybreak flings its arms up to thesun as if to embrace him, and all the teeming life it holds gives tongue. Flights of coloured and extraordinary birds rise like smoke wreaths fromthe steaming leaves, and the drone of a million, million insects from thesonorous depths comes like the sound of life in ferment. 

The river lay a few miles to their left, and faintly from it, muffled bythe trees, they could hear the shrill whistling of the river steamboat. Itwas like the "good-bye" of civilization. 

The road they were pursuing through the forest was just a dim track beatendown by the feet of the copal and cassava gatherers bearing their loads toYandjali. Here and there the forest thinned out and a riot of umbrellathorns, vicious, sword-like grass and tall, dull purple flowers, likehollyhocks made a scrub that choked the way and tangled the foot; then thetrees would thicken up, and with the green gloom of a mighty wave theforest would fall upon the travellers and swallow them up. 

Adams, tramping beside Berselius, tried vainly to analyze theextraordinary and new sensations to which this place gave birth in him. 

The forest had taken him. It seemed to him, on entering it, that he haddied to all the things he had ever known. At Yandjali he had felt himselfin a foreign country, but still in touch with Europe and the past; a miledeep in the forest and Yandjali itself, savage as it was, seemed part ofthe civilization and the life he had left behind him. 

The forests of the old world may be vast, but their trees are familiar. One may lose one's direction, but one can never lose _oneself_ amidst thefriendly pines, the beeches, the oaks, whose forms have been known to usfrom childhood. 

But here, where the beard-moss hangs from unknown trees, as we trampthrough the sweltering sap-scented gloom, we feel ourselves not in aforest but under a cover. 

There is nothing of the perfume of the pine, nothing of the breeze in thebranches, nothing of the beauty of the forest twilight here. We are in agreat green room, festooned with vines and tendrils and hung about withleaves. Nothing is beautiful here, but everything is curious. It is acuriosity shop, where one pays with the sweat of one's brow, with thelanguor of one's body, and the remembrance of one's past, for the sight ofan orchid shaped like a bird, or a flower shaped like a jug, or a birdwhose flight is a flash of sapphire dust. 

A great green room, where echo sounds of things unknown. 

You can see nothing but the foliage, and the tree boles just around, yetthe place is full of life and war and danger. 

That crash followed by the shrieking of birds--you cannot tell whether itis half a mile away or quite close, or to the right, or to the left, orwhether it is caused by a branch torn from a tree by some huge hand, or atree a hundred years old felled at last by Time. 

Time is the woodman of the Congo forests. Nobody else could do the work, and he works in his own lazy fashion, leaving things to right themselvesand find their own salvation. 

Just as there is eternal war to the death between the beasts of thisjungle, so there is war to the death between the trees, the vines, and theweeds. A frightful battle between the vegetable things is going on; wescarcely recognize it, because the processes are so slow, but if fiveyears of the jungle could be photographed week by week, and the wholeseries be run rapidly off on some huge cinematograph machine, you wouldsee a heaving and rending struggle for existence, vegetation fed by theroaring tropical rains rising like a giant and flinging itself on thevegetation of yesterday; vines lengthening like snakes, tree felling tree, and weed choking weed. 

Even in the quietude of a moment, standing and looking before one at themoss-bearded trees and the python-like loops of the lianas, one can seethe struggle crystallized, just as in the still marble of the Laocoon onesees the struggle of life with death. 

In this place which covers an unthinkable area of the earth, a vastpopulation has dwelt since the beginning of time. Think of it. Shut offfrom the world which has progressed toward civilization, alone with thebeasts and the trees, they have lived here without a guide and without aGod. The instinct which teaches the birds to build nests taught them tobuild huts; the herd-instinct drove them into tribes. 

Then, ages ago, before Christ was crucified, before Moses was born, beganthe terrible and pathetic attempt of a predamned people to raise theirheads and walk erect. The first lifting of purblind eyes destined never tosee even the face of Art. 

Yet there was a germ of civilization amongst them. They had villages andvague laws and art of a sort; the ferocious tribes drew to one side, hunting beasts and warring with each other, and the others, the milder andkindlier tribes, led their own comparatively quiet life; and Mohammed wasborn somewhere in the unknown North, and they knew nothing of the facttill the Arab slavers raided them, and robbed them of men and women andchildren, just as boys rob an orchard. 

But the birth of Christ and the foundation of Christendom was the eventwhich in far distant years was destined to be this unhappy people's lastundoing. 

They had known the beasts of the forests, the storms, the rains, the Arabraiders, but Fate had reserved a new thing for them to know. TheChristians. Alas! that one should have to say it, but here the fact is, that white men, Christian men, have taken these people, have drawn underthe banner of Christianity and under Christian pay all the warlike tribes, armed them, and set them as task-masters over the humble and meek. Andnever in the history of the world has such a state of servitude been knownas at present exists in the country of this forlorn people. 

They had been marching some three hours when, from ahead came a sound asof some huge animal approaching. Berselius half turned to his gun-bearerfor his rifle, but Félix reassured him. 

"Cassava bearers, " said Félix. 

It was, in fact, a crowd of natives; some thirty or forty, bearing loadsof Kwanga (cassava cakes) to Yandjali. They were coming along the forestpath in single file, their burdens on their heads, and when the leaderssaw the white men they stopped dead. A great chattering broke out. Onecould hear it going back all along the unseen line, a rattlesnake ofsound. Then Félix called out to them; the gun-bearers and the white menstood aside, and the cassava bearers, taking heart, advanced. 

They were heavily laden, for most of them had from ten to twenty Kwanga ontheir heads, and besides this burden--they were mostly women--several ofthem had babies slung on their backs. 

These people belonged to a village which lay within Verhaeren's district. The tax laid on this village was three hundred cakes of cassava to bedelivered at Yandjali every eight days. 

The people of this village were a lazy lot, and if you have ever collectedtaxes in England, you can fancy the trouble of making such people--savagesliving in a tropical forest, who have no count of time and scarcely anidea of numbers--pay up. 

Especially when one takes into consideration the fact that to producethree hundred cakes of cassava every eight days, the whole village mustwork literally like a beehive, the men gathering and the women grindingthe stuff from dawn till dark. 

Only by the heaviest penalties could such a desirable state of things bebrought about, and the heavier and sharper the punishments inflicted atany one time, the easier was it for Verhaeren to work these people. 

Adams watched the cassava bearers as they passed at a trot. They went bylike automatic figures, without raising their eyes from the ground. Therewere some old women amongst them who looked more like shrivelled monkeysthan human beings; extraordinary anatomical specimens, whose muscles, working as they ran, were as visible as though no skin covered them. Therewere young women, young children, and women far advanced in pregnancy; andthey all went by like automatic figures, clockwork marionettes. 

It was a pitiable spectacle enough, these laden creatures, mute looking asdumb beasts; but there was nothing especially to shock the eye of theEuropean, for it is the long-prepared treason against this people, devisedand carried out by nature, that their black mask covers a multitude ofother people's sins and their own untold sufferings. 

Had they been white, the despairing look, the sunken eyes, the hundredsigns that tell of suffering and slavery would have been visible, wouldhave appealed to the heart; but the black mass could not express thesethings fully. They were niggers, uglier looking and more depressed lookingthan other niggers--that was all. 

And so Adams passed on, without knowing what he had seen and the onlyimpression the sight made on his mind was one of disgust. 

One fact his professional eye noticed as the crowd passed by. Four of thewomen had lost their left hands. 

The hands had been amputated just above the wrist in three cases, and onewoman had suffered amputation at the middle of the forearm. 

He spoke of this to Berselius, who did not seem to hear his remark. 

At noon they halted for a three hours' rest, and then pushed on, campingfor the night, after a twenty-five miles' journey, in a break of theforest. 

CHAPTER IX

BIG GAME

Just as going along the coast by Pondoland one sees English park sceneryrunning down to the very sea edge, so the Congo has its surprises instrips of country that might, as far as appearance goes, have been cut outof Europe and planted here. 

This glade which Félix had chosen for a camping place was strewn withrough grass and studded here and there with what at first sight seemedapple trees: they were in reality thorns. 

The camp was pitched and the fires lit on the edge of the forest, and thenBerselius proceeded to take tale of his people and found one missing. Oneof the cook boys had dropped behind and vanished. He had been lame shortlyafter the start. The soldiers had not seen him drop behind, but theporters had. 

"How many miles away was it?" asked Berselius of the collected porters. 

"Nkoto, nkoto (Very many, very many), " the answer came in a chorus, for agroup of savages, if they have the same idea in common, will all shouttogether in response to an answer, like one man. 

"Why had they not told?"

"We did not know, " came the irrelevant answer in chorus. 

Berselius knew quite well that they had not told simply from heedlessnessand want of initiative. He would have flogged the whole lot soundly, buthe wanted them fresh for the morrow's work. Cutting down their rationswould but weaken them, and as for threatening to dock their pay, such athreat has no effect on a savage. 

"Look!" said Berselius. 

He had just dismissed the porters with a reprimand when his keen eyecaught sight of something far up the glade. It wanted an hour of sunset. 

Adams, following the direction in which Berselius was gazing, saw, a greatdistance off, to judge by the diminishing size of the thorn trees, a formthat made his heart to leap in him. 

Massive and motionless, a great creature stood humped in the level light;the twin horns back-curving and silhouetted against the sky told him atonce what it was. 

"Bull rhinoceros, " said Berselius. "Been lying up in the thick stuff allday; come out to feed. " He made a sign to Félix who, knowing exactly whatwas wanted, dived into the tent and came back with a . 400 cordite rifleand Adams's elephant gun. 

"Come, " said Berselius, "the brute is evidently thinking. They stay likethat for an hour sometimes. If we have any luck, we may get a shotsideways before he moves. There's not a breath of wind. "

They started, Félix following with the guns. 

"I would not bother about him, " said Berselius, "only the meat will beuseful, and it will be an experience for you. You will take first shot, and, if he charges, aim just behind the shoulder--that's the spot for arhino if you can reach it; for other animals aim at the neck, no matterwhat animal it is, or whether it is a lion or a buck; the neck shot is theknock-out blow. I have seen a lion shot through the heart travel fiftyyards and kill a man; had he been struck in the neck he would have fallenin his tracks. "

"Cow, " said Félix from behind. 

Out of the thick stuff on the edge of the forest another form had broken. She was scarcely smaller than the bull, but the horns were shorter; shewas paler in colour, too, and showed up not nearly so well. Then shevanished into the thick stuff, but the bull remained standing, immovableas though he were made of cast iron, and the two awful horns, now moredistinct, cut the background like scimitars. 

The rhinoceros, like the aboriginal native of the Congo, has come straightdown from pre-Adamite days almost without change. He is half blind now; hecan scarcely see twenty yards, he is still moving in the night of theancient world, and the smell of a man excites the wildest apprehension inhis vestige of a mind. He scents you, flings his heavy head from side toside, and then to all appearances he charges you. 

Nothing could appear more wicked, ferocious, and full of deadly intentthan this charge; yet, in reality, the unfortunate brute is not seekingyou at all, but running away from you; for the rhino when running awayalways runs in the direction from which the wind is blowing. You are inthat direction, else your scent could not reach him; as your scent growsstronger and stronger, the more alarmed does he become and the quicker heruns. Now he sights you, or you fire. If you miss, God help you, for hecharges the flash with all his fright suddenly changed to fury. 

They had got within four hundred yards from the brute when a faint puff ofwind stirred the grass, and instantly the rhino shifted his position. 

"He's got our scent, " said Berselius, taking the cordite rifle from Félix, who handed his gun also to Adams. "He's got it strong. We will wait forhim here. "

The rhino, after a few uneasy movements, began to "run about. " One couldsee that the brute was ill at ease; he went in a half-circle, and then, the wind increasing, and bringing the scent strong, he headed straight forBerselius and his companions, and charged. 

The sound of him coming was like the sound of a great drum beaten by alunatic. 

"Don't fire till I give the word, " cried Berselius, "and aim just behindthe shoulder. "

Adams, who was to the left of the charging beast, raised the rifle andlooked down the sights. He knew that if he missed, the brute would chargethe flash and be on him perhaps before he could give it the secondbarrel. 

It was exactly like standing before an advancing express engine. Anengine, moreover, that had the power of leaving the metals to chase youshould you not derail it. 

Would Berselius never speak! Berselius all the time was glancing from therhino to Adams. 

"Fire!"

The ear-blasting report of the elephant gun echoed from the forest, andthe rhino, just as if he had been tripped by an invisible wire fence, fell, tearing up the ground and squealing like a pig. 

"Good, " said Berselius. 

Adams wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He hadnever gone through a moment of more deadly nerve tension. 

He was moving toward his quarry, now stretched stiff and stark, when hewas arrested by Félix. 

"Cow, " said Félix again. 

The cow had broken cover at the report of the gun and had got their wind. 

Just as two automatic figures of the same make will, when wound up, andtouched off, perform the same actions, the cow did exactly what the bullhad done--ran about in a fierce and distressed manner and then chargedright in the eye of the wind. 

"Mine, " said Berselius, and he went forward twenty paces to meet her. 

Berselius, chilling and aloof to the point of mysteriousness, had, sincethe very starting of the expedition, shown little of his true character tohis companion. What he had shown up to this had not lowered Adams'srespect for him. 

Self-restraint seemed the mainspring of that commanding force which thisstrange man exercised. His reprimand to the porters for the loss of theboy, expressed in a few quiet words, had sent them shivering to theirplaces, cowed and dumb. Animal instinct seemed to tell them of a terribleanimal which the self-restraint of that quiet-looking little man, with thepointed beard, alone prevented from breaking upon them. 

Berselius had allowed the bull to approach to a little over a hundredyards before letting Adams fire. He had gauged the American's nerve to anicety and his power of self-restraint, and he knew that beyond thehundred-yard limit he dared not trust them; for no man born of woman whohas not had a good experience of big game can stand up to a chargingrhinoceros and take certain aim when the hundred-yard limit has beenpassed. 

The thunderous drumming of the oncoming brute echoed from the forest. Hadits head been a feather-pillow the impact of the three tons of solid fleshmoving behind it would have been certain death; but the head was aninstrument of destruction, devised when the megatherium walked the world, and the long raking horn would have ripped up an elephant as easily as asharp penknife rips up a rabbit. 

Before this thing, and to the right of it, rifle in hand, stood Berselius. He did not even lift the gun to his shoulder till the hundred-yard limitwas passed, and then he hung on his aim so horribly that Adams felt thesweat-drops running on his face like ants, and even Félix swallowed like aman who is trying to choke down something nauseous. It was a magnificentexhibition of daring and self-restraint and cool assurance. 

At twenty-five yards or a little under, the cordite rang out. The bruteseemed to trip, just as the other had done, over some invisibletaut-stretched wire, and skidding with its own impetus, squealing, striking out and tearing up the grass, it came right up to Berselius'sfeet before stiffening in death. Like the great automaton it was, it hadscented the human beings just as the bull had scented them, "fussed" justas he had fussed, charged as he had charged, and died as he had died. 

And now from the camp rose a great outcry, "Nyama, nyama! (Meat, meat!). "From the soldiers, from the gun-bearers, from the porters it came. Therewere no longer soldiers, or gun-bearers, or porters; every distinction wasforgotten; they were all savages, voicing the eternal cry of the jungle, "Nyama, nyama! (Meat, meat!). "

In the last rays of the sunset the two gigantic forms lay stretchedforever in death. They lay as they had composed themselves after that longstiff stretch which every animal takes before settling itself for eternalsleep; and Adams stood looking at the great grinning masks tipped with themurderous horns, whilst Berselius, with his gun butt resting on his boot, stood watching with a brooding eye as the porters and gun-bearers swarmedlike ants around the slain animals and proceeded, under his direction, tocut them up. Then the meat was brought into camp. The tails and the bestparts of the carcasses, including the kidneys, were reserved for the whitemen, and the rations from the rest of the meat were served out; but adozen porters who had been last in the line, and who were accountable forletting the boy drop behind, got nothing. 

It was pitiable to see their faces. But they deserved their punishment, notwithstanding the fact that in the middle of the meat distribution themissing boy limped into camp. He had a thorn half an inch long in hisfoot, which Adams extracted. Then the camp went to bed. 

Adams in his tent under the mosquito net slept soundly and heard and knewnothing of the incidents of the night. Berselius was also sleeping soundlywhen, at about one o'clock in the morning, Félix aroused him. 

One of the porters had been caught stealing some of the meat left overfrom the distribution of the night before. 

The extraordinary thing was that he had fed well, not being one of theproscribed. He had stolen from pure greed. 

He was an undersized man, a weakling, and likely to break down and givetrouble anyway. His crime was great. 

Berselius sent Félix to his tent for a Mauser pistol. Then the body wasflung into the forest where the roaring, rasping cry of a leopard wassplitting the dark. 

CHAPTER X

M'BASSA

Seven days' march took them one hundred and twenty miles east of Yandjaliand into the heart of the great rubber district of M'Bonga. 

Twenty miles a day ought to have been covered on an average, but they haddelayed here and there to shoot, and the extra porters, whose duty it wasto carry the trophies, were already in requisition. 

It had been forest most of the way, but forest broken by open spaces; theyhad crossed two great swards of park-like country where the antelope herdsmoved like clouds, marvellous natural preserves that might have beenEnglish but for the tropic haze and heat and the great n'sambya trees withtheir yellow bell-like blossoms, the m'binas with their bursts of scarletbloom, the tall feather-palms, and the wild papaws of the adjoiningwoods. 

But in the last two days of the march the forest had thickened and taken amore sombre note; nothing they had come upon heretofore had been quite sowild as this, so luxuriant and tropical. It was the haunt of the rubbervine, that mysterious plant which requires a glass-house atmosphere and asoil especially rich. The great rubber forest of M'Bonga, thousands ofsquare miles in extent, is really composed of two forests joined by anisthmus of woods. Dimly, it is shaped like an hourglass; south of theconstriction where the two forests join lies the elephant country forwhich Berselius was making, and Félix had led them so craftily and well, that they struck into the rubber district only fifty miles from theconstriction. 

In the forest, thirty miles from the elephant ground, lies the Belgianfort M'Bassa. They were making for this place now, which was to be thebase from which they would start on the great hunt. 

The fort of M'Bassa is not used to-day as a fort, only as acollecting-place for rubber. In the early days it was a very necessaryentrenchment for the Belgians, as a tribe almost as warlike as the ZappoZaps terrorized the districts; but the people of this tribe have long beenbrought under the blue flag with the white star. They are now "soldiers, "and their savagery, like a keen tool, has been turned to good account bythe Government. 

In the great forest of M'Bonga the rubber vines are not equallydistributed. Large areas occur in which they are not found; only in themost desolate places do they grow. You cannot tame and prune and bring therubber vine into subjection; it will have nothing to do with the vineyardand the field; it chooses to grow alone. 

Everything else comes to its harvest with a joyous face, but the rubbervine, like a dark green snake, fearful of death, has to be hunted for. 

Even in the areas of the forest which it frequents, it is only to be foundin patches, so the harvesters cannot go in a body, as men do to theharvesting of the corn, or the cotton, or the grape; they have to break upinto small parties and these again subdivide, leaving a single individualhere and there where the vines are thickest. He, entirely alone, at themercy of the evil spirits that are in his imagination and the beasts thatare in the forest, makes a rude shelter out of boughs and leaves, and setsto work making incisions in the vine and draining them drop by drop oftheir viscous sap. 

Sometimes he sings over this monotonous work, and in the long rainsbetween the intervals of the shower-bath roarings you can hear theululations of these folk through the drip of the leaves, and at night thespark-like glimmer of their fires dots the reeking gloom. 

These are the conditions of the rubber collector's task, and it is not atask that ever can be finished; year in, year out, it never ceases. 

These woods through which Félix led them were to the woods near Yandjaliwhat the music of Beethoven is to the music of Mozart. 

Immense and gloomy symphonies. The trees were huge, and groaned beneaththe weight of lianas cable-thick. At times they had to burst their waythrough the veils of leaves and vines, the porters losing themselves andcalling one to the other, and the head of the expedition halting till thestragglers were collected; at times the ground they trod on was likegrease from the cast-down fruit of the plantains that grew here enormous, and sodden, and dismal, showering their fruit in such quantities that thebush-pigs, devour as they might, could never dispose of it all. 

On some of the trees, like huge withered leaves, hung bats, and from someof the trees the beard-moss hung yards long, and of a spectral gray; thevery weeds trodden underfoot were sappy, and the smell of their squirtingjuice mixed itself with the smell of decay. 

It was not even ground, either; the whole forest would dip down into anunseen valley; you felt yourself going down hill, down, down, and then youknew you were at the bottom of a sub-arboreal valley by the deeperstagnation of the air. Open spaces, when they came, showed little sky, andthey were less open spaces than rooms in the surrounding prison. 

Félix was not leading them through the uttermost depths of this place; hewas following the vague indications of a road by which the rubber fromM'Bassa was carted to the river. 

They were travelling along a highway, in fact, and the dimmest indicationof a track where other men have been before is a thing which robs thewilderness of much of its terror. 

The loneliness of the forest beyond track or way, in those vast depthswhere the rubber collectors have to go alone, I leave you to imagine. 

At last, at noon, on the third day of their journey to this place theystruck rising ground where the trees fell away till no trees were left, and the blue sky of heaven lay above their heads, and before them on thehighest point of the rise, Fort M'Bassa burning in the sun. 

CHAPTER XI

ANDREAS MEEUS

The Parthenon in all its glory could not have looked more beautiful to thereturning Greek than this half-ruined fort in the eyes of Adams. 

A thing built by the hands of white men and shone on by the sun--whatcould be more acceptable to the eye after the long, long tramp through theheart-breaking forest!

The fort of M'Bassa was quite small; the surrounding walls had gone todecay, but the "guest house" and the office, and the great go-down wherethe rubber was stored, were in good repair and well thatched. 

Outside the walls were a number of wretched hovels inhabited by the"soldiers" and their wives, and one of these soldiers, a tall black, withthe eternal red fez on his head and a rifle slung on his back, was thefirst to sight the coming expedition, and to notify its approach with ayell that brought a dozen like him from the sun-baked hovels and, a momentlater from the office, a white man in a pith helmet, who stood for amoment looking across the half-ruined wall at the newcomers, and thenadvanced to meet them. 

He was a middle-sized man, with a melancholy face that showed very whiteunder the shadow of the helmet; he was dressed in dingy white drill, andhe had a cigarette between his lips. 

He looked like a man who had never in his life smiled, yet his face wasnot an unpleasant face altogether, though there was much in it to give theobserver pause. 

His voice was not an unpleasant voice, altogether, yet there was that init, as he greeted Berselius, which struck Adams sharply and strangely; forthe voice of Andreas Meeus, _Chef de Poste_ at M'Bassa, was the voice of aman who for two years had been condemned to talk the language of thenatives. It had curious inflections, hesitancies, and a dulness thatexpressed the condition of a brain condemned for two years to think thethoughts of the natives in their own language. 

Just as the voice of a violin expresses the condition of the violin, sodoes the voice of a man express the condition of his mind. And that is thefact that will strike you most if you travel in the wilds of the CongoState and talk to the men of your own colour who are condemned to liveamongst the people. 

One might have compared Meeus's voice to the voice of a violin--a violinthat had been attacked by some strange fungoid growth that had filled itsinterior and dulled the sounding board. 

He had been apprised a month before of the coming of Berselius'sexpedition, and one might imagine the servility which this man would showto the all-powerful Berselius, whose hunting expeditions werered-carpeted, who was hail-fellow-well-met with Leopold, who, by liftinghis finger, could cause Andreas Meeus to be dismissed from his post, andby crooking his finger cause him to be raised to a Commissionership. 

Yet he showed no servility at all. He had left servility behind him, justas he had left pride, just as he had left ambition, patriotism, country, and that divine something which blossoms into love of wife and child. 

When he had shaken hands with Berselius and Adams, he led the way into thefort, or rather into the enclosure surrounded by the ruinous mud walls, anenclosure of about a hundred yards square. 

On the right of the quadrangle stood the go-down, where the rubber and asmall quantity of ivory was stored. 

In the centre stood the misnamed guest house, a large mud and wattlebuilding, with a veranda gone to decay. 

The blinding sun shone on it all, showing up with its fierce light thetrue and appalling desolation of the place. There was not one thing in theenclosure upon which the eye could rest with thankfulness. 

Turning from the enclosure and looking across the fort wall to thedistance, one saw a world as far from civilization as the world thatRomulus looked at when he gazed across the wall outlining the first dimsketch of Rome. 

To the north, forest; to the south, forest; to the east, forest; and tothe west, eternal and illimitable forest. Blazing sun, everlasting hazethat in the rainy season would become mist and silence. 

In the storms and under the rains the great rubber forest of M'Bonga wouldroar like a reef-tormented sea, but on a day like this, when, gazing fromthe high ground of the fort, the eye travelled across the swelling domesand heat-stricken valleys of foliage, the pale green of the feather-palms, the sombre green of the n'sambyas, to the haze that veiled all thingsbeyond, on a day like this, silence gazed at one Sphinx-like, and from thedistance of a million years. Silence that had brooded upon Africa beforeAfrica had a name, before Pharaoh was born, before Thebes was built. 

Meeus led the way into the guest house, which contained only tworooms--rooms spacious enough, but bare of everything except the ordinarynecessities of life. In the living room there was a table of whitedeal-like wood and three or four chairs evidently made by natives from aEuropean design. A leopard skin, badly dried and shrivelling at the edges, hung on one wall, presumably as an ornament; on another wall some Congobows and arrows--bows with enormously thick strings and arrows poisoned soskilfully that a scratch from one would kill you, though they had beenhanging there for many years. They were trophies of the early days whenFort M'Bassa was really a fort, and from those woods down there clouds ofsoot-black devils, with filed teeth, raided the place, only to be sweptaway by rifle fire. 

There was no picture torn from an illustrated paper adorning the place, asin Verhaeren's abode, but on a rudely constructed shelf there lay just thesame stack of "official letters, " some of these two years old, some oflast month, all dealing with trade. 

Meeus brought out cigarettes and gin, but Berselius, safe now at his baseof operations, to make a little festival of the occasion sent to thestores, which his porters had deposited in the go-down, for a magnum ofchampagne. It was Cliquot, and as Meeus felt the glow of the wine in hisveins, a flush came into his hollow cheeks and a brightness into his dulleyes; forgotten things stirred again in his memory, with the shadows ofpeople he had known--the glitter of lamplit streets in Brussels, the glareof the _Café de Couronne_--all the past, such as it was, lay in the wine. 

Meeus was one of the "unfortunate men. " He had held a small clerkshipunder the Belgian Government, from which he had been dismissed through afault of his own. 

This was five years ago. Up to his dismissal he had led the peddling andsordid life that a small government clerk on the Continent leads if he hasnothing to save him from himself and from his fellows: the dry rot ofofficial life had left him useless for anything but official life. Asensualist in a small way, he enlarged his sphere on the day of hisdismissal, when he found himself cut off from work and adrift in theworld, with five hundred francs in his pocket. In one glorious debauch, which lasted a week, he spent the five hundred francs, and then he settleddown to live on a maiden aunt. 

He called it looking for work. 

She lasted for a year and nine months, and then she died, and her annuitydied with her. He felt her loss deeply, for not only had her money helpedto support him, but she was his only real friend, and he had a heart inthose days that seemed so far distant from him now. 

Then it was that Poverty took him by the hand and explained patiently andwith diagrams the hardness of the world, the atrocious position of the_déclassé_, who has never studied the art of roguery so as to make aliving by it, and the utter uselessness as friends of those good fellowswho sat in the _cafés_ and walked the boulevards and ogled the women. 

He tramped the streets of Brussels, at first in seedy clothes and at lastin filth and horrible rags. A relative came to his assistance with twohundred francs; he bought himself clothes and made himself respectable, but, in a fortnight, found himself relapsing again, sinking like a swimmerwhose momentary support has gone to pieces. 

Just as the waves were again about to close over his benighted head, anacquaintance got him a post under Government. Not under the Belgian butthe Congo Government. 

Andreas Meeus was exactly the type of man this Government required, andstill requires, and still uses and must continue to use as long as theinfernal machine which it has invented for the extraction of gold fromniggers continues to work. A man, that is to say, who has eatenorange-peel picked up in the market-place; a man who has worn out hisfriends--and his clothes. A man without hope. 

One would think for the work in hand they would choose the greatestblackguards possible: convicts convicted of the worst crimes of violence. Not at all. These men would be for one thing too intractable; for anotherthing, too unstable, and for another thing (strange to say), possessed oftoo much heart. The Congo Government knows its work far too well for that. It does not take the murderer or the violent criminal from thepenitentiary to do its work; it takes from the streets the man withouthope. The educated man who has fallen, the man who can still think. 

Meeus went to Africa just as a man goes to prison. He hated the idea ofgoing, but he had to go, or stay and starve. He was stationed three monthsat Boma and then he was moved to a post on the Upper Congo, a small andeasily worked post, where he found out the full conditions of his newservitude. 

This post had to do with what they call in the jargon of the Congoadministration, Forest Exploitation. Gum copal and wax was the stuff hehad to extract from the people round about. 

Here he found himself morally in the clutches of that famous and infamousproclamation issued from Brussels on the twentieth of June, 1892, bySecretary of State Van Estvelde. 

The Bonus Proclamation. 

According to the terms of this proclamation, Meeus found that besides hispay he could get a bonus on every kilo of wax and copal he could extractfrom the natives, and that the cheaper he could get the stuff the more hisbonus would be. 

Thus, for every kilo of wax or copal screwed out of the natives at a costof five centimes or less, he received into his pocket a bonus of fifteencentimes, that is to say the bonus to Meeus was three times what thenatives got; if by any laxity or sense of justice, the cost of the wax orcopal rose to six centimes a kilo, Meeus only got ten centimes bonus, andso on. 

The cheaper he got the stuff the more he was paid for it. And those werethe terms on which he had to trade with the natives. 

Then there were the taxes. The natives had to bring in huge quantities ofwax and copal for nothing, just as a tax owing to the State, a tax to theGovernment that was plundering and exploiting them. 

Meeus, who had a spice of the tradesman in him, fell into this state ofthings as easily as a billiard ball falls into a pocket when skilfullydirected. 

The unfortunate man was absolutely a billiard ball in the hands of aprofessional player; the stroke of the cue had been given in Belgium, herolled to his appointed post, fell into it, and was damned. 

His fingers became crooked and a dull hunger for money filled his soul. His success in working the niggers was so great that he was moved to amore difficult post at higher pay, and then right on to M'Bassa. 

He was not naturally a cruel man. In his childhood he had been fond ofanimals, but Matabiche, the god-devil of the Congo, changed all that. 

He saw nothing extortionate in his dealings, nothing wrong in them. Whenthings were going well, then all was well; but when the natives resistedhis charges and taxes, defrauding him of his bonus and lowering him in theeyes of his superiors, then Meeus became terrible. 

And he was absolute master. 

Away here in the lonely fort, in the midst of the great M'Bonga rubberforest that was now speechless as a Sphinx, now roaring at him like a seain torment; here in the endless sunlight of the dry seasons and theendless misery of the rains, Meeus driven in upon himself, had time tothink. 

There is no prison so terrible as a limitless prison. Far better for a manto inhabit a cell in Dartmoor than a post in the desert of the forest. Thewalls are companionable things, but there is no companionship indistance. 

Meeus knew what it was to look over the walls of the fort and watchanother sun setting on another day, and another darkness heralding anothernight. He knew what it was to watch infinite freedom and to know it forhis captor and jailer. He knew what it was to wake from his noonday siestaand see the same great awful splash of sunlight striking the same oldspace of arid yard, where the empty tomato tin lay by the rotten plantaincast over by some nigger child. He knew what it was to lie and hear theflies buzzing and wonder what tune of the devil it was they were trying toimitate. He knew what it was to think of death with the impotent cravingof a sick child for some impossible toy. 

Look into your own life and see all the tiny things that save you from_ennui_ and devilment, and give you heart to continue the journey fromhour to hour in this world where we live. Your morning paper, the new bookfrom the library you have just got to read, the pipe you hope to smokewhen you return from work, the very details of your work; a hundred andone petty things that make up the day of an ordinary man, breaking themonotony and breaking the prospect before him into short views. 

Meeus had none of these. Without literature or love, without a woman tohelp him through, without a child to care for or a dog to care for him, there at Fort M'Bassa in the glaring sunshine he faced his fate and becamewhat he was. 

CHAPTER XII

NIGHT AT THE FORT

The night was hot and close and the paraffin lamp in the guest house mixedits smell with the tobacco smoke and with a faint, faint musky odour thatcame from the night outside. Every now and then a puff of hot wind blewthrough the open doorway, hot and damp as though a great panther werebreathing into the room. 

The nights in the forest were chill, but up here at Fort M'Bassa they werestewing in a heat wave. 

Adams, with his coat off, pipe in mouth, was leaning back in a basketchair with his feet on a sugar box. Berselius, in another easy chair, wassmoking a cigar, and Meeus, sitting with his elbows on the table, wastalking of trade and its troubles. There is an evil spirit in rubber thatgives a lot of trouble to those who deal with it. The getting of it is badenough, but the tricks of the thing itself are worse. It is subject to allsorts of influences, climatic and other, and tends to deteriorate on itsjourney to the river and the coast of Europe. 

It was marvellous to see the passion with which this man spoke of thisinanimate thing. 

"And then, ivory, " said Meeus. "When I came here first, hundred-poundtusks were common; when you reach that district, M. Le Capitaine, you willsee for yourself, no doubt, that the elephants have decreased. What comesin now, even, is not of the same quality. Scrivelloes (small tusks), defective tusks, for which one gets almost nothing as a bonus. And withthe decrease of the elephant comes the increased subterfuge of thenatives. 'What are we to do?' they say. 'We cannot make elephants. ' Thisis the worst six months for ivory I have had, and then, on top ofthis--for troubles always come together--I have this bother I told you ofwith these people down there by the Silent Pools. "

A village ten miles to the east had, during the last few weeks, suspendedrubber payments, gone arrear in taxes, the villagers running off into theforest and hiding from their hateful work. 

"What caused the trouble?" asked Berselius. 

"God knows, " replied Meeus. "It may blow over--it may have blown over bythis, for I have had no word for two days; anyhow, to-morrow I will walkover and see. If it hasn't blown over, I will give the people very clearlyto understand that there will be trouble. I will stay there for a few daysand see what persuasion can do. Would you like to come with me?"

"I don't mind, " said Berselius. "A few days' rest will do the porters noharm. What do you say, Dr. Adams?"

"I'm with you, " said Adams. "Anything better than to stay back here alone. How do you find it here, M. Meeus, when you are by yourself?"

"Oh, one lives, " replied the _Chef de Poste_, looking at the cigarettebetween his fingers with a dreamy expression, and speaking as though hewere addressing it. "One lives. "

That, thought Adams, must be the worst part about it. But he did not speakthe words. He was a silent man, slow of speech but ready with sympathy, and as he lounged comfortably in his chair, smoking his pipe, his pity forMeeus was profound. The man had been for two years in this benightedsolitude; two years without seeing a white face, except on the rareoccasion of a District Commissioner's visit. 

He ought to have been mad by this, thought Adams; and he was a judge, forhe had studied madness and its causes. 

But Meeus was not mad in the least particular. He was coldly sane. Lusthad saved his reason, the lust inspired by Matabiche. 

Berselius's cook brought in some coffee, and when they had talked longenough about the Congo trade in its various branches, they went out andsmoked their pipes, leaning or sitting on the low wall of the fort. 

The first quarter of the moon, low in the sky and looking like aboat-shaped Japanese lantern, lay above the forest. The forest, spectral-pale and misty, lay beneath the moon; the heat was sweltering, and Adams could not keep the palms of his hands dry, rub them with hispocket handkerchief or on his knees as much as he would. 

This is the heat that makes a man feel limp as a wet rag; the heat thatliquefies morals and manners and temper and nerve force, so that they runwith the sweat from the pores. Drink will not "bite" in this heat, and astiff glass of brandy affects the head almost as little as a glass ofwater. 

"It is over there, " said Meeus, pointing to the southeast, "that we aregoing to-morrow to interview those beasts. "

Adams started at the intensity of loathing expressed by Meeus in thatsentence. He had spoken almost angrily at rubber and tusks, but hislanguid, complaining voice had held nothing like this before. 

Those beasts! He hated them, and he would not have been human had he nothated them. They were his jailers in very truth, their work was hisdeliverance. 

The revolt of this village would make him short of rubber; probably itwould bring a reprimand from his superiors. 

A great bat flitted by so close that the smell of it poisoned the air, andfrom the forest, far away to the west, came the ripping saw-like cry of aleopard on the prowl. Many fierce things were hunting in the forest thatnight, but nothing fiercer than Meeus, as he stood in the moonlight, cigarette in mouth, staring across the misty forest in the direction ofthe Silent Pools. 

PART THREE

CHAPTER XIII

THE POOLS OF SILENCE

Next morning Berselius ordered Félix to have the tents taken from thego-down and enough stores for two days. Tents and stores would be carriedby the "soldiers" of the fort, who were to accompany them on theexpedition. 

Adams noticed with surprise the childlike interest Meeus took in thebelongings of Berselius; the green rot-proof tents, the latest inventionof Europe, seemed to appeal to him especially; the Roorkee chairs, thefolding baths, the mosquito nets of the latest pattern, the cookingutensils of pure aluminum, filled his simple mind with astonishment. Hismind during his sojourn at Fort M'Bassa had, in fact, grown childlike inthis particular; nothing but little things appealed to him. 

Whilst the expedition was getting ready Adams strolled about outside thefort walls. The black "soldiers, " who were to accompany them, were seatedin the sun near their hovels, some of them cleaning their rifles, otherssmoking; but for their rifles and fez caps they might, with a view ofCarthage in the distance, have been taken for the black legionaries ofHamilcar, ferocious mercenaries without country or God, fierce as themusic of the leopard-skin drums that led them to battle. 

Turning, he walked round the west wall till he came to the wall on thenorth, which was higher than the others. Here, against the north wall, wasa sheltered cover like an immense sty, indescribably filthy andevil-smelling; about thirty rings were fastened to the wall, and from eachring depended a big rusty chain ending in a collar. 

It was the Hostage House of Fort M'Bassa. It was empty now, but nearlyalways full, and it stood there like a horrible voiceless witness. 

A great disgust filled the mind of Adams; disgust of the niggers who hadevidently lately inhabited this place, and disgust of the Belgians who hadherded them there. He felt there was something very wrong in the state ofCongo. The Hostage House of Yandjali had started the impression; Meeus insome subtle way had deepened it; and now this. 

But he fully recognized what difficult people to deal with niggers are. Hefelt that all this was slavery under a thin disguise, this so-calledtaxation and "trade, " but it was not his affair. 

All work is slavery more or less pleasant. The doctor is the slave of hispatients, the shopkeeper of his clients. These niggers were, no doubt, slaves of the Belgians, but they were not bought and sold; they had towork, it is true, but all men have to work. Besides, Berselius had toldhim that the Belgians had stopped the liquor traffic and stopped the Arabraiders. There was good and bad on the side of the Belgians, and theniggers were niggers. So reasoned Adams, and with reason enough, thoughfrom insufficient data. 

At eight o'clock in the blazing sunshine, that even then was oppressive, the expedition started. The white men leading, Félix coming immediatelybehind, and eleven of the soldiers, bearing the tents and stores for twodays, following after. 

They plunged into the forest, taking a dim track, which was the rubbertrack from the village of the Silent Pools and from half a dozen othervillages to the west. The ground here was different from the ground theyhad traversed in coming to the fort. This was boggy; here and there thefoot sank with a sough into the pulp of morass and rotten leaves; thelianas were thinner and more snaky, the greenery, if possible, greener, and the air close and moist as the air of a steam-bath. 

The forest of M'Bonga has great tracts of this boggy, pestiferous land, dreadful sloughs of despond caverned with foliage, and by some curse therubber vines entrench themselves with these. The naked rubber collectors, shivering over their fires, are attacked by the rheumatism and dysenteryand fever that lie in these swamps; diseases almost merciful, for theaches and pains they cause draw the mind away from the wild beasts anddevils and phantoms that haunt the imagination of the rubber slaves. 

It took them three hours to do the ten miles, and then at last the forestcleared away and fairyland appeared. 

Here in the very depths of the hopeless jungle, as if laid out andforgotten by some ancient god, lie the Silent Pools of Matabayo and thepark-like lands that hold them. Like a beautiful song in some tragic andgloomy opera, a regret of the God who created the hopeless forest, sheltered by the great n'sambya trees, they lie; pools of shadowy andtranquil water, broken by reflections of branches and mirroring speargrassten feet high and fanlike fern fronds. 

All was motionless and silent as a stereoscopic picture; the rocketingpalms bursting into sprays of emerald green, the n'sambyas with theirtrumpet-like yellow blossoms, the fern fronds reduplicating themselves inthe water's glass, all and each lent their motionless beauty to thecompletion of the perfect picture. 

In the old days, long ago, before the land was exploited and the forestturned into a hunting ground for rubber, the lovely head of the oryx wouldpush aside the long green blades of the speargrass; then, bending her lipsto the lips of the oryx gazing up at her from the water, she would drink, shattering the reflection into a thousand ripples. The water-buck camehere in herds from the elephant country away south, beyond thehour-glass-like constriction which divided the great forest, and the tinydik-dik, smallest of all antelopes, came also to take its sip. But allthat is past. The rifle and the trap, at the instigation of the devouringGovernment that eats rubber and antelope, ivory and palm-oil, cassava andcopal, has thinned out the herds and driven them away. The "soldier" mustbe fed. Even the humble bush pig of the forest knows that fact. 

It was four years since Berselius had hunted in this country, and even inthat short time he found enormous change. But he could not grumble. He wasa shareholder in the company, and in twenty industries depending on it. 

Close up to the forest, where the m'bina trees showed their balls ofscarlet blossom, lay the village they had come to reason with. There weretwenty-five or more low huts of wattle and mud, roofed with leaves andgrass. No one was visible but an old woman, naked, all but for a slightcovering about the loins. She was on all fours, grinding something betweentwo stones, and as she sighted the party she looked backward over hershoulder at them like a frightened cat. 

She cried out in a chattering voice, and from the huts six others, nakedas herself, came, stared at the whites, and then, as if driven by the sameimpulse, and just like rabbits, darted into the forest. 

But Meeus had counted on this, and had detached seven of his men to crawlround and post themselves at the back of the huts amidst the trees. 

A great hullaballoo broke out, and almost immediately the soldiersappeared, driving the seven villagers before them with their rifle-butts. 

They were not hurting them, just pushing them along, for this was, up tothe present, not a punitive expedition but a fatherly visitation to pointout the evils of laziness and insubordination, and to get, if possible, these poor wretches to communicate with the disaffected ones and make themreturn to their work. 

Adams nearly laughed outright at the faces of the villagers; blackcountenances drawn into all the contortions of fright, but the contortionsof their bodies were more laughable still, as they came forward likenaughty children, driven by the soldiers, putting their hands out behindto evade the prods of the gun-butts. 

Berselius had ordered the tents to be raised on the sunlit grass, for theedge of the forest, though shady, was infested by clouds of tiny blackmidges--midges whose bite was as bad, almost, as the bite of a mosquito. 

Meeus spoke to the people in their own tongue, telling them not to beafraid, and when the tents were erected he and Berselius and Adams, sitting in the shelter of the biggest tent, faced the seven villagers, alldrawn up in a row and backed by the eleven soldiers in their red fezcaps. 

The villagers, backed by the soldiers and fronted by Meeus, formed apicture which was the whole Congo administration in a nutshell. In asentence, underscored by the line of blood-red fezzes. 

These seven undersized, downtrodden, hideously frightened creatures, witheyeballs rolling and the marks of old chain scars on their necks, were therepresentatives of all the humble and meek tribes of the Congo, the peoplewho for thousands of years had lived a lowly life, humble as the coneys ofScripture; people who had cultivated the art of agriculture and hadcarried civilization as far as their weak hands would carry it in thatbenighted land. Literally the salt of that dark earth. Very poor salt, itis true, but the best they could make of themselves. 

These eleven red-tipped devils, gun-butting the others to make them standerect and keep in line, were the representatives of the warlike tribes whofor thousands of years had preyed on each other and made the land a hell. Cannibals most of them, ferocious all of them, heartless to a man. 

Meeus was the white man who, urged by the black lust of money, had armedand drilled and brought under good pay all the warlike tribes of the CongoState and set them as task-masters over the humble tribes. 

By extension, Berselius and Adams were the nations of Europe looking on, one fully knowing, the other not quite comprehending the tragedy enactedbefore their eyes. 

I am not fond of parallels, but as these people have ranged themselvesthus before my eyes, I cannot help pointing out the full meaning of thepicture. A picture which is photographically true. 

There was a little pot-bellied boy amongst the villagers, the old woman ofthe grindstone was holding him by the hand; he, of all the crowd, did notlook in the least frightened. His eyeballs rolled, but they rolled inwonder. 

The tent seemed to take his fancy immensely; then the big Adams struck histaste, and he examined him from tip to toe. 

Adams, greatly taken with the blackamoor, puffed out his cheeks, closedone eye, and instantly, as if at the blow of a hatchet, the black facesplit, disclosing two white rows of teeth, and then hid itself, rubbing asnub nose against the old woman's thigh. 

But a rolling white eyeball reappeared in a moment, only to vanish againas Adams, this time, sucked in his cheeks and worked his nose, making, under his sun hat, a picture to delight and terrify the heart of anychild. 

All this was quite unobserved by the rest, and all this time Meeus gravelyand slowly was talking to the villagers in a quiet voice. They were tosend one of their number into the forest to find the defaulters and urgethem to return. Then all would be well. That was the gist of hisdiscourse; and the wavering line of niggers rolled their eyes andanswered, "We hear, we hear, " all together and like one person speaking, and they were nearly tumbling down with fright, for they knew that allwould not be well, and that what the awful white man with the pale, graveface said to them was lies, lies, lies--all lies. 

Besides the old woman and the child there were two young girls, an oldman, a boy of fifteen or so, with only one foot, and a pregnant woman verynear her time. 

Adams had almost forgotten the nigger child when a white eyeball gazing athim from between the old woman's legs recalled its existence. 

He thought he had never seen a jollier animal of the human tribe thanthat. The creature was so absolutely human and full of fun that it wasdifficult to believe it the progeny of these downtrodden, frightenedlooking folk. And the strange thing was, it had all the tricks of anEnglish or American child. 

The hiding and peeping business, the ready laugh followed by bashfulnessand self-effacement, the old unalterable impudence, which is not leastamidst the _prima mobilia_ of the childish mind. In another moment, hefelt, the thing would forget its respect and return his grimaces, so heignored it and fixed his attention on Meeus and the trembling wretches hewas addressing. 

When the lecture was over they were dismissed, and the boy with theamputated foot was sent off to the forest to find the delinquents andbring them back. Till sunrise on the following day was the term givenhim. 

If the others did not begin to return by that time there would betrouble. 

CHAPTER XIV

BEHIND THE MASK

The Silent Pools and the woods around were the haunts of innumerablebirds. Rose-coloured flamingoes and gorgeous ducks, birds arrayed in allthe jewellery of the tropics, birds not much bigger than dragon-flies, andbirds that looked like flying beetles. 

When they had dined, Adams, leaving the others to smoke and take theirsiesta, went off by the water's edge on a tour of the pools. They werethree in number; sheets of water blue and tranquil and well-named, forsurely in all the world nowhere else could such perfect peace be found. Perhaps it was the shelter of the forest protecting these windless sheetsof water; perhaps it was the nature of the foliage, so triumphantly aliveyet so motionless; perhaps beyond these some more recondite reasoninfluenced the mind and stirred the imagination. Who knows? The spirit ofthe scene was there. The spirit of deep and unalterable peace. The peaceof shadowy lagoons, the peace of the cedar groves where the shelteringtrees shaded the loveliness of Merope, the peace of the heart which passesall understanding and which men have named the Peace of God. 

It was the first time since leaving Yandjali that Adams had found himselfalone and out of sight of his companions. He breathed deeply, as ifbreathing in the air of freedom, and as he strode along, tramping throughthe long grass, his mind, whilst losing no detail of the scene around him, was travelling far away, even to Paris, and beyond. 

Suddenly, twenty yards ahead, bounding and beautiful in its freedom andgrace, a small antelope passed with the swiftness of an arrow; after it, almost touching it, came another form, yellow and fierce and flashingthrough the grass and vanishing, like the antelope, amidst the highgrasses on the edge of the pool. 

The antelope had rushed to the water for protection, and the leopard hadfollowed, carried forward by its impetus and ferocity, for Adams couldhear its splash following the splash of the quarry; then a roar split thesilence, echoed from the trees, and sent innumerable birds fluttering andcrying from the edge of the forest and the edge of the pool. 

Adams burst through the long speargrass to see what was happening, and, standing on the boggy margin, holding the grasses aside, gazed. 

The antelope had vanished as if it had never been, and a few yards fromthe shore, in the midst of a lather of water that seemed beaten up with agreat swizzle-stick, the leopard's head, mouth open, roaring, horrifiedhis eyes for a moment and then was jerked under the surface. 

The water closed, eddied, and became still, and Silence resumed her swayover the Silent Pools. 

Something beneath the water had devoured the antelope; something beneaththe water had dragged the leopard to its doom, and swish! a huge flailtore the speargrass to ribbons and sent Adams flying backward with thewind of its passage. 

Another foot and the crocodile's tail would have swept him to the fate ofthe antelope and leopard. 

The place was alive with ferocity and horror, and it seemed to Adams thatthe Silent Pools had suddenly slipped the mask of silence and beauty andshown to him the face of hideous death. 

He wiped the sweat from his brow. He was unarmed, and it seemed that aman, to walk in safety through this Garden of Eden, ought to be armed tothe teeth. He turned back to the camp, walking slowly and seeing nothingof the beauties around him, nothing but the picture of the leopard's face, the paws frantically beating the water, and a more horrible picture still, the water resuming its calmness and its peace. 

When he reached the camp, he found Berselius and Meeus absent. After theirsiesta they had gone for a stroll by the water's edge in the oppositedirection to that which he had taken. The soldiers were on duty, keeping awatchful eye on the villagers; all were seated, the villagers in front oftheir huts and the soldiers in the shade, with their rifles handy; all, that is to say, except the nigger child, who was trotting about here andthere, and who seemed quite destitute of fear or concern. 

When this creature saw the gigantic Adams who looked even more gigantic inhis white drill clothes, it laughed and ran away, with hands outspread andhead half slewed round. Then it hid behind a tree. There is nothing morecharming than the flight of a child when it wishes to be pursued. It isthe instinct of women and children to run away, so as to lead you on, andit is the instinct of a rightly constituted man to follow. Adams cametoward the tree, and the villagers seated before their huts and thesoldiers seated in the shade all turned their heads like automata towatch. 

"Hi there, you ink-bottle!" cried Adams. "Hullo there, you black dogaroo!Out you come, Uncle Remus!" Then he whistled. 

He stood still, knowing that to approach closer would drive the dogaroo toflight or to tree climbing. 

There was nothing visible but two small black hands clutching the treebole; then the gollywog face, absolutely split in two with a grin, appeared and vanished. 

Adams sat down. 

The old, old village woman who was, in fact, the child's grandmother, hadbeen looking on nervously, but when the big man sat down she knew he wasonly playing with the child, and she called out something in the native, evidently meant to reassure it. But she might have saved her breath, forthe black bundle behind the tree suddenly left cover and stood with handsfolded, looking at the seated man. 

He drew his watch from his pocket and held it up. It approached. Hewhistled, and it approached nearer. Two yards away it stopped dead. 

"Tick-tick, " said Adams, holding up the watch. 

"Papeete N'quong, " replied the other, or words to that effect. 

It spoke in a hoarse, crowing voice not at all unpleasant. If you listento English children playing in the street you will often hear thiscroaking sort of voice, like the voice of a young rook. 

Papeete struck Adams as a good name for the animal and, calling him by it, he held out the watch as a bait. 

The lured one approached closer, held out a black claw, and next momentwas seized by the foot. 

It rolled on the ground like a dog, laughing and kicking, and Adamstickled it; and the grim soldiers laughed, showing their sharp whiteteeth, and the old grandmother beat her hands together, palm to palm, asif pleased, and the other villagers looked on without the ghost of anexpression on their black faces. 

Then he jumped it on its feet and sent it back to its people with a slapon its behind, and returned to his tent to smoke till Berselius and Meeusreturned. 

But he had worked his own undoing, for, till they broke camp, Papeetehaunted him like a buzz-fly, peeping at him, sometimes from under thetent, trotting after him like a dog, watching him from a distance, till hebegan to think of "haunts" and "sendings" and spooks. 

When Berselius and his companion returned, the three men sat and smokedtill supper time. 

At dark the villagers were driven into their huts and at the door of eachhut lay a sentry. 

A big fire was lit, and by its light two more sentries kept watch over theothers and their prisoners. Then the moon rose, spreading silver over thesilence of the pools and the limitless foliage of the forest. 

CHAPTER XV

THE PUNISHMENT

The sun rose, bringing with it a breeze. Above the stir and bustle of thebirds you could hear the gentle wind in the tree-tops like the sound of asea on a low-tide beach. 

The camp was still in gloom, but the whole arc of sky above the pools wasthrilled and filled with living light. Sapphire blue, dazzling and pale, but deep with infinite distance, it had an intrinsic brilliancy as thoughfilled with sunbeams brayed to dust. 

The palm tops had caught the morning splendour and then, rapidly, asthough the armies of light were moving to imperious trumpet-calls, charging with golden spears, legion on legion, a hurricane of brightness, Day broke upon the pools. 

We call it Day, but what is it, this splendour that comes from nowhere, and vanishes to nowhere, that strikes our lives rhythmically like thegolden wing of a vast and flying bird, bearing us along with it in thewind of its flight?

The rotation of the earth? But in the desert, on the sea, in the spaces ofthe forest you will see in the dawn a vision divorced from time, arecurring glance of a beauty that is eternal, a ray as if from the brightworld toward which the great bird Time is flying, caught and reflected toour eyes by every lift of the wing. 

The dawn had not brought the truants back from the forest. 

This point Meeus carefully verified. Even the boy who had been sent tocommunicate with them had not returned. 

"No news?" said Berselius, as he stepped from his tent-door and glancedaround him. 

"None, " replied Meeus. 

Adams now appeared, and the servants who had been preparing breakfast laidit on the grass. The smell of coffee filled the air; nothing could be morepleasant than this out-of-doors breakfast in the bright and lovelymorning, the air fresh with the breeze and the voices of birds. 

The villagers were all seated in a group, huddled together at the extremeleft of the row of huts. They were no longer free, but tied together ankleto ankle by strips of _n'goji_. Only Papeete was at liberty, but he keptat a distance. He was seated near the old woman, and he was exploring theinterior of an empty tomato tin flung away by the cook. 

"I will give them two hours more, " said Meeus, as he sipped his coffee. 

"And then?" said Adams. 

Meeus was about to reply when he caught a glance from Berselius. 

"Then, " he said, "I will knock those mud houses of theirs to pieces. Theyrequire a lesson. "

"Poor devils!" said Adams. 

Meeus during the meal did not display a trace of irritation. From hisappearance one might have judged that the niggers had returned to theirwork, and that everything was going well. At times he appearedabsent-minded, and at times he wore a gloomy but triumphant look, asthough some business which had unpleasant memories attached to it had atlast been settled to his satisfaction. 

After breakfast he drew Berselius aside, and the two men walked away inthe direction of the pools, leaving Adams to smoke his pipe in the shadeof the tent. 

They came back in about half an hour, and Berselius, after speaking a fewwords to Félix, turned to Adams. 

"I must ask you to return to Fort M'Bassa and get everything in readinessfor our departure. Félix will accompany you. I will follow in a couple ofhours with M. Meeus. I am afraid we will have to pull these people'shouses down. It's a painful duty, but it has to be performed. You willsave yourself the sight of it. "

"Thanks, " said Adams. Not for a good deal of money would he have remainedto see those wretched hovels knocked to pieces. He could perceive plainlyenough that the thing had to be done. Conciliation had been tried, and itwas of no avail. He was quite on the side of Meeus; indeed, he had admiredthe self-restraint of this very much tried _Chef de Poste_. Not a hardword, not a blow, scarcely a threat had been used. The people had beenspoken to in a fatherly manner, a messenger had been sent to the truants, and the messenger had joined them. At all events he had not returned. Then, certainly, pull their houses down. But he did not wish to see thesight. He had nothing to do with the affair, so filling and lightinganother pipe, and leaving all his belongings to be brought on byBerselius, he turned with Félix and, saying good-bye to his companions, started. 

They had nearly reached the edge of the forest when shouts from behindcaused Adams to turn his head. 

The soldiers were shouting to Papeete to come back. 

The thing had trotted after Adams like a black dog. It was within a fewyards of him. 

"Go back, " shouted Adams. 

"Tick-tick, " replied Papeete. It was the only English the creature knew. 

It stood frying in the sun, grinning and glistening, till Adams, with anassumption of ferocity, made for it, then back it went, and Adams, laughing, plunged under the veil of leaves. 

Berselius, seated at his tent door, looked at his watch. Meeus, seatedbeside Berselius, was smoking cigarettes. 

"Give him an hour, " said Berselius. "He will be far away enough by that. Besides, the wind is blowing from there. "

"True, " said Meeus. "An hour. " And he continued to smoke. But his hand wasshaking, and he was biting the cigarette, and his lips were dry so that hehad to be continually licking them. 

Berselius was quite calm, but his face was pale, and he seemedcontemplating something at a distance. 

When half an hour had passed, Meeus rose suddenly to his feet and began towalk about, up and down, in front of the tent, up and down, up and down, as a man walks when he is in distress of mind. 

The black soldiers also seemed uneasy, and the villagers huddled closertogether like sheep. Papeete alone seemed undisturbed. He was playing nowwith the old tomato tin, out of which he had scraped and licked everyvestige of the contents. 

Suddenly Meeus began crying out to the soldiers in a hard, sharp voicelike the yelping of a dog. 

The time was up, and the soldiers knew. They ranged up, chattering andlaughing, and all at once, as if produced from nowhere, two rhinoceroshide whips appeared in the hands of two of the tallest of the blacks. Rhinoceros hide is more than an inch thick; it is clear and almosttranslucent when properly prepared. In the form of a whip it is less aninstrument of punishment than a weapon. These whips were not the smoothlyprepared whips used for light punishment; they had angles that cut likesword edges. One wonders what those sentimental people would say--thosesentimental people who cry out if a burly ruffian is ordered twentystrokes with the cat--could they see a hundred _chicotte_ administeredwith a whip that is flexible as india-rubber, hard as steel. 

Two soldiers at the yelping orders of Meeus cut the old woman apart fromher fellows and flung her on the ground. 

The two soldiers armed with whips came to her, and she did not speak aword, nor cry out, but lay grinning at the sun. 

Papeete, seeing his old grandmother treated like this, dropped his tomatotin and screamed, till a soldier put a foot on his chest and held himdown. 

"Two hundred _chicotte_, " cried Meeus, and like the echo of his words camethe first dull, coughing blow. 

The villagers shrieked and cried altogether at each blow, but the victim, after the shriek which followed the first blow, was dumb. 

Free as a top which is being whipped by a boy, she gyrated, making franticefforts to escape, and like boys whipping a top, the two soldiers withtheir whips pursued her, blow following blow. 

A semicircle of blood on the ground marked her gyrations. Once she almostgained her feet, but a blow in the face sent her down again. She put herhands to her poor face, and the rhinoceros whips caught her on the hands, breaking them. She flung herself on her back and they beat her on thestomach, cutting through the walls of the abdomen till the intestinesprotruded. She flung herself on her face and they cut into her back withthe whips till her ribs were bare and the fat bulged through the longslashes in the skin. 

Verily it was a beating to the bitter end, and Meeus, pale, dripping withsweat, his eyes dilated to a rim, ran about laughing, shouting--

_"Two hundred chicotte. Two hundred chicotte. "_

 * * * * *

He cried the words like a parrot, not knowing what he said. 

And Berselius?

Berselius, also dripping with sweat, his eyes also dilated to a rim, tottering like a drunken man, gazed, drinking, drinking the sight in. 

Down, away down in the heart of man there is a trapdoor. Beyond theinstincts of murder and assassination, beyond the instincts that make aCount Cajus or a Marquis de Sade, it lies, and it leads directly into thelast and nethermost depths of hell, where sits in eternal damnationEccelin de Romano. 

Cruelty for cruelty's sake: the mad pleasure of watching suffering in itsmost odious form: that is the passion which hides demon-like beneath thisdoor, and that was the passion that held Berselius now in its grip. 

He had drunk of all things, this man, but never of such a potent draughtas this demon held now to his lips--and not for the first time. Thedraught would have been nothing but for the bitterness of it, the horrorof it, the mad delight of knowing the fiendishness of it, and drinking, drinking, drinking, till reason, self-respect, and soul, were overthrown. 

The thing that had been a black woman and, now, seemed like nothingearthly except a bundle of red rags, gave up the miserable soul itcontained and, stiffening in the clutches of tetanus, became a hoop. 

 * * * * *

What happened then to the remaining villagers could be heard echoing formiles through the forest in the shrieks and wails of the tortured ones. 

One cannot write of unnamable things, unprintable deeds. The screamslasted till noon. 

At one o'clock the punitive expedition had departed, leaving the SilentPools to their silence. The houses of the village had been destroyed andtrampled out. The sward lay covered with shapeless remains, and scarcelyhad the last of the expedition departed, staggering and half drunk withthe delirium of their deeds, than from the blue above, like a stone, dropped a vulture. 

A vulture drops like a stone, with wings closed till it reaches within afew yards of the ground; then it spreads its wings and, with wide-openedtalons, lights on its prey. 

Then, a marabout with fore-slanting legs and domed-out wings, came sailingsilently down to the feast, and another vulture, and yet another. 

CHAPTER XVI

DUE SOUTH

When Berselius and Meeus returned to Fort M'Bassa Adams, who met them, came to the conclusion that Berselius had been drinking. The man's facelooked stiff and bloated, just as a man's face looks after a terribledebauch. Meeus looked cold and hard and old, but his eyes were bright andhe was seemingly quite himself. 

"To-morrow I shall start, " said Berselius. "Not to-day. I am tired andwish to sleep. " He went off to the room where his bed was, and casthimself on it and fell instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep. 

The innocent may wonder how such a man would dare to sleep--dare to enterthat dark country so close to the frontier of death. But what should theinnocent know of a Berselius, who was yet a living man and walked theearth but a few years ago, and whose prototype is alive to-day. Alive andpowerful and lustful, great in mind, body, and estate. 

 * * * * *

Before sunrise next morning the expedition was marshalled in the courtyardfor the start. 

A great fire burned in the space just before the house, and by its lightthe stores and tents were taken from the go-down. The red light of thefire lit up the black glistening skins of the porters as they loadedthemselves with the chop boxes and tents and guns; lit up the red fez capsof the onlooking "soldiers, " their glittering white teeth, their whiteeyeballs, and the barrels of their rifles. 

Beyond and below the fort the forest stretched in the living starlightlike an infinite white sea. The tree-tops were roofed with a faint mist, no breath of wind disturbed it, and in contrast to the deathly stillnessof all that dead-white world the sky, filled with leaping stars, seemedalive and vocal. 

It was chill up here just before dawn. Hence the fire. Food had beenserved out to the porters, and they ate it whilst getting things ready andloading up. Berselius and his companions were breakfasting in the guesthouse and the light of the paraffin lamp lay on the veranda yellow astopaz in contrast with the red light of the fire in the yard. 

Everything was ready for the start. They were waiting now for the sun. 

Then, away to the east, as though a vague azure wind had blown up underthe canopy of darkness, the sky, right down to the roof of the forest, became translucent and filled with distance. 

A reef of cloud like a vermilion pencil-line materialized itself, became arose-red feather tipped with dazzling gold, and dissolved as if washedaway by the rising sea of light. 

A great bustle spread through the courtyard. The remaining stores wereloaded up, and under the direction of Félix, the porters formed in a longline, their loads on their heads. 

As the expedition left the compound it was already day. The edge of thesun had leaped over the edge of the forest, the world was filled withlight, and the sky was a sparkling blue. 

What a scene that was! The limitless sea of snow-white mist rippled overby the sea of light, the mist billowed and spiralled by the dawn wind, great palm tops bursting through the haze, glittering effulgent with dew, birds breaking to the sky in coloured flocks, snow, and light, and thegreen of tremendous vegetation, and over all, new-built and beautiful, theblue, tranquil dome of sky. 

It was song materialized in colour and form, the song of the primevalforests breaking from the mists of chaos, tremendous, triumphant, joyous, finding day at last, and greeting him with the glory of the palms, withthe rustle of the n'sambyas tossing their golden bugles to the light, thedrip and sigh of the euphorbia trees, the broad-leaved plantains and thethousand others whose forms hold the gloom of the forest in the mesh oftheir leaves. 

"I have awakened, O God! I have awakened. Behold me, O Lord! I am Thine!"

Thus to the splendour of the sun and led by the trumpet of the wind sangthe forest. A hundred million trees lent their voices to the song. Ahundred million trees--acacia and palm, m'bina and cottonwood, thorn andmimosa; in gloom, in shine, in valley and on rise, mist-strewn andsun-stricken, all bending under the deep sweet billows of the wind. 

At the edge of the forest Berselius and Adams took leave of Meeus. NeitherBerselius nor Meeus showed any sign of the past day. They had "slept itoff. " As for Adams, he knew nothing, except that the villagers had beenpunished and their houses destroyed. 

The way lay due south. They were now treading that isthmus of woods whichconnects the two great forests which, united thus, make the forest ofM'Bonga. The trees in this vast connecting wood are different from thetrees in the main forests. You find here enormous acacias, monkey-breadtrees, raphia palms and baobabs; less gloom, and fewer creeping andhanging plants. 

Berselius, as a rule, brought with him a taxidermist, but this expeditionwas purely for sport. The tusks of whatever elephants were slain would bebrought back, but no skins; unless, indeed, they were fortunate enough tofind some rare or unknown species. 

CHAPTER XVII

SUN-WASHED SPACES

A two days' march brought them clear of the woods and into a brokencountry, vast, sunstrewn and silent; a beautiful desolation where the tallgrass waved in the wind, and ridge and hollow, plain and mimosa tree, ledthe eye beyond, and beyond, to everlasting space. 

Standing here alone, and listening, the only sound from all that greatsunlit country was the sound of the wind in the grasses near by. 

Truly this place was at the very back of the world, the hinterland of theprimeval forests. Strike eastward far enough and you would sight thesnow-capped crest of Kilimanjaro, King of African mountains, sittingsnow-crowned above the vast territory to which he has given his name, andwhich stretches from Lake Eyasi to the Pare Mountains. The hunters ofKilimanjaro, which once was the home of elephants, have thinned the herdsand driven them to wander. Elephants that a hundred years ago, even fiftyyears ago, were almost fearless of man, have altered their habits from thebitter lessons they have received, and now are only to be found in themost inaccessible places. Should they cling to more inhabited districts, they come out of the sheltered places only by night. A man may spend yearsin an elephant district without once seeing an elephant. Driven by thenecessity of food and the fear of man, the great herds wander in theirwonderful and mysterious journeys for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Never lying down, sleeping as they stand, always on guard, dim of sightyet keen of smell, they pass where there are trees, feeding as they go, stripping branches of leaves. Alarmed, or seeking a new feeding place, aherd moves in the rainy season, when the ground is soft, with the silenceand swiftness of a cloud shadow; in the dry season when the ground ishard, the sound of them stampeding is like the drums of an army. 

"Elephants, " said Berselius, pointing to some bundles of dried stuff lyingnear a vangueria bush. "That stuff is a bundle of bowstring hemp. Theychew it and drop it. Oh, that has been dropped a long time ago; see, thereyou have elephants again. "

A tree standing alone showed half its bark ripped off, tusked off by someold bull elephant, and above the tusk marks, some fifteen feet up, couldbe seen the rubbing mark where great shoulders had scratched themselves. 

As they marched, making due south, Berselius in that cold manner whichnever left him, and which made comradeship with the man impossible andreduced companionship to the thinnest bond, talked to Adams about the gamethey were after, telling in a few graphic sentences and not withoutfeeling the wonderful story of the moving herds, to whom distance isnothing, to whom mountains are nothing, to whom the thickest jungle isnothing. The poem of the children of the mammoth who have walked the earthwith the mastodon, who have stripped the trees wherein dwelt arboreal man, who have wandered under the stars and suns of a million years, seen riverschange their courses and hills arise where plains had been, and yetremain, far strewn and thinned out, it is true, but living still. At noonthey halted and the tents were pitched for a four hours' rest. 

Adams, whilst dinner was preparing, walked away by himself till the campwas hidden by a ridge, then he stood and looked around him. 

Alone, like this, the spirit of the scene appeared before him: the sun, and wind, and sky; the vast, vast spaces of waving grass, broken by thebeds of dried-up streams, strewn here and there with mimosas and thorns, here dim with the growth of vangueria bushes, here sharp and gray-greenwith cactus; this giant land, infinite, sunlit, and silent, spoke to himin a new language. 

It seemed to Adams that he had never known freedom before. 

A shadow swept by him on the grass. He looked up and watched the greatbird that had cast the shadow sailing away on the wind, dwindling to apoint, and vanishing in the dazzling blue. 

CHAPTER XVIII

FAR INTO ELEPHANT LAND

They sighted a small herd of giraffe two days later, but so far off as tobe beyond pursuit; but before evening, just as they were about to camp bysome pools, they came across rhino. 

Berselius's quick eye spotted the beasts, a bull and a cow. They were inthe open, under shelter of some thick grass; the bull was half sitting up, and his head and horn in the evening light might have been taken for thestump of a broken tree. The cow was not visible at first, but almostimmediately after they sighted the bull, she heaved herself up and stood asilhouette against the sky. 

The wind was blowing from the beasts, so it was quite possible to getclose up to them. The meat would be useful, so Berselius and his companionstarted, with Félix carrying the guns. 

As they drew close Adams noticed that the back of the great cow seemedalive and in motion. Half a dozen rhinoceros birds, in fact, were upon it, and almost immediately, sighting the hunters, they rose chattering andfluttering in the air. 

These birds are the guardians of the half-blind rhinoceros. They live onthe parasites that infest his skin. It is a partnership. The birds warnthe rhinoceros of danger, and he, vicariously, feeds the birds. Scarcelyhad the birds given warning than the bull heaved himself up. Berselius'srifle rang out, but the light was uncertain, and the brute wounded, butnot mortally, charged forward took a half circle, swung his head from sideto side in search of his assailant, and sighted the cow. Instantly, horndown and squealing, he charged her. She met him horn to horn, and thesmash could be heard at the camp where the porters and the soldiers stoodgazing open-mouthed at the battle between the two great brutes chargingeach other in the low evening light, fighting with the ferocity of tigersand the agility of cats. 

Adams, close up as he was, had a better view, and unless he had seen withhis own eyes, he could not have believed that two animals so heavy andunwieldy could display such nimbleness and such quickness of ferocity. 

It was the wickedest sight, and it was brought to an end at last by therifle of Berselius. 

Curiously enough, neither brute had injured the other very much. The hornswhich, had they been of ivory, must have been shivered, were intact, forthe horn of a rhinoceros is flexible; it is built up of a conglomerationof hairs, and though, perhaps, the most unbreakable thing in the universe, it bends up to a certain point just as a rapier does. 

Next morning, two hours after daybreak, Félix, who was scouting just aheadof the column, came running back with news he had struck elephant spoor. Every tooth in his head told the tale. Not only spoor, but the spoor of avast herd cutting right across the line of march. 

Berselius came forward to examine, and Adams came with him. 

The dry ground and wire grass was not the best medium for taking the trackof the beasts, but to the experienced eyes of Berselius and the Zappo Zapeverything was clear. A herd of elephant had passed not long ago, and theywere undisturbed and unsuspicious. When elephants are suspicious theymarch in lines, single file, one stepping in the tracks of another. Thisherd was spread wide and going easy of mind, but at what pace it would beimpossible to say. 

The long boat-shaped back feet of the bulls leave a print unmistakable inthe rainy season when the ground is soft, but still discernible to thetrained eye in the dry season. Félix declared that there were at leasttwenty bulls in the herd, and some of huge size. 

"How long is it since they passed here?" asked Berselius. 

Félix held up the fingers of one hand. From certain indications he came tothe conclusion they had passed late in the night, three hours or so beforedaybreak. They numbered forty or fifty, leaving aside the calves thatmight be with them. He delivered these opinions, speaking in the native, and Berselius instantly gave the order, "Left wheel!" to the crowd ofporters; and at the word the long column turned at right angles to theline of march and struck due west, treading the track of the herd. 

Nothing is more exciting than this following in the track of a mammotharmy whose tactics you cannot foresee. This herd might be simply moving afew miles in search of a new feeding ground, or it might be making one ofthose great sweeping marches covering hundreds of miles that themysterious elephant people make at the dictates of their mysteriousinstinct. It might be moving at a gentle pace, or swifter than a man couldrun. A mile on the new route they came on a broken tree, a great treebroken down as if by a storm; the fractures were quite recent. Theelephant folk had done this. They came across another tree whose sides, facing north and south, had been clearly barked, and the pieces of thebark, farther on, that had been chewed and flung away. 

With one stroke of a tusk passing a tree, and without stopping, anelephant will tear off a strip of bark; and it was curious to see how thebark of this tree to east and west was intact. The moving herd had notstopped. Just in passing, an elephant on either side of the tree had takenhis slice of bark, chewed it and flung it away. There were also smalltrees trodden down mercilessly under foot. Thus the great track of theherd lay before the hunters, but not a sign in all the sunlit, silentcountry before them of the herd itself. 

It was Berselius's aim to crowd up his men as quickly as a forced marchcould do it, camp and then pursue the herd with a few swift followers, thebarest possible amount of stores and one tent. 

The calabashes and the water bottles had been filled at the last halt, butit was desirable to find water for the evening's camping place. 

It was now that Berselius showed his capacity as a driver and his ownenormous store of energy. 

He took the tail of the column, and woe to the porters who lagged behind!Félix was with him, and Adams, who was heading the column, could hear theshouts of the Zappo Zap. The men with their loads went at a quick walk, sometimes breaking into a trot, urged forward by the gun-butt of Félix. 

The heat was sweltering, but there was no rest. On, on, on, ever onthrough a country that changed not at all; the same breaks and ridges, thesame limitless plains of waving grass, the same scant trees, the sameheat-shaken horizon toward which the elephant road led straight, unwavering, endless. 

The brain reeled with the heat and the dazzle, but the column halted notnor stayed. The energy of Berselius drove it forward as the energy ofsteam drives an engine. His voice, his very presence, put life intoflagging legs and sight into dazzled eyes. He spared neither himself norothers; the game was ahead, the spoor was hot, and the panther in his souldrove him forward. 

Toward noon they halted for two hours where some bushes spread theirshade. The porters lay down on their bellies, with arms outspread, havingtaken a draught of water and a bite of food; they lay in absolute andprofound slumber. Adams, nearly as exhausted, lay on his back. Even Félixshowed signs of the journey, but Berselius sat right back into the bushes, with his knees drawn up and, with eyes fixed on the eastern distance, brooded. 

He was always like this on a great hunt, when the game was near. Silentand brooding, and morose to the point of savagery. 

One might almost have fancied that in far distant days this man had been atiger, and that the tiger still lived slumbering in his soul, triumphantover death, driving him forth at intervals from civilization to wander inthe wild places of the earth and slay. 

Two hours past noon they resumed their journey: on, on, on, treading theelephant track which still went due east straight as an arrow to the bluehorizon. The frightful tiredness they had felt before the noonday halt hadpassed, giving place to a dull, dreamy feeling, such as comes after takingopium. The column marched mechanically and without thought, knowing onlytwo things, the feel of the hard ground and grass beneath their feet, andthe smiting of the sun on their backs. 

Thus the galley slaves of old laboured at their oars and the builders ofthe pyramids beneath their loads, all moving like one man. But here was notune of flutes to set the pace, or monotonous song to help the lifting;only the voice of Berselius like a whip-lash, and the gun-butt of Félixdrumming on the ribs of laggards. 

A light, hot wind was blowing in their faces. Adams, still at the head ofthe column, had suffered severely during the morning march, and there-start after the noon rest was painful to him as a beating; but thereserve forces of a powerful constitution that had never been tamperedwith were now coming into play, and, after a time, he felt littlediscomfort. His body, like a wound-up mechanism, did all the work; hismind became divorced from it; he experienced a curious exaltation, likethat which comes from drink, only finer far and more ethereal. The columnseemed marching far swifter than it was marching in reality, the vastsunlit land seemed vaster even than it was; the wind-blown grass, the fardistant trees, the circling skyline, all spoke of freedom unknown to man:the freedom of the herd they were pursuing; the freedom of the bird flyingoverhead; the freedom of the wind blowing in the grass; the freedom of thelimitless, endless, sunlit country. Meridians of silence, and light, andplains, and trees, and mountains, and forests. Parallels of virgin land. 

He was feeling what the bird knows and feels when it beats up themountains or glides down the vales of air; what the elephant herd knowsand feels when it moves over mountains and across plains; what theantelopes know when distance calls them. 

A shout from Félix, and the Zappo Zap came running up the line; his headwas flung up and he was sniffing the air. Then, walking beside Adams, hestared ahead right away over the country before them to the far skyline. 

"Elephant smell, " he replied, when Adams asked him what was the matter;then, turning, he shouted some words in the native back to Berselius, andtramped on beside Adams, his nose raised to the wind, of which each puffbrought the scent stronger. 

Adams could smell nothing, but the savage could tell that right aheadthere were elephants; close up, too, yet not a sign of them could beseen. 

This puzzled him, and what puzzles a savage frightens him. 

His nose told him that here were elephants in sight of his eyes; his eyestold him that there were none. 

All at once the column came to a dead halt. Porters flung down their loadsand cried out in fright. Even Berselius stood stock-still inastonishment. 

From the air, blown on the wind from no visible source, came the shrilltrumpeting of an elephant. 

There, in broad daylight, close up to them, the sound came with the shockof the supernatural. Nothing stirred in all the land but the grass bendingto the wind. There was not even a bird in the air; yet close to them anelephant was trumpeting shrilly and fiercely as elephants trumpet whenthey charge. 

Again came the sound, and once again, but this time it broke lamentably toa complaint that died away to silence. 

Instantly the Zappo Zap came to himself. He knew that sound. An elephantwas dying somewhere near by, caught in a trap possibly. He rushed down theline, gun-butting the porters back to their places, shouting to Berselius, helping loads up on the heads of the men who had dropped them, so that ina minute the column was in motion again and going swiftly to make up forlost time. 

Five minutes brought them to a slight rise in the ground, beyond which, deep-cut, rock-strewn and skeleton-dry, lay the bed of a river. 

In the rains this would be scarcely fordable, but now not even a trickleof water could be seen. On the floor of this river-bed, like a huge darkrock, lay the body of an elephant. 

An African elephant is the biggest creature on earth, far bigger than hisIndian cousin, and far more formidable looking. Adams could scarcelybelieve that the thing before him was the body of an animal, as hecontrasted its size with Félix, who had raced down the slope and wasexamining the carcass. 

"Dead!" cried Félix, and the porters, taking heart, descended, but notwithout groaning and lamentations, for it is well-known to the nativesthat whoever comes across an elephant lying down must die, speedily and byviolent means; and this elephant was lying down in very truth, his tuskshumbly lowered to the ground, his great ears motionless, just as death hadleft him. 

It was a bull and surely, from his size, the father of the herd. Berseliusconsidered the beast to be of great age. One tusk was decayed badly andthe other was chipped and broken, and on the skin of the side were severalof those circular sores one almost always finds on the body of arhinoceros, "dundos, " as the natives call them; old scars and wounds toldtheir tale of old battles and the wanderings of many years. 

It might have been eighty or a hundred years since the creature had firstseen the light and started on its wonderful journey over mountains andplains through jungle and forest, lying down maybe only twenty times inall those years, wandering hither and thither, and knowing not that everystep of its journey was a step closer to here. 

Just this little piece of ground on which it lay had been plotted out forit a hundred years ago, and it had come to it by a million mazy paths, butnot less surely than had it followed the leading of a faultlessly directedarrow. 

The herd had left it here to die. Berselius, examining the body closely, could find no wound. He concluded that it had come to its end just as oldmen come to their end at last--the mechanism had failed, hindered, perhaps, by some internal disease, and it had lain down to wait fordeath. 

The tusks were not worth taking, and the party pursued its way up theeastern bank of the river, where the herd had also evidently pursued itsway, and then on, on, across the country due east, in the track they hadfollowed since morning. 

As they left the river-bed a tiny dot in the sky above, which they had notnoticed, enlarged, and like a stone from the blue fell a vulture. It liton the carcass; then came a kite slanting down to the feast, and then fromthe blue, like stones dropped from the careless hand of a giant, vultureafter vulture. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE GREAT HERD

Félix kept his place beside Adams at the head of the column. The blackseemed morose, and at the same time, excited. 

Two things had disturbed him: the bad luck of meeting a lying-downelephant and the fact that a giraffe was with the herd. He had spottedgiraffe spoor in the river-bed where the ground was sandy and showed upthe impression well. 

Now, the giraffe has the keen eyesight of a bird, and when he throws inhis lot with the elephant folk who, though half-blind, have the keen scentof hounds, the combination is bad for the hunter. 

An hour before sundown they struck some pools beside which grew a tree, the biggest they had yet come across, and here Berselius gave the order, halt and camp. 

To half of the porters it was an order to fall down flat, their loadsbeside them, their arms outspread absolutely broken with the weariness ofthe march, broken, and speechless, and motionless, and plunged into such adepth of slumber that had you kicked them they would not have moved. 

Berselius, himself, was nearly exhausted. He sat with his back against thetree and gave his orders in a languid voice, and it was very curious tosee the tents going up, wielded by men who seemed working in their sleep, slowly and with fumbling fingers, tripping over each other, pausing, hesitating, yet working all the same, and all in the still level light ofevening that lent unreality to the scene. 

Luck was against Berselius. It was quite within the bounds of probabilitythat the herd might have halted here by the water for the night; but theyhad not. They had drunk here, for the pool was all trodden up and stillmuddy, and then gone on. 

They were evidently making one of their great marches, and it was probablenow that they would never be caught up with. Under these circumstances, Berselius determined to halt for the night. 

Some small trees and bushes were cut to make a camp fire, and when theyhad finished supper Berselius, still with his back to the tree, sattalking to Adams by the light of the crackling branches. 

He did not seem in the least put out with his failure. 

"The rains will be on us in a week or two, " said he. "Then you will seeelephants all over this place. They lie up in the inaccessible places inthe dry season, but when the wet weather comes the herds spread over theplains. Not such herds as the one we have been following--it is rarely onecomes across one like that. However, to-morrow we may have better luckwith them. Félix tells me that forty miles beyond there, where they havegone, there are a lot of trees. They may stop and feed, and if they do, wewill have them. To-morrow I shall start light. Leave the main camp here. You and I and Félix, and four of the best of those men, and the smallesttent, enough stores for three or four days. Yes, to-morrow----" The mandozed off, sleep-stricken, the pipe between his teeth. 

"To-morrow!" Portentous word!

They retired to their tents. Two sentries were posted to keep the firegoing and to keep watch. The porters lay about, looking just like men whohad fallen in battle, and after awhile the sentries, having piled the firewith wood, sat down, and the moon rose, flooding the whole wide land withlight. 

She had scarcely lifted her own diameter above the horizon when thesentries, flat on their backs, with arms extended, were sleeping assoundly as the others. Brilliant almost as daylight, still and peaceful asdeath, the light of the great moon flooded the land, paling the stars andcasting the shadows of the tents across the sleepers, and the wind, whichwas now blowing from the west, shook the twigs of the tree, like skeletonfingers, over the flicker of the red burning camp-fire. 

Now, the great herd of elephants had been making, as Berselius imaginedpossible, for the forest that lay forty miles to the east. 

They had reached it before sundown, and had begun to feed, strippingbranches of their leaves, the enormous trunks reaching up like snakes andwhirling the leaves Catherine-wheellike down enormous throats; the purringand grumbling of their cavernous bellies, the rubbing of rough shouldersagainst the bark, the stamping of feet crushing the undergrowth, resoundedin echoes amongst the trees. The big bull giraffe that had cast its lot inwith the herd was busy, too, tearing and snapping down twigs and leaves, feeding like the others, who were all feeding like one, even to theeighteen-month-old calves busy at the teats of their enormous dams. 

The sunlight, level and low, struck the wonderful picture. Half the herdwere in the wood, and you could see the tree branches bending and shakingto the reaching trunks. Half the herd were grazing on the wood's edge, thegiraffe amidst them, its clouded body burning in the sunset against thegreen of the trees. 

The wind was blowing steadily along the edge of the wood and against aband of hunters of the Congo State, blacks armed with rifles, who wereworming their way along from tree bole to tree bole, till within shootingdistance of the bull elephant nearest to them. 

The creatures feeding knew nothing of their danger till three shots, thatsounded like one, rang out, and the bull, struck in the neck, theshoulder, and between the ear and eye, fell, literally all of a heap, asthough some giant's scimitar had swept its legs away from under it. 

At this moment the sun's lower edge had just touched the horizon. Thewhole visible herd on the edge of the wood, at the sound of the shots andthe crash of the falling bull, wheeled, trumpeted wildly, and with trunksswung up, ears spread wide, swept away toward the sunset, following thetrack by which they had come; whilst, bursting from the woods, leaf-strewn, with green branches tangled in their tusks, furious and madwith fright, came the remainder, following in the same track, sweepingafter the others, and filling the air with the thunder of their stampede. 

Shot after shot rang out, but not an elephant was touched, and in twogreat clouds, which coalesced, the broken herd with the sound of a stormpassed away along the road they had come by, the night closing on them asthe sun vanished from the sky. 

Berselius had not reckoned on this. No man can reckon on what thewilderness will do. The oldest hunter is the man who knows most surely thedramatic surprises of the hunt, but the oldest hunter would never havetaken this into his calculations. 

Here, back along the road they had travelled all day, was coming, not apeacefully moving herd, but a storm of elephants. Elephants who had beendisturbed in feeding, shot at, and shot after, filled with the dull furythat dwells in an elephant's brain for days, and with the instinct forsafety that would carry them perhaps a hundred miles before dawn. 

And right in the track of this terrible army of destruction lay thesleeping camp, the camp fire smouldering and fluttering its flames on thewind. 

And the wind had shifted!

With the dark, as though the scene had been skilfully prepared by someinfernal dramatist, just as the cover of night shut down tight and sealed, and suddenly, like a box-lid that had been upheld by the last rays of thesetting sun, just as the great stars burst out above as if at the touch ofan electric button, the wind shifted right round and blew due east. 

This change of wind would dull the sound of the oncoming host to thepeople at the camp; at the same time it would bring the scent of the humanbeings to the elephants. 

The effect of this might be to make them swerve away from the line theywere taking, but it would be impossible to tell for certain. The only surething was, that if they continued in their course till within eyeshot ofthe camp fire, they would charge it and destroy everything round about itin their fury. 

A camp fire to an angry elephant is the equivalent of a red rag to abull. 

Thus the dramatic element of uncertainty was introduced into the tragedyunfolding on the plains, and the great stars seemed to leap like expectanthearts of fire till the moon broke over the horizon, casting the flyingshadows of the great beasts before them. 

The first furious stampede had settled into a rapid trot, to a sound likethe sound of a hundred muffled drums beating a rataplan. 

Instinct told the herd that immediate danger was past, also that forsafety they would have to cover an immense space of country; so theysettled to the pace most suitable for the journey. And what a pace it was, and what a sight!

Drifting across the country before the great white moon, fantastic beastsand more fantastic shadows, in three divisions line ahead, with the lanesof moonlight ruled between each line; calves by the cows, bulls in thevan, they went, keeping to the scent of the track they had come by asunswervingly as a train keeps to the metals. 

The giraffe was still with them. He and his shadow, gliding withcompass-like strides a hundred yards away from the southward column; andjust as the scent of the camp came to his mammoth friends, the sight ofthe camp fire, like a red spark, struck his keen eyes. 

With a rasping note of warning he swerved to the south. 

Now was the critical moment. Everything lay with the decision of the bullsleading the van, who, with trunks flung up and crooked forward, wereholding the scent as a man holds a line. They had only a moment of time, but he who knows the elephant folk knows well the rapidity with whichtheir minds can reason, and from their action it would seem that thearbiters of Berselius's fate reasoned thus: "The enemy were behind; theyare now in front. So be it. Let us charge. "

And they charged, with a blast of trumpeting that shook the sky; withtrunks flung up and forward-driving tusks, ears spread like great sails, and a sound like the thunder of artillery, they charged the scent, thebody of the herd following the leaders, as the body of a battering-ramfollows the head. 

 * * * * *

Adams, when he had flung himself down in his tent, fell asleep instantly. This sleep, which was profound and dreamless, lasted but half an hour, andwas succeeded by a slumber in which, as in a darkened room where amagic-lantern is being operated, vivid and fantastic pictures arose beforehim. He was on the march with the column through a country infinite as isspace; the road they were taking, like the road to the tombs of theChinese kings, was lined on either side with animals done in stone. Atfirst these were tigers, and then, as though some veil of illusion hadbeen withdrawn, he discovered them to be creatures far larger and morecruel, remorseless, and fearful than tigers; they were elephants--greatstone elephants that had been standing there under the sun fromeverlasting, and they dwindled in perspective from giants to pigmies andfrom pigmies to grains of sand, for they were the guardians of a roadwhose end was infinity. 

Then these vanished, but the elephant country under the burning sunremained. There was nothing to be seen but the sun-washed spaces ofwind-blown grass, and broken ground, and scattered trees, till across thesky in long procession, one following the other, passed shadow elephants. Shadows each thrice the height of the highest mountain, and these thingscalled forth in the mind of the sleeper such a horror and depth of dreadthat he started awake with the sweat running down his face. 

Sleep was shattered, and in the excitement and nerve-tension ofover-tiredness he lay tossing on his back. The long march of the daybefore, in which men had matched themselves against moving mountains, theobsession of the things they had been pursuing, had combined to shattersleep. 

He came out in the open for a breath of air. 

The camp was plunged in slumber. The two sentries ordered by Berselius tokeep watch and to feed the fire lay like the others, with arms outspread;the fire was burning low, as though drowned out by the flood of moonlight, and Adams was on the point of going to the pile of fuel for some sticks tofeed it, when he saw a sight which was one of the strangest, perhaps, thathe would ever see. 

The sentry lying on the right of the fire sat up, rose to his feet, wentto the wood pile, took an armful of fuel and flung it on the embers. 

The fire roared up and crackled, and the sleep-walker, who had performedthis act with wide-staring eyes that saw nothing, returned to his placeand lay down. 

It was as if the order of Berselius still rang in his ears and the visionof Berselius still dominated his mind. 

Adams, thinking of this strange thing, stood with the wind fanning hisface, looking over the country to the west, the country they had traversedthat day in tribulation under the burning sun. There was nothing to tellnow of the weary march, the pursuit of phantoms, the long, long miles oflabour; all was peaceful and coldly beautiful, moonlit and silent. 

He was about to return to his tent when a faint sound struck his ear. Afaint, booming sound, just like that which troubles us when the eardrumvibrates on its own account from exhaustion or the effect of drugs. 

He stopped his ears and the sound ceased. 

Then he knew that the sound was a real sound borne on the air. 

He thought it was coming to him on the wind, which was now blowingsteadily in his face, and he strained his eyes to see the cause; but hesaw nothing. There was no cloud in the sky or storm on the horizon, yetthe sound was increasing. Boom, boom, becoming deeper and more sonorous, now like the long roll of muffled drums, now like the sea bursting in thesea-caves of a distant coast, or the drums of the cyclone when they beatthe charge for the rushing winds. But the heart-searching feature of thisstrange booming in the night was a rhythm, a pulsation that spoke of life. This was no dull shifting of matter, as in an earthquake, or of air as ina storm; this sound was alive. 

Adams sprang to the tent where Berselius was sleeping, and dragged him outby the arm, crying, "Listen!"

He would have cried, "See!" but the words withered on his lips at thesight which was now before him as he faced east. 

An acre of rollicking and tossing blackness storming straight for the campacross the plain under the thunder that was filling the night. A thinginconceivable and paralyzing, till the iron grip of Berselius seized hisarm, driving him against the tree, and the voice of Berselius cried, "Elephants. "

In a moment Adams was in the lower branches of the great tree, andscarcely had he gained his position than the sky split with the trumpetingof the charge and, as a man dying sees his whole life with one glance, hesaw the whole camp of awakened sleepers fly like wind-blown leaves frombefore the oncoming storm, leaving only two figures remaining, the figuresof Berselius and Félix. 

The Zappo Zap had gone apart from the camp to sleep. He had druggedhimself by smoking hemp, and he was lying half a hundred yards away, facedown on the ground, dead to everything in earth and heaven. 

Berselius had spied him. 

What Adams saw then was, perhaps, the most heroic act ever recorded ofman. The soul-shattering terror of the advancing storm, the thunder andthe trumpeting that never ceased, had no effect on the iron heart ofBerselius. 

He made the instantaneous calculation that it was just possible to kickthe man awake (for sound has no effect on the hemp-drugged one) and gethim to the tree and a chance of safety. And he made the attempt. 

And he would have succeeded but that he fell. 

The root of a dead tree, whose trunk had long vanished, caught his footwhen he had made half the distance, and brought him down flat on hisface. 

It was as though God had said, "Not so. "

Adams, in an agony, sweat pouring from him, watched Berselius rise to hisfeet. He rose slowly as if with deliberation, and then he stood frontingthe oncoming storm. Whether he was dazed, or whether he knew that he hadmiscalculated his chances, who knows? But there he stood, as if disdainingto fly, face fronting the enemy. And it seemed to the watcher that thefigure of that man was the figure of a god, till the storm closed on him, and seized and swung aloft by a trunk, he was flung away like a stone froma catapult somewhere into the night. 

Just as a man clings to a mast in a hurricane, deaf, blind, all his lifeand energy in his arms, Adams clung to the tree bole above the branch uponwhich he was. 

The storm below, the smashing of great bodies against the tree, thetrumpeting whose prolonged scream never ceased--all were nothing. His mindwas cast out--he had flung it away just as the elephant had flungBerselius away. To him the universe was the tree to which he was clinging, just that part which his arms encircled. 

The herd had attacked in three columns, keeping the very same formation asthey had kept from the start. The northern column, consisting of cows withtheir calves, drove on as if to safety, the others, cows and bulls--thecows even more ferocious than the bulls--attacked the camps, the tents, and the fire. They stamped and trod the fire out, smashing tent poles andchop boxes, stores and cooking utensils, tusking one another in thetight-packed _mêlée_, and the scream of the trumpeting never ceased. 

Then they drove on. 

The porters, all except two, had, unhappily for themselves, fled in a bodyto the west, and now mixed with the trumpeting and thunder could be heardthe screams of men trodden under foot or tusked to pieces. These soundsceased, and the trumpeting died away, and nothing could be distinguishedbut the dull boom, boom of the herd sweeping away west, growing fainterand fainter, and dying away in the night. 

CHAPTER XX

THE BROKEN CAMP

The whole thing had scarcely lasted twenty minutes. During the stormingand trumpeting, Adams, clinging to the tree, had felt neither terror norinterest. His mind was cast out, all but a vestige of it; this remnant ofmind recognized that it was lying in the open palm of Death, and it wasnot afraid. Not only that, but it felt lazily triumphant. It is only thereasoning mind that fears death, the mind that can still say to itself, "What will come after?" The intuitive mind, which does not reason, has nofear. 

Had not the herd been so closely packed and so furious, Adams would havebeen smelt out, plucked from the tree and stamped to pieces without anymanner of doubt. But the elephants, jammed together, tusking each other, and rooting the camp to pieces, had passed on, not knowing that they hadleft a living man behind them. 

As the sound of the storm died away, he came to his senses as a man comesto his senses after the inhalation of ether, and the first thing that wasborne in upon him was the fact that he was clinging to a tree, and that hecould not let go. His arms encircled the rough bark like bands of iron;they had divorced themselves from his will power, they held him theredespite himself, not from muscular rigidity or spasm, but just becausethey refused to let go. They were doing the business of clinging to safetyon their own account, and he had to _think himself free_. There was no usein ordering them to release him, he had to reason with them. Then, littleby little, they (fingers first) returned to discipline, and he slippeddown and came to earth, literally, for his knees gave under him and hefell. 

He was a very brave man and a very strong man, but now, just released fromDeath, now that all danger was over, he was very much afraid. He had seenand heard Life: Life whipped to fury, screaming and in maelstrom action, Life in its loudest and most appalling phase, and he felt as a man mightfeel to whom the gods had shown a near view of that tempest of fire wecall the sun. 

He sat up and looked around him on the pitiable ruins of the camp on whicha tornado could not have wrought more destruction. Something layglittering in the moonlight close to him. He picked it up. It was hisshaving-glass, the most fragile thing in all their belongings, yetunbroken. Tent-poles had been smashed to matchwood, cooking utensilstrodden flat, guns broken to pieces; yet this thing, useless and fragile, had been carefully preserved, watched over by some god of its own. 

He was dropping it from his fingers when a cry from behind him made himturn his head. 

A dark figure was approaching in the moonlight. 

It was the Zappo Zap. The man whom Berselius, with splendid heroism, hadtried to save. Like the looking-glass, and protected, perhaps, by some godof his own, the columns of destruction had passed him by. The column ofcows with their calves had passed him on the other side. Old hunters saythat elephants will not trouble with a dead man, and Félix, thoughawakened by the shaking of the earth, had lain like a dead man as thestorm swept by. 

He was very much alive, now, and seemingly unconcerned as he came towardAdams, stood beside him, and looked around. 

"All gone dam, " said Félix. And volumes would not have expressed thesituation more graphically. Then the savage, having contemplated the scenefor a moment, rushed forward to a heap of stuff--broken boxes and whatnot--dragged something from it and gave a shout. 

It was the big elephant rifle, with its cartridge-bag attached. The stockwas split, but the thing was practically intact. Félix waved it over hishead and laughed and whooped. 

"Gun!" yelled Félix. 

Adams beckoned to him, and he came like a black devil in the moonlight--ablack devil with filed teeth and flashing eyeballs--and Adams pointed tothe tree and motioned him to leave the gun there and follow him. Félixobeyed, and Adams started in the direction in which he had seen Berseliusflung. 

It was not far to walk, and they had not far to search. A hundred yardstook them to a break in the ground, and there in the moonlight, with armsextended, lay the body of the once powerful Berselius, the man who haddriven them like sheep, the man whose will was law. The man of wealth andgenius, great as Lucifer in evil, yet in courage and heroism tremendous. God-man or devil-man, or a combination of both, but great, incontestablygreat and compelling. 

Adams knelt down beside the body, and the Zappo Zap stood by withincurious eyes looking on. 

Berselius was not dead. He was breathing; breathing deeply andstertorously, as men breathe in apoplexy or after sunstroke or ruinousinjury to the brain. Adams tore open the collar of the hunting shirt; thenhe examined the limbs. 

Berselius, flung like a stone from a catapult, had, unfortunately forhimself, not broken a limb. That might have saved him. His head was theinjured part, and Adams, running his fingers through the hair, matted withblood, came on the mischief. The right parietal bone was dented veryslightly for a space nearly as broad as a penny. The skin was broken, butthe bone itself, though depressed slightly, was not destroyed. The innertable of the skull no doubt was splintered, hence the brain mischief. 

There was only one thing to be done--trephine. And that as swiftly aspossible. 

Everything needful was in the instrument-case, but had it escapeddestruction?

He raised Berselius by the shoulders. Félix took the feet, and betweenthem they carried the body to the tree, where they laid it down. 

Before starting to hunt for the instruments, Adams bled Berselius with hispenknife. The effect was almost instantaneous. The breathing became lessstertorous and laboured. Then he started to search hither and thither forthe precious mahogany case which held the amputating knives, thetourniquets and the trephine. The Zappo Zap was no use, as he did not knowanything about the stores, and had never even seen the instrument case, soAdams had to conduct the search alone, in a hurry, and over half an acreof ground. The case had almost to a certainty been smashed to pieces;still, there was a chance that the trephine had escaped injury. Heremembered the shaving-glass, and how it had been miraculously preserved, and started to work. He came across a flat oblong disc of tin; it had beena box of sardines, it was now flattened out as though by a rolling mill. He came across a bottle of brandy sticking jauntily up from a hole in theground, as if saying, "Have a drink. " It was intact. He knocked the headoff and, accepting the dumb invitation, put it back where he had found it, and went on. 

He came across long strips of the green rot-proof stuff the tents had beenmade of. They looked as though they had been torn up like this forrib-roller bandages, for they were just of that width. He came across halfa mosquito-net; the other half was sailing away north, streaming from thetusk of a bull in which it was tangled, and giving him, no doubt, asufficiently bizarre appearance under the quiet light of the moon andstars. 

There were several chop boxes of stores intact; and a cigar box without acrack in it, and also without a cigar. It looked as though it had beencarefully opened, emptied, and laid down. There was no end to thesurprises of this search: things brayed to pieces as if with a pestle andmortar, things easily smashable untouched. 

He had been searching for two hours when he found the trephine. It laynear the brass lock of the amputating case, attached to which there weresome pieces of mahogany from the case itself. 

A trephine is just like a corkscrew, only in place of the screw you have acup of steel. This steel cup has a serrated edge: it is, in fact, a smallcircular saw. Applying the saw edge to the bone, and working the handlewith half turns of the wrist, you can remove a disc from the outer tableof the skull just as a cook stamps cakes out of a sheet of dough with a"cutter. "

Adams looked at the thing in his hands; the cup of chilled steel, thin aspaper and brittle as glass, had been smashed to pieces, presumably; at allevents, it was not there. 

He flung the handle and the shaft away and came back to the tree beneathwhich the body of Berselius was lying. Berselius, still senseless, wasbreathing deeply and slowly, and Adams, having cut away the hair of thescalp round the wound with his penknife, went to the pool for water tobathe the wound; but the pool was trodden up into slush, and hours mustelapse before the mud would settle. He remembered the bottle of brandy, fetched it, washed the wound with brandy, and with his handkerchief torninto three pieces bound it up. 

There was nothing more to be done; and he sat down with his back to thetree to wait for dawn. 

The bitterness of the thing was in his heart, the bitterness of beingthere with hands willing and able to help, yet helpless. A surgeon is asuseless without his instruments as the cold, lifeless instruments arewithout a hand to guide them. It is not his fault that his hands are tied, but if he is a man of any feeling, that does not lessen the anguish of thesituation. 

Adams, listening to the breathing of the man he could not save, satwatching the moonlit desert where the grass waved in the wind. Félix, lying on his belly, had resumed his slumbers, and beside the sleepingsavage lay the thing he worshipped more than his god, the big elephantrifle, across the stock of which his naked arm was flung. 

CHAPTER XXI

THE FEAST OF THE VULTURES

Adams, who had fallen asleep, was awakened by a whoop from Félix. 

It was full, blazing day, and the Zappo Zap, standing erect just as he hadsprung from sleep, was staring with wrinkled eyes straight out across theland. Two black figures were approaching. They were the two porters whohad fled westward, and who, with Félix, were all that remained ofBerselius's savage train of followers. The rest were over there----

Over there to the west, where vultures and marabouts and kites wereholding a clamorous meeting; over there, where the ground was black withbirds. 

The two wretches approaching the camping place rolled their eyes interror, glancing over there. They had run for miles and hidden themselvesin a donga. They had heard the tragedy from afar, the storming andtrumpeting, and the shrieks of men being destroyed, torn to pieces, trampled to pulp; they had heard the thunder of the vanishing herd, andthey had listened to the awful silence that followed, lying on theirfaces, clinging to the breast of their old, cold, cruel Mother Earth. Withday, like homing pigeons, they had returned to the camp. 

"Hi yi!" yelled Félix, and a response came like the cry of a seagull. Theywere shivering as dogs shiver when ill or frightened; their teeth werechattering, and they had a curious gray, dusky look; the very oil of theirskins seemed to have dried up, and old chain scars on their necks andankles showed white and leprous-looking in the bright morning sunshine. 

But Adams had no time to attend to them. Having glanced in theirdirection, he turned to Berselius, bent over him, and started back insurprise. 

Berselius's eyes were open; he was breathing regularly and slowly, and helooked like a man who, just awakened from sleep, was yet too lazy tomove. 

Adams touched him upon the shoulder, and Berselius, raising his righthand, drew it over his face as if to chase away sleep. Then his headdropped, and he lay looking up at the sky. Then he yawned twice, deeply, and turning his head on his left shoulder looked about him lazily, hiseyes resting here and there: on the two porters who were sitting, withknees drawn up, eating some food which Félix had given them; on the brokencamp furniture and the heaps of raffle left by the catastrophe of thenight before; on the skyline where the grass waved against the morningblue. 

Adams heaved a sigh of relief. The man had only been stunned. None of thevital centres of the brain had been injured. Some injury there must be, but the main springs of life were intact. There was no paralysis, for nowthe sick man was raising his left hand, and, moving about as a personmoves in bed to get a more comfortable position, he raised both knees andthen, turning over on his right side, straightened them out again. Now, bythe movements of a sick person you can tell pretty nearly the condition ofhis brain. 

All the movements of this sick man were normal; they indicated greattiredness, nothing more. The shock and the loss of blood might account forthat. Adams the night before had made a pillow from his own coat for thestricken one's head; he was bending now to rearrange it, but he desisted. Berselius was asleep. 

Adams remained on his knees for a moment contemplating his patient withdeep satisfaction. Then he rose to his feet. Some shelter must beimprovised to protect the sleeping man from the sun, but in the rafflearound there did not seem enough tent cloth to make even an umbrella. 

Calling Félix and the two porters to follow him, he started off, searchingamidst the _débris_ here and there, setting the porters to work to collectthe remains of the stores and to bring them back to the tree, hunting invain for what he wanted, till Félix, just as they reached the northernlimit of destruction, pointed to where the birds were still busy, clamorous and gorging. 

"What is it?" asked Adams. 

"Tent, " replied Félix. 

To the left of where the birds were, and close to them, lay a mound ofsomething showing dark amidst the grass. It was a tent, or a large part ofone of the tents; tangled, perhaps, in a tusk, it had been brought hereand cast, just as a storm might have brought and cast it. Even at thisdistance the air was tainted with the odour of the birds and their prey, but the thing had to be fetched, and Adams was not the man to exhibitqualms before a savage. 

"Come, " said he, and they started. 

The birds saw them coming, and some flew away; others, trying to fly away, rose in the air heavily and fluttering a hundred yards sank and scatteredabout in the grass, looking like great vermin; a few remained waddlinghere and there, either too impudent for flight or too greatly gorged. 

Truly it had been a great killing, and the ground was ripped as if byploughs. Over a hundred square yards lay blistering beneath the sun, redand blue and black; and the torment of it pierced the silence like ashout, though not a movement was there, save the movement of thebald-headed vulture as he waddled, or the flapping of a rag of skin to thebreeze. 

They seized on the tent, the Zappo Zap laughing and with teeth glinting inthe sun. It was the smallest tent, ripped here and there, but otherwisesound; the mosquito net inside was intact and rolled up like a ball, butthe pole was broken in two. 

As they carried it between them, they had to pass near a man. He was verydead, that man; a great foot had trodden on his face, and it was flattenedout, looking like a great black flat-fish in which a child, for fun, hadpunched holes for eyes and mouth and nose; it was curling up at the edgesunder the sun's rays, becoming converted into a cup. 

"B'selius, " said Félix, with a laugh, indicating this thing as they passedit. 

Adams had his hands full, or he would have struck the brute to the ground. He contented himself with driving the tent pole into the small of his backto urge him forward. From that moment he conceived a hatred for Félix suchas few men have felt, for it was not a hatred against a man, or even abrute, but a black automatic figure with filed teeth, a thing with thebrain and heart of an alligator, yet fashioned after God's own image. 

A hatred for Félix, and a pity for Berselius. 

CHAPTER XXII

THE LOST GUIDE

They improvised a shelter against the tree with the tent cloth over thesleeping man, and then Adams set Félix to work splicing and mending thetent pole. The two porters, who had stuffed themselves with food, werelooking better and a shade more human; the glossy look was coming back totheir skins and the fright was leaving their faces. He set them to work, piling the recovered stores in the bit of shade cast by the tree and theimprovised tent, and as they did so he took toll of the stuff. 

He judged that there was enough provisions to take them back along theroad they had come by. The hunt was ended. Even should Berselius recoverfully in a couple of days, Adams determined to insist on a return. But hedid not expect any resistance. 

It was a long, long, wearisome day. The great far-stretching land, voiceless except just over there where birds were still busy and would bebusy till all was gone; the cloudless sky, and the shifting shadow of thetree; these were the best company he had. The blacks were not companions. The two porters seemed less human than dogs, and Félix poisoned hissight. 

His dislike for this man had been steadily growing. The thought thatBerselius had risked his life for this creature, and the remembrance ofhow he had pointed to the dead man with a grin and said "B'selius, " hadbrought matters to a head in the mind of Adams, and turned his dislikeinto a furious antipathy. He sat now in what little shadow there was, watching the figure of the Zappo Zap. 

Félix, the tent-pole finished, had slunk off westward, hunting about, orpretending to hunt for salvage. Little by little the black figure dwindledtill it reached where the birds were discoursing and clamouring, and Adamsfelt his blood grow cold as he watched the birds rise like a puff of blacksmoke and scatter, some this way, some that; some flying right away, somesettling down near by. 

The black figure, a tiny sketch against the sky, wandered hither andthither, and then vanished. 

Félix had sat him down. 

Adams rose up and took the elephant rifle, took from the bag a great soliddrawn brass cartridge, loaded the rifle, and sat down again in the shade. 

Berselius was sleeping peacefully. He could hear the even respirationsthrough the tent cloth. The porters were sleeping in the sun as onlyniggers can sleep when they are tired; but Adams was feeling as if hecould never sleep again, as he sat waiting and watching and listening tothe faint whisper, whisper of the grass as the wind bent it gently in itspassage. 

A long time passed, and then the black sketch appeared again outlined onthe sky. It grew in size, and as it grew Adams fingered the triggers ofthe gun, and his lips became as dry as sand, so that he had to lick themand keep on licking them, till his tongue became dry as his lips and hispalate dry as his tongue. 

Then he rose up, rifle in hand, for the Zappo Zap had come to speakingdistance. Adams advanced to meet him. There was a dry, dull glaze aboutthe creature's lips and chin that told a horrible story, and at the sightof it the white man halted dead, pointed away to where the birds wereagain congregating, cried "Gr-r-r, " as a man cries to a dog that hasmisbehaved, and flung the rifle to his shoulder. 

Félix broke away and ran. Ran, striking eastward, and bounding as a buckantelope bounds with a leopard at its heels, whilst the ear-shatteringreport of the great rifle rang across the land and a puff of white dustbroke from the ground near the black bounding figure. Adams, cursinghimself for having missed, grounded the gun-butt and stood watching thedot in the distance till it vanished from sight. 

He had forgotten the fact that Félix was the guide and that without himthe return would be a hazardous one; but had he remembered this, it wouldhave made no difference. Better to die in the desert twenty times overthan to return escorted by _that_. 

It was now getting toward sundown. The great elephant country in which thecamp lay lost had, during the daytime, three phases. Three spiritspresided over this place; the spirit of morning, of noon, and of evening. In towns and cities, even in the open country of civilized lands, thesethree are clad in language and bound in chains of convention, reduced toslaves whose task is to call men to rise, to eat, or sleep. But here, inthis vast place, one saw them naked--naked and free as when they caughtthe world's first day, like a new-minted coin struck from darkness, andspun it behind them into night. 

Under the presidency of these three spirits the land was ever changing;the country of the morning was not the country of the noon, nor was thecountry of the noon the country of the evening. 

The morning was loud. I can express it in no other terms. Dawn came like ablast of trumpets, driving the flocks of the red flamingoes before it, tremendous, and shattering the night of stars at the first fanfare. Amoment later, and, changing the image, imagination could hear the sea oflight bursting against the far edge of the horizon, even as you watchedthe spindrift of it surging up to heaven and the waves of it breaking overridge and tree and plain of waving grass. 

Noon was the hour of silence. Under the pyramid of light the land layspeechless, without a shadow except the shadow of the flying bird, or asound except the sigh of the grass, touched and bent by the wind, if itblew. 

Evening brought with it a new country. There was no dusk here, no beautiesof twilight, but the level light of sunset brought a beauty of its own. Distance stood over the land, casting trees farther away, and spreadingthe prairies of grass with her magic. 

The country, now, had a new population. The shadows. Nowhere else, perhaps, do shadows grow and live as here, where the atmosphere and thelevel light of evening combine to form the quaintest shadows on earth. Thegiraffe has for his counterpart a set of shadow legs ten yards long, andthe elephant in his shadow state goes on stilts. A man is followed by apair of black compasses, and a squat tent flings to the east the shadow ofa sword. 

Adams was sitting looking at the two porters whom he had set to hunt forfirewood; he was watching their grotesque figures, and more than grotesqueshadows, when a movement of the sick man under the tent-cloth caused himto turn. 

Berselius had awakened. More than that, he was sitting up, and beforeAdams could put up a hand, the tent-cloth was flung back, and the head andshoulders of the sick man appeared. 

His face was pale, his hair in disorder; but his consciousness had fullyreturned. He recognized Adams with a glance, and then, without speaking, struggled to free himself of the tent-cloth and get on his feet. 

Adams helped him. 

Berselius, leaning on the arm of his companion, looked around him, andthen stood looking at the setting sun. 

The glorious day was very near its end. The sun huge and half-shorn of hisbeams, was sinking slowly, inevitably; scarce two diameters divided hislower edge from the horizon that was thirsting for him as the gravethirsts for man. Thus fades, shorn of its dazzle and splendour, theintellect so triumphant at noon, the personality, the compelling will; theman himself when night has touched him. 

"Are you better?" asked Adams. 

Berselius made no reply. 

Like a child, held by some glittering bauble, he seemed fascinated by thesun. The western sky was marked by a thin reef of cloud; dull gold, itmomentarily brightened to burnished gold, and then to fire. 

The sun touched the horizon. Ere one could say "Look!" he was half gone. The blazing arc of his upper limb hung for a moment palpitating, then itdwindled to a point, vanished, and a wave of twilight, like the shadow ofa wing, passed over the land. 

As Berselius, leaning on the arm of his companion, turned, it was alreadynight. 

The camp fire which the porters had lit was crackling, and Berselius, helped by his friend, sat down with his back to the tree and his facetoward the fire. 

"Are you better?" asked Adams, as he took a seat beside him and proceededto light a pipe. 

"My head, " said Berselius. As he spoke he put his hand to his head as aperson puts his hand to his forehead when he is dazed. 

"Have you any pain?"

"No, no pain, but there is a mist. "

"You can see all right?"

"Yes, yes, I can see. It is not my sight, but there is a mist--in myhead. "

Adams guessed what he meant. The man's mind had been literally shaken up. He knew, too, that thought and mental excitement were the worst things forhim. 

"Don't think about it, " said he. "It will pass. You have had a knock onthe head. Just lean back against the tree, for I want to dress thewound. "

He undid the bandage, fetched some water from the pool, which was nowclear, and set to work. The wound was healthy and seemed much less severethan it had seemed the night before. The dent in the bone seemed quiteinconsiderable. The inner table of the skull might, after all, be notinjured. One thing was certain: whatever mischief the cortex of the brainhad suffered, the prime centres had escaped. Speech and movement wereperfect and thought was rational. 

"There, " said Adams, when he had finished his dressings and taken hisseat, "you are all right now. But don't talk or do any thinking. The mist, as you call it, in your head will pass away. "

"I can see, " said Berselius; then he stopped, hesitated, and went on--"Ican see last night--I can see us all here by the camp fire, but beyondthat I cannot see, for a great white mist hides everything. And still"--heburst out--"I seem to know everything hidden by that mist, but I can'tsee, I can't see. What is this thing that has happened to me?"

"You know your name?"

"Yes, my name is Berselius, just as your name is Adams. My mind is clear, my memory is clear, but I have lost the sight of memory. Beyond the campfire of last night, everything is a thick mist--I am afraid!"

He took Adams's big hand, and the big man gulped suddenly at the words andthe action. 

The great Berselius afraid! The man who had faced the elephants, the manwho cared not a halfpenny for death, the man who was so far above thestature of other men, sitting there beside him and holding his hand like alittle child, and saying, "I am afraid!"

And the voice of Berselius was not the voice of the Berselius ofyesterday. It had lost the decision and commanding tone that made it sodifferent from the voices of common men. 

"It will pass, " said Adams. "It is only a shake-up of the brain. Why, Ihave seen a man after a blow on the head with his memory clean wiped out. He had to learn his alphabet again. "

Berselius did not reply. His head was nodding forward in sleep. He hadslept all day, but sleep had taken him again suddenly, just as it takes achild, and Adams placed him under the improvised tent with the coat for apillow under his head, and then sat by the fire. 

Memory of all things in this wonderful world is surely the most wonderful. It is there now, and the next moment it is not. You leave your house inLondon, and you are next found in Brighton, sane to all intents andpurposes, but your memory is gone. A dense fog hides everything you haveever done, dreamed or spoken. You may have committed crimes in your pastlife, or you may have been a saint. It is all the same, for the moment, until the mist breaks up and your past reappears. 

Berselius's case was a phase of this condition. He knew hisname--everything lay before his mind up to a certain point. Beyond that, he knew all sorts of things were lying, but he could not see them. To usehis own eloquent expression, he had lost the sight of memory. 

If you recall your past, it comes in pictures. You have to ransack a greatphotographic gallery. Before you can think, you must see. 

Beyond a certain point Berselius had lost the sight of memory, In otherwords, he had lost his past. 

CHAPTER XXIII

BEYOND THE SKYLINE

Adams, wearied to death with the events of the past day and night, sleptby the camp fire the deep dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion. He hadpiled the fire with wood, using broken boxes, slow-burning vangueriabrushwood, and the remains of a ruined mimosa tree that lay a hundredyards from the camp, and he lay by it now as soundly asleep as the twoporters and Berselius. The fire stood guard; crackling and flickeringbeneath the stars, it showed a burning spark that made the camping placedeterminable many miles away. 

Now the Zappo Zap, when he had fled from Adams, put ten miles of countrybehind him, going almost with the swiftness of an antelope, taking lowbush and broken ground in his stride, and halting only when instinctbrought him to a stand, saying, "You are safe. "

He knew the country well, and the thirty miles that separated him from theeastern forest, where he could obtain food and shelter, were nothing tohim. He could have run nearly the whole distance and reached there in afew hours' time. 

But time was also nothing to him. He had fed well, and could last two dayswithout food. It was not his intention to desert the camp yet; for at thecamp, under that tree away to the west, lay a thing that he lusted afteras men lust for drink or love: the desire of his dark soul--the elephantgun. 

Before Adams drove him away from the camp he had made up his mind to stealit. Sneak off with it in the night and vanish with it into his own countryaway to the northeast, leaving B'selius and his broken camp to fend forthemselves. This determination was still unshaken; the thing held him likea charm, and he sat down, squatting in the grass with his knees drawn upto his chin and his eyes fixed westward, waiting for evening. 

An hour before sunset he made for the camp, reaching within a mile of itas the light left the sky. He watched the camp fire burning, and made forit. Toward midnight, crawling on his belly, soundless as a snake, he creptright up beside Adams, seized the gun and the cartridge bag, and with themin his hands stood erect. 

He had no fear now. He knew he could outrun anyone there. He held the gunby the barrels. Adams's white face, as he lay with mouth open, snoring anddeep in slumber, presented an irresistible mark for the heavy gun-butt, and all would have been over with that sleeper in this world, had not theattention of the savage been drawn to an object that suddenly appearedfrom beneath the folds of the improvised tent. 

It was the hand of Berselius. 

Berselius, moving uneasily in his sleep, had flung out his arm; theclenched fist, like the emblem of power, struck the eye of the Zappo Zap, and quelled him as the sight of the whip quells a dog. 

B'selius was alive and able to clench his fist. That fact was enough forFélix, and next moment he was gone, and the moonlight cast his blackshadow as he ran, making northeast, a darkness let loose on life and onthe land. 

Adams awoke at sun-up to find the gun and the cartridge bag gone. Theporters knew nothing. He had picked up enough of their language tointerrogate them, but they could only shake their heads, and he wasdebating in his own mind whether he ought to kick them on principle, whenBerselius made his appearance from the tent. 

His strength had come back to him. The dazed look of the day before hadleft his face, but the expression of the face was altered. The half smilewhich had been such a peculiar feature of his countenance was no longerthere. The level eye that raised to no man and lowered before no man, theaspect of command and the ease of perfect control and power--where werethey?

Adams, as he looked at his companion, felt a pang such as we feel when wesee a human being suddenly and terribly mutilated. 

Who has not known a friend who, from an accident in the hunting field, theshock of a railway collision, or some great grief, has suddenly changed;of whom people say, "Ah, yes, since the accident he has never been thesame man"?

A friend who yesterday was hale and hearty, full of will power and brain, and who to-day is a different person with drooping under-lip, lack-lustreeye, and bearing in every movement the indecision which marks the inferiormind. 

Berselius's under-lip did not droop, nor did his manner lack the ordinarydecision of a healthy man; the change in him was slight, but it wasstartlingly evident. So high had Nature placed him above other men, that acrack in the pedestal was noticeable; as to the injury to the statueitself, the ladder of time would be required before that could be fullydiscovered. 

So far from being downcast this morning, Berselius was mildly cheerful. Hewashed and had his wound dressed, and then sat down to a miserablebreakfast of cold tinned meat and cassava cakes, with water fetched fromthe pool in a cracked calabash. 

He said nothing about the mist in his head, and Adams carefully avoidedtouching on the question. 

"Sleep has put him all right, " said Adams to himself. "All the same, he'snot the man he was. He's a dozen times more human and like other men. Wonder how long it will last. Just as long as he's feeling sick, Iexpect. "

He rose to fetch his pipe when Berselius, who had finished eating and hadalso risen to his feet, beckoned him to come close. 

"That is the road we came by?" said Berselius, pointing over the countrytoward the west. 

"Yes, " said Adams, "that is the road. "

"Do you see the skyline?" said Berselius. 

"Yes, I see the skyline. "

"Well, my memory carries me to the skyline, but not beyond. "

"Oh, Lord!" said Adams to himself, "here he is beginning it all overagain!"

"I can remember, " said Berselius, "everything that happened as far as myeye carries me. For instance, by that tree a mile away a porter fell down. He was very exhausted. And when we had passed that ridge near the skylinewe saw two birds fighting; two bald-headed vultures----"

"That is so, " said Adams. 

"But beyond the skyline, " said Berselius, suddenly becoming excited andclutching his companion's arm, "I see nothing. I know nothing. All ismist--all is mist. "

"Yes, yes, " said the surgeon. "It's only memory blindness. It will comeback. "

"Ah, but will it? If I can get to the skyline and see the country beyond, and if I remember that, and if I go on and on, the way we came, and if Iremember as I go, then, then, I will be saved. But if I get to thatskyline and if I find that the mist stops me from seeing beyond, then Ipray you kill me, for the agony of this thing is not to be borne. "Suddenly he ceased, and then, as if to some unseen person, he cried out--

"I have left my memory on that road. "

Adams, frightened at the man's agitation, tried to soothe him, butBerselius, in the grip of this awful desire to pierce back beyond thatmist and find himself, would not be soothed. Nothing would satisfy him butto strike camp and return along the road they had come by. Some instincttold him that the sight of the things he had seen would wake up memory, and that bit by bit, as he went, the mist would retreat before him, andperhaps vanish at last. Some instinct told him this, but reason, who isever a doubter, tortured him with doubts. 

The only course was to go back and see. Adams, who doubted if his patientwas physically fit for a march, at last gave in; the man's agony of mindwas more dangerous to him than the exhaustion of physical exercise couldprove. He gave orders to the porters to strike camp, and then turned tohimself, and helped them. They only carried what was barely needful, andwas even less than needful, to take them to Fort M'Bassa, ten days, journey in Berselius's condition. Four water bottles that had been leftintact they filled with water; they took the tent, and the pole that Félixhad spliced. Cassava cakes and tinned meat and a few pounds of chocolatemade up the provisions. There were no guns to carry, no trophies of thechase. Of all the army of porters only two were left. Berselius was brokendown, Félix had fled, they had no guide, and the crowning horror of thething was that they had struck off in pursuit of the herd at right anglesto the straight path they had taken from the forest, and Adams did notknow in the least the point where they had struck off. The porters wereabsolutely no use as guides, and unless God sent a guide from heaven orchance interposed to lead them in the right way, they were lost; for theyhad no guns or ammunition with which to get food. 

Truly the omen of the elephant lying down had not spoken in vain. 

When all was loaded up, and Adams was loaded even like the porters, theyturned their backs on the tree and the pools, and leaving them there toburn in the sun forever struck straight west in the direction from whichthey had come. 

Berselius had come in pursuit of a terrible thing and a merciless thing;he was returning in search of a more terrible and a more mercilessthing--Memory. 

It was four hours after sun-up when they left the camp; and two hours'march brought them to that ridge which Berselius had indicated from thecamp as being near the skyline. 

When they reached the ridge, and not before, Berselius halted and staredover the country in front of him, his face filled with triumph and hope. 

He seized Adams's hand and pointed away to the west. The ridge gave a bigview of the country. 

"I can remember all that, " said he, "keenly, right up to the skyline. "

"And at the skyline?"

"Stands the mist, " replied Berselius. "But it will lift before me as I goon. Now I know it is only the sight of the things I have seen that isneedful to recall the memory of them and of myself in connection withthem. "

Adams said nothing. It struck him with an eerie feeling that this manbeside him was actually walking back into his past. As veil after veil ofdistance was raised, so would the past come back, bit by bit. 

But he was yet to learn what a terrible journey that would be. 

One thing struck him as strange. Berselius had never tried to pierce themist by questions. The man seemed entirely obsessed by the curtain ofmist, and by the necessity of piercing it by physical movement, of puttingtree to tree and mile to mile. 

Berselius had not asked questions because, no doubt, he was under thedominion of a profound instinct, telling him that the past he had lostcould only be recalled by the actual picture of the things he had seen. 

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SENTENCE OF THE DESERT

Berselius had not asked a single question as to the catastrophe. His ownmisfortune had banished for him, doubtless, all interest in everythingelse. 

Adams had said to him nothing of Félix, his horrible deeds or his theft ofthe rifle. Félix, though he had vanished from Adams's life completely andforever, had not vanished from the face of the earth. He was very muchalive and doing, and his deeds and his fate are worth a word, for theyformed a tragedy well fitting the stage of this merciless land. 

The Zappo Zap, having secured the gun and its ammunition, revelling in thejoy of possession and power, went skipping on his road, which lay to thenortheast. Six miles from the camp he flung himself down by a bush, and, with the gun covered by his arm, slept, and hunted in his sleep, like ahound, till dawn. 

Then he rose and pursued his way, still travelling northeast, hisbird-like eyes skimming the land and horizon. He sang as he pursued hisway, and his song fitted his filed teeth to a charm. If a poisoned arrowcould sing or a stabbing spear, it would sing what Félix sang as he went, his long morning shadow stalking behind him; he as soulless and asheartless as it. 

What motive of attachment had driven him to follow Verhaeren to Yandjalifrom the Bena Pianga country heaven knows, for the man was quite beyondthe human pale. The elephants were far, far above him in power of love andkindness; one had to descend straight to the alligators to match him, andeven then one found oneself at fault. 

He was not. Those three words alone describe this figure of india-rubberthat could still walk and talk and live and lust, and to whom slaying andtorture were amongst the æsthetics of life. 

An hour before noon, beyond and above a clump of trees, he sighted amoving object. It was the head of a giraffe. 

It was the very same bull giraffe that had fled with the elephant herd andthen wheeled away south from it. It was wandering devious now, feeding byitself, and the instant Félix saw the tell-tale head, he dropped flat tothe ground as if he had been shot. The giraffe had not seen him, for thehead, having vanished for a moment, reappeared; it was feeding, pluckingdown small branches of leaves, and Félix, lying on his side, opened thebreech of the rifle, drew the empty cartridge case, inserted a cartridgein each barrel, and closed the breech. Now, unknown to Adams, when he hadfired the gun the day before, there was a plug of clay in the left-handbarrel about two inches from the muzzle; just an inconsiderable wad ofclay about as thick as a gun wad; the elephant folk had done this whenthey had mishandled the gun, and, though the thing could have been removedwith a twig, Puck himself could not have conceived a more mischievousobstruction. He certainly never would have conceived so devilish a one. 

Adams had, fortunately for himself, fired the right-hand barrel; theconcussion had not broken up the plug, for it was still moist, being clayfrom the trodden-up edge of the pool. It was moist still, for the nightdew had found it. 

The Zappo Zap knew nothing of the plug. He knew nothing, either, of thetricks of these big, old-fashioned elephant guns, for he kept both barrelsfull cock, and it is almost three to two that if you fire one of theserifles with both barrels full cock, both barrels will go offsimultaneously, or nearly so, from the concussion. 

With the gun trailing after him--another foolish trick--the savage crawledon his belly through the long grass to within firing distance of the treeclump. 

Then he lay and waited. 

He had not long to wait. 

The giraffe, hungry and feeding, was straying along the edge of the clumpof trees, picking down the youngest and freshest leaves, just as a_gourmet_ picks the best bits out of a salad. 

In a few minutes his body was in view, the endless neck flung up, theabsurd head and little, stumpy, useless horns prying amidst the leaves, and every now and then slewing round and sweeping the country in search ofdanger. 

Félix lay motionless as a log; then, during a moment when the giraffe'shead was hidden in the leaves, he flung himself into position and tookaim. 

A tremendous report rang out, the giraffe fell, squealing, and roaring andkicking, and Félix, flung on his back, lay stretched out, a cloud of gauzyblue smoke in the air above him. 

The breech of the rifle had blown out. He had fired the right-hand barrel, but the concussion had sprung the left-hand cock as well. 

It seemed to the savage that a great black hand struck him in the face andflung him backward. He lay for a moment, half-stunned; then he sat up, and, behold! the sun had gone out and he was in perfect blackness. 

He was blind, for his eyes were gone, and where his nose had been was nowa cavity. He looked as though he had put on a red velvet domino, and hesat there in the sun with the last vestige of the blue smoke dissolvingabove him in the air, not knowing in the least what had happened to him. 

He knew nothing of blindness; he knew little of pain. An Englishman in hiswounded state would have been screaming in agony; to Félix the pain wassharp, but it was nothing to the fact that the sun had "gone down. "

He put his hand to the pain and felt his ruined face, but that did nottell him anything. 

This sudden black dark was not the darkness which came from shutting one'seyes; it was something else, and he scrambled on his feet to find out. 

He could feel the darkness now, and he advanced a few steps to see if hecould walk through it; then he sprang into the air to see if it waslighter above, and dived on his hands and knees to see if he could slipunder it, and shouted and whooped to see if he could drive it away. 

But it was a great darkness, not to be out-jumped, jumped he as high asthe sun, or slipped under, were he as thin as a knife, or whooped away, though he whooped to everlasting. 

He walked rapidly, and then he began to run. He ran rapidly, and he seemedto possess some instinct in his feet which told him of broken ground. Theburst gun lay where he had left it in the grass, and the dead giraffe laywhere it had fallen by the trees; the wind blew, and the grass waved, thesun spread his pyramid of light from horizon to horizon, and in thesparkle above a black dot hung trembling above the stricken beast at theedge of the wood. 

The black figure of the man continued its headlong course. It was runningin a circle of many miles, impelled through the nothingness of night bythe dark soul raging in it. 

Hours passed, and _then_ it fell, and lay face to the sky and armsoutspread. You might have thought it dead. But it was a thing almostindestructible. It lay motionless, but it was alive with hunger. 

During all its gyrations it had been followed and watched closely. It hadnot lain for a minute when a vulture dropped like a stone from the sky andlit on it with wings outspread. 

Next moment the vulture was seized, screeching, torn limb from limb, andin the act of being devoured!

 * * * * *

But the sentence of the desert on the blind is death, trap vultures ascunningly as you will, and devour them as ferociously. The eye iseverything in the battle of the strong against the weak. And so it cameabout that two days later a pair of leopards from the woods to thenortheast fought with the figure, which fought with teeth and hands andfeet, whilst the yellow-eyed kites looked on at a battle that would haveturned with horror the heart of Flamininus. 

CHAPTER XXV

TOWARD THE SUNSET

When Berselius, standing on the ridge, had looked long enough at thecountry before him, taking in its every detail with delight, they startedagain on their march, Berselius leading. 

They had no guide. The only plan in Adams's head was to march straightwest toward the sunset for a distance roughly equivalent to the forcedmarch they had made in pursuit of the herd, and then to strike at rightangles due north and try to strike the wood isthmus of the two greatforests making up the forest of M'Bonga. 

But the sunset is a wide mark and only appears at sunset. They had nocompass; the elephant folk had made away with all the instruments of theexpedition. They must inevitably stray from the true direction, strikinginto that infernal circle which imprisons all things blind and all thingscompassless. Even should they, by a miracle, strike the isthmus of woods, the forest would take them, confuse them, hand them from tree to tree andglade to glade, and lose them at last and for ever in one of the millionpockets which a forest holds open for the lost. 

The stout heart of the big man had not quailed before this prospect. Hehad a fighting chance; that was enough for him. But now at the re-start, as Berselius stepped forward and took the lead, a hope sprang up in hisbreast. A tremendous and joyful idea occurred to him. Was it possible thatBerselius would guide them back?

The memory that the man possessed was so keen, his anxiety to pierce theveil before him was so overpowering, was it possible that like a houndhunting by sight instead of smell, he would lead them straight?

Only by following the exact track they had come by, could Berselius pierceback into that past he craved to see. Only by putting tree to tree andridge to ridge, memory to memory, could he collect what he had lost. 

Could he do this?

The life of the whole party depended upon the answer to that question. 

The track they ought to follow was the track by which the herd had ledthem. Adams could not tell whether they were following that track--evenFélix could scarcely have told--for the dew and the wind had made thefaint traces of the elephants quite indiscernible now to civilized eyes;and Berselius never once looked at the ground under his feet, he was ledentirely by the configuration of the land. That to the eyes of Adams washopeless. For the great elephant country is all alike, and one ridge isthe counterpart of another ridge, and one grassy plain of another grassyplain, and the scattered trees tell you nothing when you are lost, exceptthat you are lost. 

The heat of the day was now strong on the land; the porters sweated undertheir loads, and Adams, loaded like them, knew for once in his life whatit was to be a slave and a beast of burden. 

Berselius, who carried nothing, did not seem to feel the heat; weak thoughhe must have been from his injury and the blood-letting. He marched on, ever on, apparently satisfied and well pleased as horizon lifted, givingplace to new horizon, and plain of waving grass succeeded ridge of brokenground. 

But Adams, as hour followed hour, felt the hope dying out in his breast, and the remorseless certainty stole upon him that they were out of theirtrack. This land seemed somehow different from any he had seen before; hecould have sworn that this country around them was not the country throughwhich they had pursued the herd. His hope had been built on a falsefoundation. How could a man whose memory was almost entirely obscured leadthem right? This was not the case of the blind leading the blind, but thecase of the blind leading men with sight. 

Berselius was deceiving himself. Hope was leading him, not memory. 

And still Berselius led on, assured and triumphant, calling out, "See! doyou remember that tree? We passed it at just this distance when we werecoming. " Or, now, "Look at that patch of blue grass. We halted for aminute here. "

Adams, after a while, made no reply. The assurance and delight ofBerselius as these fancied memories came to him shocked the heart. Therewas a horrible and sardonic humour in the whole business, a bathos thatinsulted the soul. 

The dead leading the living, the blind leading the man with sight, lunacyleading sanity to death. 

Yet there was nothing to be done but follow. As well take Berselius's roadas any other. Sunset would tell them whether they were facing the sunset;but he wished that Berselius would cease. 

The situation was bad enough to bear without those triumphant calls. 

It was past noon now; the light wind that had been blowing in their faceshad died away; there was the faintest stirring of the air, and on this, suddenly, to Adams's nostrils came stealing a smell of corruption, such ashe had never experienced before. 

It grew stronger as they went. 

There was a slight rise in the ground before them just here, and as theytook it the stench became almost insupportable, and Adams was turningaside to spit when a cry from Berselius, who was a few yards in advance, brought him forward to his side. 

The rise in the ground had hidden from them a dried-up river-bed, andthere before them in the sandy trough, huge amidst the boulders, lay thebody of an elephant. 

A crowd of birds busy about the carcass rose clamouring in the air andflew away. 

"Do you remember?" cried Berselius. 

"Good God!" said Adams. "Do I remember!"

It was the body of the great beast they had passed when in pursuit of theherd. 

Yes, there was no doubt now that Berselius was guiding them aright. He hadfollowed the track they had come by without deviating a hundred yards. 

The great animal was lying just as they had left it, but the work of thebirds was evident; horribly so, and it was not a sight to linger over. 

They descended into the river bed, passed up the other bank, and went on, Berselius leading and Adams walking by his side. 

"Do you know, " said Adams, "I was beginning to think you were out of thetrack. "

Berselius smiled. 

Adams, who was glancing at his face, thought that he had never seen anexpression like that on the man's face before. The smile of the lips thathad marked and marred his countenance through life, the smile that washalf a sneer, was not there; this came about the eyes. 

"He was in exactly the same position, too, " said Adams. "But the birdswill have him down before long. Well, he has served one purpose in hislife; he has shown us we are on the right road, and he has given you backanother bit of memory. "

"Poor brute, " said Berselius. 

These words, coming from the once iron-hearted Berselius, struck Adamsstrangely; there was a trace of pity in their tone. 

CHAPTER XXVI

THE FADING MIST

They camped two hours before sundown. One of the few mercies of thiscountry is the number of dead trees and the bushes from which one canalways scrape the materials for a fire. 

Adams, with his hunting knife and a small hatchet which was all steel andso had been uninjured in the catastrophe, cut wood enough for the fire. They had nothing to cook with, but fortunately the food they had with themdid not require cooking. 

The tent was practicable, for the pole, so well had it been spliced, wasas good as new. They set it up, and having eaten their supper, crept underit, leaving the porters to keep watch or not as they chose. 

Berselius, who had marched so well all day, had broken down at the finish. He seemed half dead with weariness, and scarcely spoke a word, eatingmechanically and falling to sleep immediately on lying down. 

But he was happy. Happy as the man who suddenly finds that he can outwalkthe paralysis threatening him, or the man who finds the fog of blindnesslifting before him, showing him again bit by bit the world he had deemedforever lost. Whilst this man sleeps in the tent beside his companion andthe waning moon breaks up over the horizon and mixes her light with thered flicker of the fire, a word about that past of which he was in searchmay not be out of place. 

Berselius was of mixed nationality. His father of Swedish descent, hismother of French. 

Armand Berselius the elder was what is termed a lucky man. In other words, he had that keenness of intellect which enables the possessor to seizeopportunities and to foresee events. 

This art of looking into the future is the key to Aladdin's Palace and tothe Temple of Power. To know what will appreciate in value and what willdepreciate, that is the art of success in life, and that was the art whichmade Armand Berselius a millionaire. 

Berselius the younger grew up in an atmosphere of money. His mother diedwhen he was quite young. He had neither brothers nor sisters; his father, a chilly-hearted sensualist, had a dislike to the boy; for some obscurereason, without any foundation in fact, he fancied that he was some otherman's son. 

The basis of an evil mind is distrust. Beware of the man who is alwaysfearful of being swindled. Who cannot trust, cannot be trusted. 

Berselius treated his son like a brute, and the boy, with great power forlove in his heart, conceived a hatred for the man who misused him that washellish in intensity. 

But not a sign of it did he show. That power of will and restraint soremarkable in the grown-up man was not less remarkable in the boy. Hebound his hate with iron bands and prisoned it, and he did this frompride. When his father thrashed him for the slightest offence, he showednot a sign of pain or passion; when the old man committed that lastoutrage one can commit against the mind of a child, and sneered at himbefore grown-up people, young Berselius neither flushed nor moved aneyelid. He handed the insult to the beast feeding at his heart, and itdevoured it and grew. 

The spring was poisoned at its source. 

That education of the heart which only love can give was utterly cut offfrom the boy and supplanted by the education of hate. 

And the mind tainted thus from the beginning was an extraordinary mind, aspacious intellect, great for evil or great for good, never little, andfed by an unfailing flood of energy. 

The elder Berselius, as if bent on the utter damnation of his son, kepthim well supplied with money. He did this from pride. 

The young man took his graduate degree in vice, with higher marks from thedevil than any other young man of his time. He passed through the collegeof St. Cyr and into the cavalry, leaving it at the death of his father andwhen he had obtained his captaincy. 

He now found himself free, without a profession and with forty millionfrancs to squander, or save, or do what he liked with. 

He at once took his place as a man of affairs with one hand in politicsand the other in finance. There are a dozen men like Berselius on theContinent of Europe. Politicians and financiers under the guise ofBoulevardiers. Men of leisure apparently, but, in reality, men ofintellect, who work their political and financial works quiteunobtrusively and yet have a considerable hand in the making of events. 

Berselius was one of these, varying the monotony of social life withperiodic returns to the wilderness. 

With the foundation of the Congo State by King Leopold, Berselius saw hugechances of profit. He knew the country, for he had hunted there. He knewthe ivory, the copal, and the palm oil resources of the place, and in therubber vines he guessed an untapped source of boundless wealth. He saw thegreat difficulty in the way of making this territory a paying concern;that is to say, he saw the labour question. Europeans would not do thework; the blacks would not, unless paid, and even then inefficiently. 

To keep up a large force of European police to make the blacks work onEuropean terms, was out of the question. The expense would run away withhalf the profits; the troops would die, and, worst of all, other nationswould say, "What are you doing with that huge army of men?" The word"slavery" had to be eliminated from the proceedings, else the conscienceof Europe would be touched. He foresaw this, and he was lost in admirationat the native police idea. The stroke of genius that collected all theFélixes of the Congo basin into an army of darkness, and collected all theweak and defenceless into a herd of slaves, was a stroke after his ownheart. 

Of the greatest murder syndicate the world has ever seen, Berselius becamea member. He was not invited to the bloody banquet--he invited himself. 

He had struck the Congo in a hunting expedition; he had seen and observed;later on, during a second expedition, he had seen the germination ofLeopold's idea. He dropped his gun and came back to Europe. 

He was quite big enough to have smashed the whole infernal machinery thenand there. America had not yet, hoodwinked, signed the licence to kill, which she handed to Leopold on the 22d of April, 1884. Germany had notbeen roped in. England and France were still aloof, and Berselius, arriving at the psychological moment, did not mince matters. 

The result was two million pounds to his credit during the next tenyears. 

So much for Berselius and his past. 

An hour after dawn next day they started. The morning was windless, warm, and silent, and the sun shining broad on the land cast their shadowsbefore them as they went, the porters with their loads piled on theirheads, Adams carrying the tent-pole and tent, Berselius leading. 

He had recovered from his weakness of the night before. He had almostrecovered his strength, and he felt that newness of being which theconvalescent feels--that feeling of new birth into the old world whichpays one, almost, for the pains of the past sickness. 

Never since his boyhood had Berselius felt that keen pleasure in the sunand the blue sky and the grass under his feet; but it called up nomemories of boyhood, for the mist was still there, hiding boyhood andmanhood and _everything_ up to the skyline. 

But the mist did not frighten him now. He had found a means of dispellingit; the photographic plates were all there unbroken, waiting only to becollected and put together, and he felt instinctively that after a time, when he had collected a certain number, the brain would gain strength, andall at once the mist would vanish for ever, and he would be himselfagain. 

Three hours after the start they passed a broken-down tree. 

Adams recognized it at once as the tree they had passed on the hunt, shortly after turning from their path to follow the herd of elephants. 

Berselius was still leading them straight, and soon they would come to thecrucial point--the spot where they had turned at right angles to followthe elephants. 

Would Berselius remember and turn, or would he get confused and go on in astraight line?

The question was answered in another twenty minutes by Berselius himself. 

He stopped dead and waved his arm with a sweeping motion to include allthe country to the north. 

"We came from there, " he said, indicating the north. "We struck theelephant spoor just here, and turned due west. "

"How on earth do you know?" asked Adams. "I can't see any indication, andfor the life of me I couldn't tell where we turned or whether we came fromthere, " indicating the north, "or there, " pointing to the south. "How doyou know?"

"How do I know?" replied Berselius. "Why, this place and everything wereach and pass is as vivid to me as if I had passed it only two minutesago. _It hits me with such vividness that it blinds me. _ It is that whichI believe makes the mist. The things I can see are so extraordinarilyvivid that they hide everything else. My brain seems new born--everymemory that comes back to it comes back glorious in strength. If therewere gods, they would see as I see. "

A wind had arisen and it blew from the northwest. Berselius inhaled ittriumphantly. 

Adams stood watching him. This piece-by-piece return of memory, thisrebuilding of the past foot by foot, mile by mile, and horizon by horizon, was certainly the strangest phenomenon of the brain that he had ever comeacross. 

This thing occurs in civilized life, but then it is far less striking, forthe past comes to a man from a hundred close points--a thousand familiarthings in his house or surroundings call to him when he is brought back tothem; but here in the great, lone elephant land, the only familiar thingwas the track they had followed and the country around it. If Berseliushad been taken off that track and placed a few miles away, he would havebeen as lost as Adams. 

They wheeled to the north, following in their leader's footsteps. 

That afternoon, late, they camped by the same pool near which Berseliushad shot the rhinos. 

Adams, to make sure, walked away to where the great bull had fought thecow before being laid low by the rifle of the hunter. 

The bones were there, picked clean and bleached, exemplifying the eternalhunger of the desert, which is one of the most horrible facts in life. These two great brutes had been left nearly whole a few days ago; tons offlesh had vanished like snow in sunshine, mist in morning. 

But Adams, as he gazed at the colossal bones, was not thinking of that;the marvel of their return filled his mind as he looked from the skeletonsto where, against the evening blue, a thin wreath of smoke rose up fromthe camp fire which the porters had lighted. 

Far away south, so far away as to be scarcely discernible, a bird wassailing along, sliding on the wind without a motion of the wings. Itpassed from sight and left the sky stainless, and the land lay aroundsilent with the tremendous silence of evening, and lifeless as the bonesbleaching at his feet. 

CHAPTER XXVII

I AM THE FOREST

The day after the next, two hours before noon, they passed an object whichAdams remembered well. 

It was the big tree which Berselius had pointed out to him as having beentusked by an elephant; and an hour after they had started from the mid-dayrest, the horizon to the north changed and grew dark. 

It was the forest. 

The sky immediately above the dark line, from contrast, wasextraordinarily bright and pale, and, as they marched, the line lifted andthe trees grew. 

"Look!" said Berselius. 

"I see, " replied Adams. 

A question was troubling his mind. Would Berselius be able to guide themamidst the trees? Here in the open he had a hundred tiny indications oneither side of him, but amidst the trees how could he find his way? Was itpossible that memory could lead him through that labyrinth once it grewdense?

It will be remembered that it was a two days' march from Fort M'Bassathrough the isthmus of woods to the elephant country. At the edge of theforest the trees were very thinly set, but for the rest, and a day's marchfrom the fort, it was jungle. 

Would Berselius be able to penetrate that jungle? Time would tell. Berselius knew nothing about it; he only knew what lay before his sight. 

Toward evening the trees came out to meet them, baobab and monkey-bread, set widely apart; and they camped by a pool and lit their fire, and sleptas men sleep in the pure air of the woods and the desert. 

Next morning they pursued their journey, Berselius still confident. Atnoon, however, he began to exhibit slight signs of agitation and anxiety. The trees were thickening around them; he still knew the way, but the viewbefore him was getting shorter and shorter as the trees thickened; that isto say, the mist was coming closer and closer. He knew nothing of thedense jungle before them; he only knew that the clear road in front of himwas shortening up rapidly and horribly, and that if it continued to do soit would inevitably vanish. 

The joy that had filled his heart became transformed to the grief whichthe man condemned to blindness feels when he sees the bright world fadingfrom his sight, slowly but surely as the expiring flame of a lamp. 

He walked more rapidly, and the more rapidly he went the shorter did theroad before him grow. 

All at once the forest--which had been playing, up to this, with Berseliusas a cat plays with a mouse--all at once the forest, like a great greenSphinx, put down its great green paw and spoke from its cavernous heart--

"I am the Forest. "

They had passed almost at a step into the labyrinths. Plantain leaves hitthem insolently in the face, lianas hung across their path like greenropes placed to bar them out, weeds tangled the foot. 

Berselius, like an animal that finds itself trapped, plunged madlyforward. Adams following closely behind heard him catching back his breathwith a sob. They plunged on for a few yards, and then Berselius stoodstill. 

The forest was very silent, and seemed listening. The evening light andthe shade of the leaves cast gloom around them. Adams could hear his ownheart thumping and the breathing of the porters behind him. If Berseliushad lost his way, then they were lost indeed. 

After a moment Berselius spoke, as a man speaks whose every hope in lifeis shattered. 

"The path is gone. "

Adams's only reply was a deep intake of the breath. 

"There is nothing before me. I am lost. "

"Shall we try back?" said Adams, speaking in that hard tone which comeswhen a man is commanding his voice. 

"Back? Of what use? I cannot go back; I must go forward. But here there isnothing. "

The unhappy man's voice was terrible to hear. He had marched sotriumphantly all day, drawing nearer at each step to himself, to that selfwhich memory had hidden from him and which memory was disclosing bit bybit. And now the march was interrupted as if by a wall set across hispath. 

But Adams was of a type of man to whom despondency may be known, but neverdespair. 

They had marched all day; they were lost, it is true, but they were notfar, now, from Fort M'Bassa. The immediate necessity was rest and food. 

There was a little clearing amidst the trees just here, and with his ownhands he raised the tent. They had no fire, but the moon when she rose, though in her last quarter, lit up the forest around them with a greenglow-worm glimmer. One could see the lianas and the trees, the broadleaves shining with dew, some bright, some sketched in dimly, and allbathed in gauze green light; and they could hear the drip and patter ofdew on leaf and branch. 

This is a mournful sound--the most mournful of all the sounds that fillthe great forests of the Congo. It is so casual, so tearful. One mightfancy it the sound of the forest weeping to itself in the silence of thenight. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

GOD SENDS A GUIDE

To be lost in the desert or in a land like the elephant country is bad, but to be lost in the dense parts of the tropical forest is far worse. 

You are in a horrible labyrinth, a maze, not of intricate paths but ofblinding curtains. I am speaking now of that arrogant jungle, moist andhot, where life is in full ferment, and where the rubber vine grows andthrives; where you go knee-deep in slush and catch at a tree-bole toprevent yourself going farther, cling, sweating at every pore andshivering like a dog, feeling for firmer ground and finding it, only to beled on to another quagmire. The bush pig avoids this place, the leopardshuns it; it is bad in the dry season when the sun gives some light byday, and the moon a gauzy green glimmer by night, but in the rains it isterrific. Night, then, is black as the inside of a trunk, and day is sofeeble that your hand, held before your face at arm's length, is just ashadow. The westward part of the forest of M'Bonga projects a spur of thepestiferous rubber-bearing land into the isthmus of healthy woods. It wasjust at the tip of this spur that Berselius and his party were entangledand lost. 

The two porters were Yandjali men, they knew nothing of these woods, andwere utterly useless as guides; they sat now amidst the leaves near thetent eating their food; dark shadows in the glow-worm light, theglistening black skin of a knee or shoulder showing up touched by theglimmer in which leaf and liana, tree trunk and branch, seemed like marinefoliage bathed in the watery light of a sea-cave. 

Adams had lit a pipe, and he sat beside Berselius at the opening of thetent, smoking. The glare of the match had shown him the face of Berseliusfor a moment. Berselius, since his first outcry on finding the path gone, had said little, and there was a patient and lost look on his face, sadbut most curious to see. Most curious, for it said fully what a hundredlittle things had been hinting since their start from the scene of thecatastrophe--that the old Berselius had vanished and a new Berselius hadtaken his place. Adams had at first put down the change in his companionto weakness, but the weakness had passed, the man's great vitality hadreasserted itself, and the change was still there. 

This was not the man who had engaged him in Paris; this person might havebeen a mild twin-brother of the redoubtable Captain of the AvenueMalakoff, of Matadi and Yandjali. When memory came fully back, would itbring with it the old Berselius, or would the new Berselius, mild, inoffensive, and kindly, suddenly find himself burdened with thetremendous past of the man he once had been?

Nothing is more true than that the human mind from accident, from grief, or from that mysterious excitement, during which in half an hour ablaspheming costermonger "gets religion" and becomes a saint ofGod--nothing is more certain than that the human mind can like this, at aflash, turn topsy-turvy; the good coming to the top, the bad going to thebottom. Mechanical pressure on the cortex of the brain can bring thisstate of things about, even as it can convert a saint of God into a devilincarnate. 

Was Berselius under the influence of forced amendment of this sort?

Adams was not even considering the matter, he was lost in gloomythoughts. 

He was smoking slowly, holding his index and middle fingers over thepipe-bowl to prevent the tobacco burning too quickly, for he had only acouple of pipefuls left. He was thinking that to-morrow evening the pouchwould be empty, when, from somewhere in the forest near by, there came asound which brought him to his feet and the two porters up on hands andknees like listening dogs. 

It was the sound of a human voice raised in a sort of chant, ghostly andmournful as the sound of the falling dew. As it came, rising and falling, monotonous and rhythmical, the very plain song of desolation, Adams felthis hair lift and his flesh crawl, till one of the porters, springingerect from his crouching position, sent his voice through the trees--

"Ahi ahee!"

The song ceased; and then, a moment later, faint and wavering, and likethe voice of a seagull, came the reply--

"Ahi aheee!"

"Man, " said the porter, turning white eyeballs and glinting teeth over hisshoulder at Adams. 

He called again, and again came the reply. 

"Quick, " said Adams, seizing the arm of Berselius, who had risen, "there'sa native here somewhere about; he may guide us out of this infernal place;follow me, and for God's sake keep close. "

Holding Berselius by the arm, and motioning the other native to follow, heseized the porter by the shoulder and pushed him forward. The man knewwhat was required and obeyed, advancing, calling, and listening by turns, till, at last, catching the true direction of the sound he went rapidly, Berselius and Adams following close behind. Sometimes they were half up tothe knees in boggy patches, fighting their way through leaves that struckthem like great wet hands; sometimes the call in the distance seemedfarther away, and they held their pace, they held their breath, they clungto each other, listening, till, now, by some trick of the trees, thoughthey had not moved and though there was no wind, the cry came nearer. 

"Ahi, ahee!"

Then, at last, a dim red glow shone through the foliage before them andbursting their way through the leaves they broke into an open space where, alone, by a small fire of dry branches and brushwood, sat a native, starknaked, except for a scrap of dingy loincloth, and looking like a blackgnome, a faun of this horrible place, and the very concretion of itsdesolation and death. 

He was sitting when they caught their first glimpse of him, with his chinsupported on his hand, but the instant he saw the faces of the white menhe rose as if to escape, then the porter called out something thatreassured him, and he sat down again and shivered. 

He was one of the rubber collectors. He had reached this spot the daybefore, and had built himself a shelter of leaves and branches. He wouldbe here for ten days or a fortnight, and his food, chiefly cassava, lay ina little pile in the shelter, covered over with leaves. 

The porter continued speaking to the collector, who, now regaining the useof his limbs, stood up before the white men, hands folded in front of him, and his eyes rolling from Berselius to Adams. 

"M'Bassa, " said Adams, touching the porter, pointing to the collector, andthen away into the forest in the direction he fancied Fort M'Bassa to be. 

The porter understood. He said a few words to the collector, who noddedhis head furiously and struck himself on the breast with his open hand. 

Then the porter turned again to Adams. 

"M'Bassa, " said he, nodding his head, pointing to the collector, and thenaway into the forest. 

That was all, but it meant that they were saved. 

Adams gave a great whoop that echoed away through the trees, startlingbats and birds in the branches and losing itself without an echo in thedepths of the gloom. Then he struck himself a blow on the chest with hisfist. 

"My God!" said he, "the tent!"

They had only travelled an eighth of a mile or so from the camping place, but they had wandered this way and that before the porter had found thetrue direction of the call, and the tent, provisions, and everything elsewere lost as utterly and irrevocably as though they had been dropped inmid-ocean. 

To step aside from a thing--even for a hundred yards--in this terribleplace was to lose it; even the rubber collectors, from whom the forestholds few secrets have, in these thick places, to blaze a trail bybreaking branches, tying lianas and marking tree trunks. 

"True, " said Berselius in a weary voice, "we have lost even that. "

"No matter, " said Adams, "we have got a guide. Cheer up, this man willtake us to Fort M'Bassa and there you will find the road again. "

"Are you sure?" said Berselius, a touch of hope in his voice. 

"Sure? Certain. You've forgotten Fort M'Bassa. Well, when you see it, youwill remember it, and it will lead you right away home. Cheer up, cheerup; we've got a fire and a bit of shelter for you to sleep under, andwe'll start bright and early in the morning, and this black imp of Satanwill lead you straight back to your road and your memory--hey! UncleJoe!"

He patted the collector on the naked shoulder and a faint grin appeared onthat individual's forlorn countenance; never had he come across a whiteman like this before. Then, bustling about, Adams piled up the fire withmore sticks, got Berselius under the shelter of the collector's wretchedhut, sat himself down close to the fire, produced his pipe, and proceeded, in one glorious debauch, to finish the last of his tobacco. 

This rubber collector, the last and the humblest creature on earth, hadgiven them fire and shelter; they were also to be beholden to him forfood. His wretched cassava cakes and his calabash of water gave them theirbreakfast next morning, and then they started, the collector leading, walking before them through the dense growth of the trees as assuredly asa man following a well-known road. It was a terrible thing for him toleave his post, but the white men were from M'Bassa and wished to returnto M'Bassa, and M'Bassa was the head centre of his work and the terribleMecca of his fears. White men from there and going to there must beobeyed. 

This was the last phase of the great hunt. Berselius had been slowlystripped by the wilderness of everything now but the clothes he stood upin, his companion and two porters. Guns, equipment, tents, stores, theZappo Zap, and the army of men under that ferocious lieutenant, had all"gone dam. " He was mud to the knees, his clothing was torn, he was mud tothe elbows from having tripped last night and fallen in a quagmire, hisface was white and drawn and grimy as the face of a London cabrunner, hishair was grayer and dull, but his eyes were bright and he was happy. AtM'Bassa he would be put upon the road again--the only road to the thing hecraved for as burning Dives craved for water--himself. 

But it was ordained that he should find that questionably desirous personbefore reaching M'Bassa. 

They had been on the march for an hour when Adams, fussing like a personwho is making his first journey by rail, stopped the guide to make sure hewas leading them right. 

"M'Bassa?" said Adams. 

"M'Bassa, " replied the other, nodding his head. Then with outspread handhe pointed before them and made a semicircular sweep to indicate that hewas leading them for some reason by a circuitous route. 

He was making, in fact, for open ground that would bring them in thedirection of the fort by a longer but much easier road than a direct linethrough the jungle. He was making also for water, for his scant supply hadbeen exhausted by his guests, and he knew the road he was taking wouldlead him to broad pools of water. Adams nodded his head to imply that heunderstood, and the man led on. 

CHAPTER XXIX

THE VISION OF THE POOLS

Somewhere about noon they halted for a rest and some food. It was lessboggy here, and the sunlight showed stronger through the dense roof offoliage. The cassava cakes were tainted with must, and they had no water, but the increasing light made them forget everything but the freedom thatwas opening before them. 

Adams pointed to the empty calabash which their guide carried, and thecollector nodded and pointed before them, as if to imply that soon theywould come to water and that all would be well. 

Now, as they resumed their way, the trees altered and drew farther apart, the ground was solid under foot, and through the foliage of the euphorbiaand raphia palm came stray glimmers of sunshine, bits of blue sky, birds, voices, and the whisper of a breeze. 

"This is better, " said Berselius. 

Adams flung up his head and expanded his nostrils. 

"Better, my God!" said he; "this is heaven!"

It was heaven, indeed, after that hell of gloom; that bog roofed in withleaves, the very smell of which clings to one for ever like the memory ofa fever dream. 

All at once patches of sunlight appeared in front as well as above. Theyquickened their pace, the trees drew apart, and, suddenly, with theatricaleffect, a park-like sward of land lay before them leading to a sheet ofblue water reflecting tall feather-palms and waving speargrass, all domedover with blue, and burning in the bright, bright sunshine. 

"The Silent Pools!" cried Adams. "The very place where I saw the leopardchasing the antelope! Great Scott!--Hi! hi! hi! you there!--where are yougoing?"

The collector had raced down to the water's edge; he knew the dangers ofthe place, for he divided the grass, filled his calabash with water, anddashed back before anything could seize him. Then, without drinking, hecame running with the calabash to the white men. 

Adams handed the calabash first to his companion. 

Berselius drank and then wiped his forehead; he seemed disturbed in hismind and had a dazed look. 

He had never come so far along the edge of the pools as this, but therewas something in the configuration of the place that stirred his sleepingmemory. 

"What is it?" asked Adams. 

"I don't know, " replied Berselius. "I have dreamt--I have seen--I remembersomething--somewhere--"

Adams laughed. 

"I know, " said he; "you come along, and in a few minutes you will seesomething that will help your memory. Why, man, we camped near here, youand I and Meeus; when you see the spot you'll find yourself on your roadagain. Come, let's make a start. "

The collector was standing with the half-full calabash in his hands. 

He had not dared to drink. Adams nodded to him, motioning him to do so, but he handed it first to the porter. Then, when the porter had drunk, thecollector finished the remains of the water and the last few drops heflung on the ground, an offering, perhaps, to some god or devil of hisown. Then he led on, skirting the water's edge. The loveliness of theplace had not lessened since Adams had seen it last; even the breeze thatwas blowing to-day did not disturb the spirit of sweet and profound peacewhich held in a charm this lost garden of the wilderness; the palms bentas if in sleep, the water dimpled to the breeze and seemed to smile, aflamingo, with rose-coloured wings, passed and flew before them andvanished beyond the rocking tops of the trees that still sheltered thecamping place where once Berselius had raised his tent. 

Again, with theatrical effect, as the pools had burst upon them on leavingthe forest, the camping place unveiled itself. 

"Now, " said Adams in triumph, "do you remember that?"

Berselius did not reply. He was walking along with his eyes fixed straightbefore him. He did not stop, or hesitate, or make any exclamation toindicate whether he remembered or not. 

"Do you remember?" cried Adams. 

But Berselius did not speak. He was making noises as if strangling, andsuddenly his hands flew up to the neck of his hunting shirt, and tore atit till he tore it open. 

"Steady, man, steady, " cried Adams catching the other's arm. "Hi, you'llbe in a fit if you don't mind--steady, I _say_. "

But Berselius heard nothing, knew nothing but the scene before him, andAdams, who was running now after the afflicted man, who had broken awayand was making straight for the trees beneath which the village had oncebeen, heard and knew nothing of what lay before and around Berselius. 

Berselius had stepped out of the forest an innocent man, and behold!memory had suddenly fronted him with a hell in which he was the chiefdemon. 

He had no time to accommodate himself to the situation, no time forsophistry. He was not equipped with the forty years of steadily growingcallousness that had vanished; the fiend who had inspired him with thelust for torture had deserted him, and the sight and the knowledge ofhimself came as suddenly as a blow in the face. 

Under that m'bina tree two soldiers, one with the haft of a blood-stainedknife between his teeth, had mutilated horribly a living girl. LittlePapeete had been decapitated just where his skull lay now; the shrieks andwails of the tortured tore the sky above Berselius; but Adams heardnothing and saw nothing but Berselius raving amidst the remains. 

Bones lay here and bones lay there, clean picked by the vultures and whitebleached by the sun; skulls, jawbones, femurs, broken or whole. Theremains of the miserable huts faced the strewn and miserable bones, andthe trees blew their golden trumpets over all. 

As Adams looked from the man who with shrill cries was running about as afrantic woman runs about, to the bones on the ground, he guessed thetragedy of Berselius. But he was to hear it in words spoken with thetorrid eloquence of madness. 

PART FOUR

CHAPTER XXX

THE AVENGER

It was a hot night up at the fort, a night eloquent of the coming rains. The door of the guest house stood open and the light of the paraffin lamplay upon the veranda and the ground of the yard, forming a parallelogramof topaz across which were flitting continually great moth shadows big asbirds. 

Andreas Meeus was seated at the white-wood table of the sitting roombefore a big blue sheet of paper. He held a pen in his hand, but he wasnot writing just at present; he was reading what he had written. 

He was, in fact, making up his three-monthly report for headquarters, andhe found it difficult, because the last three months had brought in littlerubber and less ivory. A lot of things had conspired to make trade bad. Sickness had swept two villages entirely away; one village, as we know, had revolted; then, vines had died from some mysterious disease in two ofthe very best patches of the forest. All these explanations Meeus was nowputting on paper for the edification of the Congo Government. He wasdevoting a special paragraph to the revolt of the village by the SilentPools, and the punishment he had dealt out to the natives. Not a word wassaid of torture and slaughtering. "Drastic Measures" was the term he used, a term perfectly well understood by the people to whom he was writing. 

On the wall behind him the leopard-skin still hung, looking now shrivelledat the edges in this extreme heat. On the wall in front of him the Congobows and poisoned arrows looked more venomous and deadly than by the lightof day. A scorpion twice the size of a penny was making a circuit of thewalls just below the ceiling; you could hear a faint scratch from it as ittravelled along, a scratch that seemed an echo of Meeus's pen as ittravelled across the paper. 

He held between his lips the everlasting cigarette. 

Sitting thus, meditating, pen in hand, he heard sounds: the sound of thenight wind, the sound of one of the soldiers singing as he cleaned hisrifle--the men always sang over this business, as if to propitiate the gungod--the scratch of the scorpion and the "creak, creak" of a joist warpingand twisting to the heat. 

But the sound of the wind was the most arresting. It would come over theforest and up the slope and round the guest house with a long-drawn, sweeping "Ha-a-a-r, " and sob once or twice, and then die away down theslope and over the forest and away and beyond to the east, whereKilimanjaro was waiting for it, crowned with snow on his throne beneaththe stars. 

But the wind was almost dead now--the heat of the night had stifled it. The faintest breathing of air took the place of the strong puffs that hadsent the flame of the lamp half up the glass chimney. As Meeus listened, on this faint breath from the forest he heard a sound--

"Boom--boom"--very faint, and as if someone were striking a drum in aleisurely manner. 

"Boom--boom. "

A great man-ape haunted this part of the forest of M'Bonga like an evilspirit. He had wandered here, perhaps from the west coast forests. Drivenaway from his species--who knows?--for some crime. The natives of the forthad caught glimpses of him now and then; he was huge and old and gray, andnow in the darkness of the forest was striking himself on the chest, standing there in the gloom of the leaves, trampling the plantains underfoot, taller than the tallest man, smiting himself in the pride of hisstrength. 

"Boom--boom. "

It is a hair-lifting sound when you know the cause, but it left Meeusunmoved. His mind was too full of the business of writing his report todraw images or listen to imagination; all the same, this sinisterdrum-beat acted upon his subconscious self and, scarcely knowing why hedid so, he got up from the table and came outside to the fort wall andlooked over away into the dark. 

There was not a star in the sky. A dense pall of cloud stretched fromhorizon to horizon, and the wind, as Meeus stepped from the veranda intothe darkness, died away utterly. 

He stood looking into the dark. He could make out the forest, a blacknesshumped and crouching in the surrounding blackness. There was not a ray oflight from the sky, and now and again came the drum--

"Boom--boom. "

Then it ceased, and a bat passed so close that the wind of it stirred hishair. He spat the taint of it from his mouth, and returning to the house, seated himself at the table and continued his work. 

But the night was to be fateful in sounds and surprises. He had not beensitting five minutes when a voice from the blackness outside made him drophis pen and listen. 

It was a European voice, shouting and raving and laughing, and Meeus, ashe listened, clutched at the table, for the voice was known to him. It wasthe voice of Berselius!

Berselius, who was hundreds of miles away in the elephant country!

Meeus heard his own name. It came in to him out of the darkness, followedby a peal of laughter. Rapid steps sounded coming across the courtyard, and the sweat ran from Meeus's face and his stomach crawled as, with abound across the veranda, a huge man framed himself in the doorway andstood motionless as a statue. 

For the first moment Meeus did not recognize Adams. He was filthy andtattered, he wore no coat, and his hunting shirt was open at the neck, andthe arms of it rolled up above the elbows. 

Adams, for the space of ten seconds, stood staring at Meeus from under hispith helmet. The face under the helmet seemed cast from bronze. 

Then he came in and shut the door behind him, walked to the table, tookMeeus by the coat at the back of the neck, and lifted him up as a manlifts a dog by the scruff. 

For a moment it seemed as if he were going to kill the wretched manwithout word or explanation, but he mastered himself with a supremeeffort, put him down, took the vacant seat at the table and cried:

"Stand before me there. "

Meeus stood. He held on to the table with his left hand and with his righthe made pawing movements in the air. 

The big man seated at the table did not notice. He sat for a few secondswith both hands clasped together, one making a cup for the other, just asa man might sit about to make a speech and carefully considering hisopening words. 

Then he spoke. 

"_Did you kill those people by the Silent Pools?_"

Meeus made no reply, but drew a step back and put out his hand, as iffending the question off, as if asking for a moment in which to explain. He had so many things to say, so many reasons to give, but he could saynothing, for his tongue was paralyzed and his lips were dry. 

"_Did you kill those people by the Silent Pools?_"

The awful man at the table was beginning to work himself up. He had risenat the second question, and at the third time of asking he seized Meeus bythe shoulders. "_Did you kill those people----?_"

"Punishment, " stuttered Meeus. 

A cry like the cry of a woman and a crash that shook the plaster from theceiling, followed the fatal word. Adams had swung the man aloft and dashedhim against the wall with such force, that the wattling gave and theplaster fell in flakes. 

Meeus lay still as death, staring at his executioner with a faceexpressionless and white as the plaster flakes around him. 

"Get up, " said Adams. 

Meeus heard and moved his arms. 

"Get up. "

Again the arms moved and the body raised itself, but the legs did notmove. "I cannot, " said Meeus. 

Adams came to him and bending down pinched his right thigh hard. 

"Do you feel me touching you?"

"No. "

Adams did the same to the other thigh. 

"Do you feel that?"

"No. "

"Lie there, " said Adams. 

He opened the door and went out into the night. A moment later hereturned; after him came the two porters bearing Berselius between them. 

Berselius was quiet now; the brain fever that had stricken him had passedinto a muttering stage, and he let himself be carried, passive as a bag ofmeal, whilst Adams went before with the lamp leading the way into thebedroom. Here, on one of the beds, the porters laid their burden down. Then they came back, and under the directions of Adams lifted Meeus andcarried him into the bedroom and placed him on the second bed. 

Adams, with the lamp in his hand, stood for a moment looking at Meeus. Hisrage had spent itself; he had avenged the people at the Silent Pools. Withhis naked hands he had inflicted on the criminal before him an injuryworse than the injury of fire or sword. 

Meeus, frightened now by the pity in the face of the other, horriblyfrightened by the unknown thing that had happened to him, making him deadfrom the waist down, moved his lips, but made no sound. 

"Your back is broken, " replied Adams to the question in the other's eyes. 

Then he turned to Berselius. 

 * * * * *

At midnight the rains broke with a crash of thunder that seemed to shakethe universe. 

Adams, worn out, was seated at the table in the living room smoking sometobacco he had found in a tin on the shelf, and listening to the ramblingof Berselius, when the thunder-clap came, making the lamp shiver on thetable. 

Meeus, who had been silent since his death sentence had been read to him, cried out at the thunder, but Berselius did not heed--he was huntingelephants under a burning sun in a country even vaster than the elephantcountry. 

Adams rose up and came to the door; not a drop of rain had fallen yet. Hecrossed the yard and stood at the fort wall looking into blackness. It wassolid as ebony, and he could hear the soldiers, whose huts were outsidethe wall, calling to one another. 

A great splash of light lit up the whole roof of the forest clear as day, and the darkness shut down again with a bang that hit the ear like a blow, and the echoes of it roared and rumbled and muttered, and died, andSilence wrapped herself again in her robe and sat to wait. 

Now, there was a faint stirring of the air, increasing to a breeze, andfar away a sound like the spinning of a top came on the breeze. It was therain, miles away, coming over the forest in a solid sheet, the sound of itincreasing on the great drum of the forest's roof to a roar. 

Another flash lit the world, and Adams saw the rain. 

He saw what it is given to very few men to see. From horizon to horizon, as if built by plumb, line and square, stretched a glittering wall, reaching from the forest to the sky. The base of this wall was lost insnow-white billows of spray and mist. 

Never was there so tremendous a sight as this infinite wall and theNiagara clouds of spray, roaring, living, and lit by the great flash onesecond, drowned out by the darkness and the thunder the next. 

Adams, terrified, ran back to the house, shut the door, and waited. 

The house was solidly built and had withstood many rains, but there weretimes when it seemed to him that the whole place must be washed awaybodily. Nothing could be heard but the rain, and the sound of such rain isfar more terrifying than the sound of thunder or the rumble of theearthquake. 

There were times when he said to himself, "This cannot last, " yet itlasted. With the lamp in his hand he went into the sleeping room to seehow Berselius and Meeus were doing. Berselius was still, to judge from themovements of his lips, delirious, and just the same. Meeus was lying withhis hands on his breast. He might have been asleep, only for his eyes, wide open and bright, and following every movement of the man with thelamp. 

Meeus, catching the other's eye, motioned to him to come near. Then hetried to speak, but the roar outside made it impossible to hear him. Adamspointed to the roof, as if to say, "Wait till it is over, " then he cameback to the sitting room, tore the leopard skin down from the wall, rolledit up for a pillow, and lay down with his head on it. 

He had been through so much of late that he had grown callous andcase-hardened; he did not care much whether the place was washed away ornot--he wanted to sleep, and he slept. 

Meeus, left alone, lay watching the glimmer of the lamp shining throughthe cracks of the door, and listening to the thunder of the rain. 

This was the greatest rain he had experienced. He wondered if it wouldflood the go-down and get at the rubber stored there; he wondered if thesoldiers had deserted their huts and taken refuge in the office. Thesethoughts were of not the slightest interest to him; they just came andstrayed across his mind, which was still half-paralyzed by the greatcalamity that had befallen him. 

For the last half-hour an iron hand seemed round his body just on a levelwith the diaphragm; this seemed growing tighter, and the tighter it grewthe more difficult it was to breathe. The fracture had been very high up, but he knew nothing of this; he knew that his back was broken, and thatmen with broken backs die, but he did not fully realize that he was goingto die till--all at once--his breathing stopped dead of its own accord, and then of its own accord went on rapidly and shallowly. Then herecognized that his breathing was entirely under the control of somethingover which _he_ had no control. 

This is the most terrible thing a man can know, for it is a thing that noman ever knows till he is in the hands of death. 

 * * * * *

It was daylight when Adams awoke, and the rain had ceased. 

He went to the door and opened it. It was after sunrise, but the sun wasnot to be seen. The whole world was a vapour, but through which the forestwas dimly visible. The soldiers were in the courtyard; they had just comeout of the office where they had taken refuge during the night. Their hutshad been washed away, but they did not seem to mind a bit; they showedtheir teeth in a grin, and shouted something when they saw the white man, and pointed to the rainswept yard and the sky. 

Adams nodded, and then went back into the house and into the bedroom, where he found Meeus hanging head downward out of his bed. 

Rubber would trouble Andreas Meeus no more; his soul had gone to join thegreat army of souls in the Beyond. 

It is strange enough to look upon the body of a man you have killed. ButAdams had no more pity or compunction in his mind than if Meeus had been astoat. 

He turned to Berselius, who was sleeping. The delirium had passed, and hewas breathing evenly and well. There was hope for him yet--hope for hisbody if not for his mind. 

CHAPTER XXXI

THE VOICE OF THE FOREST BY NIGHT

The first thing to be done was to bury Meeus. And now came the question, How would the soldiers take the death of the _Chef de Poste_? They knewnothing of it yet. Would they revolt, or would they seek to revenge him, guessing him to have been killed. 

Adams did not know and he did not care. He half hoped there would betrouble. The Congo had burst upon his view, stripped of shams, in all itsferocity, just as the great scene of the killing had burst upon Berselius. All sorts of things--from the Hostage House of Yandjali to the HostageHouse of M'Bassa, from Mass to Papeete's skull--connected themselves upand made a skeleton, from which he constructed that great and ferociousmonster, the Congo State. The soldiers, with their filed teeth, were partof the monster, and, such was the depth of fury in his heart, he wouldhave welcomed a fight, so that he might express with his arms what histongue ached to say. 

The original man loomed large in Adams. God had given him a characterbenign and just, a heart tempered to mercy and kindliness; all thesequalities had been outraged and were now under arms. They had given amandate to the original man to act. The death of Meeus was the firstresult. 

He went to the shelf where Meeus had kept his official letters and tookMeeus's Mauser pistol from it. It was in a holster attached to a belt. Hestrapped the belt round his waist, drew the pistol from the holster andexamined it. It was loaded, and in an old cigar-box he found a dozen clipsof cartridges. He put three of these in his pocket and with the pistol athis side came out into the courtyard. 

Huge billows of white cloud filled the sky, broken here and there by apatch of watery blue. The whole earth was steaming and the forest wasabsolutely smoking. One could have sworn it was on fire in a dozen placeswhen the spirals of mist rose and broke and vanished like the steam cloudsfrom locomotive chimneys. 

He crossed the courtyard to the go-down, undid the locking bar and foundwhat he wanted. Half a dozen mattocks stood by the rubber bales--he hadnoticed them when the stores had been taken out for the expedition; theywere still in the same place and, taking two of them, he went to the breakin the wall that gave exit from the courtyard and called to the soldiers, who were busy at work rebuilding their huts. 

They came running. He could not speak twenty words of their language, buthe made them line up with a movement of his arm. 

Then he addressed them in a perfectly unprintable speech. It was deliveredin unshod American--a language he had not spoken for years. It took ineach individual of the whole gang, it told them they were dogs and sons ofdogs, killers of men, unmentionable carrion, cayotes, kites, and that hewould have hanged them each and individually with his own hands (and Ibelieve by some legerdemain of strength he would), but that they werewithout hearts, souls or intellect, not responsible creatures, tools ofvillains that he, Adams, would expose and get even with yet. 

Furthermore, that if by a look or movement they disobeyed his orders, hewould make them sweat tears and weep blood, so help him God. Amen. 

They understood what he said. At least they understood the gist of it. They had found a new and angry master, and not an eye was raised whenAdams stood silent; some looked at their toes and some at the ground, somelooked this way, some that, but none at the big, ferocious man, with threeweeks' growth of beard, standing before them and, literally, over them. 

Then he chose two of them and motioned them to follow to the guest house. There he brought them into the sleeping room and pointed to the body ofMeeus, motioning them to take it up and carry it out. The men rolled theireyes at the sight of the _Chef de Poste_, but they said no word; one tookthe head, the other the feet, and between them they carried the burden, led by their new commander, through the dwelling room, across the verandaand then across the yard. 

The rest of the soldiers were in a group near the gate. When they saw thetwo men and their burden, they set up a chattering like a flock ofmagpies, which, however, instantly ceased at the approach of Adams. 

He pointed to the two mattocks which he had placed against the wall. Theyunderstood what he meant; the last _Chef de Poste_ had shot himself in thepresence of the District Commissioner, and they had dug his grave. 

"Here, " said Adams, stopping and pointing to a spot at a convenientdistance from the walls. 

When the body was buried, Adams stood for a second looking at the mound ofearth, wet and flattened down by blows of the spades. 

He had no prayers to offer up. Meeus would have to go before his Makerjust as he was, and explain things--explain all that business away thereat the Silent Pools and other things as well. Prayers over his tomb orflowers on it would not help that explanation one little bit. 

Then Adams turned away and the soldiers trooped after him. 

He had looked into the office and seen the rifles and ammunition whichthey had placed there out of the wet. A weak man would have locked theoffice door and so have deprived the soldiers of their arms, but Adams wasnot a weak man. 

He led his followers to the office, handed them their arms, carefullyexamining each rifle to see that it was clean and uninjured, drew them upon a line, addressed them in some more unprintable language but in amilder tone, dismissed them with a wave of his hand and returned to thehouse. 

As he left them the wretched creatures all gave a shout--a shout ofacclamation. 

This was the man for them--very different from the pale-faced Meeus--thiswas a man they felt who would lead them to more unspeakable butchery thanMeeus had ever done. Therefore they shouted, piled their arms in theoffice and returned to the rebuilding of their huts with verve. 

They were not physiognomists, these gentlemen. 

Berselius awoke from sleep at noon, but he was so weak that he couldscarcely move his lips. Fortunately there were some goats at the fort, andAdams fed him with goats' milk from a spoon, just as one feeds an infant. Then the sick man fell asleep and the rain came down again--not in athunder shower this time, but steadily, mournfully, playing a tattoo onthe zinc roof of the veranda, filling the place with drizzling sounds, dreary beyond expression. With the rain came gloom so deep that Adams hadto light the paraffin lamp. There were no books, no means of recreation, nothing to read but the old official letters and the half-written reportwhich the dead man had left on the table before leaving earth to make hisreport elsewhere. Adams having glanced at this, tore it in pieces, then hesat smoking and thinking and listening to the rain. 

Toward night a thunderstorm livened things up a little, and a howling windcame over the forest on the heels of the storm. 

Adams came out on the veranda to listen. 

He could have sworn that a great sea was roaring below in the darkness. Hecould hear the waves, the boom and burst of them, the suck-back of thebillows tearing the shrieking shale to their hearts, the profound andsonorous roar of leagues of coast. Imagination could do anything with thatsound except figure the reality of it or paint the tremendous forestbending to the wind in billows of foliage a hundred leagues long; the roarof the cotton-woods, the cry of the palm, the sigh of the witheredeuphorbias, the thunderous drumming of the great plantain leaves, alljoining in one tremendous symphony led by the trumpets of the wind, brokenby rainbursts from the rushing clouds overhead, and all in viewlessdarkness, black as the darkness of the pit. 

This was a new phase of the forest, which since the day Adams entered itfirst, had steadily been explaining to him the endlessness of its mystery, its wonder, and its terror. 

CHAPTER XXXII

MOONLIGHT ON THE POOLS

Now began for Adams a time of trial, enough to break the nerve of anyordinary man. Day followed day and week followed week, Berselius gainingstrength so slowly that his companion began to despair at last, fancyingthat the main fountain and source of life had been injured, and that thestream would never flow again but in a trickle, to be stopped at the leastshock or obstruction. 

The man was too weak to talk, he could just say "Yes" and "No" in answerto a question, and it was always "Better" when he was asked how he felt, but he never spoke a word of his own volition. 

Nearly every day it rained, and it rained in a hundred differentways--from the thunderous shower-bath rush of water that threatened tobeat the roof in, to the light spitting shower shone through by the sun. Sometimes the clouds would divide, roll up in snow-white billows ofappalling height, and over the fuming foliage a rainbow would form, andflocks of birds, as if released by some wizard, break from the reekingtrees. Adams could hear their cries as he stood at the foot wall watchingthem circle in the air, and his heart went out to them, for they were theonly living things in the world around him that spoke in a kindly tongueor hinted at the tenderness of God. 

All else was vast and of tragic proportions. The very rainbow was titanic;it seemed primeval as the land over which it stretched and the people towhom it bore no promise. 

But the forest was the thing which filled Adams's heart with a craving forfreedom and escape that rose to a passion. 

He had seen it silent in the dry season; he had seen it divided by thegreat rain-wall and answering the downpour with snow-white billows of mistand spray; he had heard it roaring in the dark; it had trapped him, beatenhim with its wet, green hands, sucked him down in its quagmires, shown himits latent, slow, but unalterable ferocity, its gloom, its devilment. 

The rubber collector who had helped to carry Berselius to the fort hadgone back to his place and task--the forest had sucked him back. Thisgnome had explained without speaking what the gloom and the quagmire, andthe rope-like lianas had hinted, what the Silent Pools had shouted, whatthe vulture and the kite had laid bare, what the heart had whispered:_There is no God in the forest of M'Bonga, no law but the law of theleopard, no mercy but the mercy of Death. _

The forest had become for Adams a living nightmare--his one desire in lifenow was to win free of it, and never did it look more sinister than when, rainbow-arched and silently fuming, it lay passive, sun-stricken, thepalms bursting above the mist and the great clouds rolling away inbillows, as if to expose fully the wonder of those primeval leagues oftree-tops sunlit, mist-strewn, where the feathery fingers of the palmsmade banners of the wrack and the baobabs held fog-banks in theirfoliage. 

At the end of the third week Berselius showed signs of amendment. He couldraise himself now in bed and speak. He said little, but it was evidentthat his memory had completely returned, and it was evident that he wasstill the changed man. The iron-hearted Berselius, the man of daring andnerve, was not here, he had been left behind in the elephant country inthe immeasurable south. 

The mist had departed entirely from his mind; his whole past was clearbefore him, and with his new mind he could reckon it up and see the badand the good. The extraordinary fact was that in reviewing this past hedid not feel terrified--it seemed a dead thing and almost as the past ofsome other man. All those acts seemed to Berselius to have been committedby a man who was now dead. 

He could regret the acts of that man and he could seek to atone for them, but he felt no personal remorse. "He was not I, " would have reasoned themind of Berselius; "those acts were not my acts, because _now I could notcommit them_, " so he would have reasoned had he reasoned on the matter atall. But he did not. In that wild outburst by the Silent Pools the ego hadscreamed aloud, raving against itself, raving against the trick that fatehad played it, by making it the slave of two personalities, and thentorturing it by showing it the acts of the old personality through theeyes of the new. 

When the brain fever had passed, it awoke untroubled; the junction hadbeen effected, the new Berselius was It, and all the acts of the oldBerselius were foreign to it and far away. 

It is thus the man who gets religion feels when the great change comes onhis brain. After the brain-storm and the agony of new birth comes thepeace and the feeling that he is "another man. " He feels that all his sinsare washed away; in other words, he has lost all sense of responsibilityfor the crimes he committed in the old life, he has cast them off like anold suit of clothes. The old man is dead. Ah, but is he? Can you atone foryour vices by losing your smell and taste for vice, and slip out of yourdebt for crime by becoming another man?

Does the old man ever die?

The case of Berselius stirs one to ask the question, which is moreespecially interesting as it is prompted by a case not unique but almosttypical. 

The interesting point in Berselius's case lay in the question as towhether his change of mind was initiated by the injury received in theelephant country or by the shock at the Silent Pools. In other words, wasit due to some mechanical pressure on the brain produced by the accident, or was it due to "repentance" on seeing suddenly unveiled the hideousdrama in which he had taken part?

This remains to be seen. 

At the end of the fourth week Berselius was able to leave his bed, andevery day now marked a steady improvement in strength. 

Not a word about the past did he say, not a question did he ask, and whatsurprised Adams especially, not a question did he put about Meeus, tillone day in the middle of the fifth week. 

Berselius was seated in one of the arm chairs of the sitting room when hesuddenly raised his head. 

"By the way, " said he, "where is the _Chef de Poste_?"

"He is dead, " replied Adams. 

"Ah!" said Berselius; there was almost a note of relief in his voice. Hesaid nothing more and Adams volunteered no explanation, for the affair wasone entirely between Meeus, himself, and God. 

A few minutes later, Berselius, who seemed deep in thought, raised hishead again. 

"We must get away from here. I am nearly strong enough to go now. It willbe a rough journey in these rains, but it will be a much shorter road thanthe road we came by. "

"How so?"

"We came from Yandjali right through the forest before striking south tohere; we will now make straight for the river, along the rubber road. Ithink the post on the river which we will reach is called M'Bina, it is ahundred miles above Yandjali; we can get a boat from there toLeopoldsville. I have been thinking it all out this morning. "

"How about a guide?"

"These soldiers here know the rubber track, for they often escort theloads. "

"Good, " said Adams. "I will have some sort of litter rigged up and we willcarry you. I am not going to let you walk in your present condition. "

Berselius bowed his head. 

"I am very sensible, " said he, "of the care and attention you havebestowed on me during the past weeks. I owe you a considerable debt, whichI will endeavour to repay, at all events, by following your directionsimplicitly. Let the litter be made, and if you will send me in thecorporal of those men, I will talk to him in his own language and explainwhat is to be done. "

"Good, " said Adams, and he went out and found the corporal and sent him into Berselius. 

"Good!" The word was not capacious enough to express what he felt. Freedom, Light, Humanity, the sight of a civilized face, for these heached with a great longing, and they were all there at the end of therubber road, only waiting to be met with. 

He went to the fort wall and shook his fist at the forest. 

"Another ten days, " said Adams. 

The forest, whose spirit counted time by tens of thousands of years, wavedits branches to the wind. 

A spit of rain from a passing cloud hit Adams's cheek, and in the "hush"of the trees there seemed a murmur of derision and the whisper of athreat. 

"It is not well to shake your fist at the gods--in the open. "

Adams went back to the house to begin preparations, and for the next weekhe was busy. From some spare canvas and bamboos in the go-down he made alitter strong enough to carry Berselius--he had to do nearly all the workhimself, for the soldiers were utterly useless as workmen. Then stores hadto be arranged and put together in a convenient form for carrying; clotheshad to be mended and patched--even his boots had to be cobbled withtwine--but at last all was ready, and on the day before they started theweather improved. The sun came out strong and the clouds drew away rightto the horizon, where they lay piled in white banks like ranges ofsnow-covered mountains. 

That afternoon, an hour before sunset, Adams announced his intention ofgoing on a little expedition of his own. 

"I shall only be a few hours away, " said he, "five at most. "

"Where are you going?" asked Berselius. 

"Oh, just down into the woods, " replied Adams. Then he left the roombefore his companion could ask any more questions and sought out thecorporal. 

He beckoned the savage to follow him, and struck down the slope in thedirection of the Silent Pools. When they reached the forest edge hepointed before them and said, "Matabayo. "

The man understood and led the way, which was not difficult, for the feetof the rubber collectors had beaten a permanent path. There was plenty oflight, too, for the moon was already in the sky, only waiting for the sunto sink before blazing out. 

When they were half-way on their journey heavy dusk fell on them suddenly, and deepened almost to dark; then, nearly as suddenly, all the forestaround them glowed green to the light of the moon. 

The Silent Pools and the woods, when they reached them, lay in mist andmoonlight, making a picture unforgettable for ever. 

It recalled to Adams that picture of Doré's, illustrating the scene fromthe "Idylls of the King, " where Arthur labouring up the pass "all in amisty moonlight, " had trodden on the skeleton of the once king, from whosehead the crown rolled like a rivulet of light down to the tarn--the mistytarn, where imagination pictured Death waiting to receive it and hide itin his robe. 

The skeleton of no king lay here, only the poor bones still unburied ofthe creatures that a far-off king had murdered. The rain had washed themabout, and Adams had to search and search before he found what he had cometo find. 

At last he saw it. The skull of a child, looking like a white stone amidstthe grass. He wrapped it in leaves torn from the trees near by, and thegrim corporal stood watching him, and wondering, no doubt, for what fetishbusiness the white man had come to find the thing. 

Then Adams with the dreary bundle under his arm looked around him at theother remains and swore--swore by the God who had made him, by the motherwho had borne him, and the manhood that lay in him, to rest not nor staytill he had laid before the face of Europe the skull of Papeete and theacts of the terrible scoundrel who for long years had systematicallymurdered for money. 

Then, followed by the savage, he turned and retook his road. At the wood'sedge he looked back at the silent scene, and it seemed to look at him withthe muteness and sadness of a witness who cannot speak, of a woman whocannot tell her sorrow. 

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE RIVER OF GOLD

Next morning they started. 

The corporal, three of the soldiers, and the two porters made up theescort. 

Berselius, who was strong enough to walk a little way, began the journeyon foot, but they had not gone five miles on their road when he showedsigns of fatigue, and Adams insisted on him taking to the litter. 

It was the same road by which Félix had led them, but it was verydifferent travelling; where the ground had been hard underfoot it was nowsoft, and where it had been elastic it was now boggy; it was more gloomy, and the forest was filled with watery voices; where it dipped down intovalleys, you could hear the rushing and mourning of waters. Tiny tricklesof water had become rivulets--rivulets streams. 

Away in the elephant country it was the same, the dry river-bed where theyhad found the carcass of the elephant, was now the bed of rushing water. The elephant and antelope herds were wandering in clouds on the plains. Ahundred thousand streams from Tanganyika to Yandjali were leaping to formrivers flowing for one destination, the Congo and the sea. 

On the second day of their journey, an accident happened; one of theporters, released for a spell from bearing the litter, and loiteringbehind, was bitten by a snake. 

He died despite all Adams's attempts to save him, and, leaving his body tobe buried by the leopards, they passed on. 

But the soldiers, especially the corporal, took the matter strangely. These bloodthirsty wretches, inured to death and thinking nothing of it, seemed cast down, and at the camping place they drew aside, chatteredtogether for a few minutes, and then the corporal came to Berselius andbegan a harangue, his eyes rolling toward Adams now and then as heproceeded. 

Berselius listened, spoke a few words, and then turned to Adams. 

"He says you have brought something with you that is unlucky, and thatunless you throw it away, we shall all die. "

"I know what he means, " replied Adams; "I have brought a relic from thatvillage by the Silent Pools. I shall not throw it away. You can tell himso. "

Berselius spoke to the man who still stood sullenly waiting, and who wasopening his mouth to continue his complaints, when Adams seized him by theshoulders, turned him round, and with a kick, sent him back to hiscompanions. 

"You should not have done that, " said Berselius; "these people are verydifficult to deal with. "

"Difficult!" said Adams. He stared at the soldiers who were groupedtogether, slapped the Mauser pistol at his side, and then pointed to thetent. 

The men ceased muttering, and came as beaten dogs come at the call oftheir master, seized the tent and put it up. 

But Berselius still shook his head. He knew these people, their treachery, and their unutterable heartlessness. 

"How far are we from the river now?" asked Adams, that night, as they satby the fire, for which the corporal by some miracle of savagery had foundsufficient dry fuel in the reeking woods around them. 

"Another two days' march, " replied Berselius, "I trust that we shall reachit. "

"Oh, we'll get there, " said Adams, "and shall I tell you why? Well, we'llget there just because of that relic I am carrying. God has given me it totake to Europe. To take to Europe and show to men that they may see thedevilment of this place, and the work of Satan that is being carried outhere. "

Berselius bowed his head. 

"Perhaps you are right, " said he, at last, slowly and thoughtfully. 

Adams said no more. The great change in his companion stood as a barrierbetween him and the loathing he would have felt if Berselius had beenstill himself. 

The great man had fallen, and was now very low. That vision of him in hismadness by the Silent Pools had placed him forever on a plane aboveothers. God had dealt with this man very visibly, and the hand of God wasstill upon him. 

Next day they resumed their journey. The soldiers were cheerful and seemedto have forgotten all about their grievance, but Berselius felt moreuneasy than ever. He knew these people, and that nothing could move themto mirth and joy that was not allied to devilment, or treachery, ordeath. 

But he said nothing, for speech was useless. 

Next morning when they woke they found the soldiers gone; they had takenthe porter with them, and as much of the provisions as they could stealwithout disturbing the white men. 

"I thought so, " said Berselius. 

Adams raged and stormed, but Berselius was perfectly calm. 

"The thing I fear most, " said he, "is that they have led us out of ourroad. Did you notice whether we were in the track for the last mile or soof our journey yesterday?"

"No, " replied Adams, "I just followed on. Good God! if it is so we arelost. "

Now, the rubber road was just a track so faint, that without keeping hiseyes on the ground where years of travel had left just a slight indicationof the way, a European would infallibly lose it. Savages, who have eyes intheir feet, hold it all right, and go along with their burdens even in thedark. 

Adams searched, but he could find no track. 

"We must leave all these things behind us, " said Berselius, pointing tothe tent and litter. "I am strong enough to walk; we must strike throughthe forest and leave the rest to chance. "

"Which way?" asked Adams. 

"It does not matter. These men have purposely lost us, and we do not knowin the least the direction of the river. "

Adams's eyes fell on a bundle wrapped in cloth. It was the relic. 

He knelt down beside it, and carefully removed the cloth withoutdisturbing the position of the skull. 

He noted the direction in which the eye-holes pointed. 

"We will go in that direction, " said he. "We have lost ourselves, but Godhas not lost us. "

"Let it be so, " replied Berselius. 

Adams collected what provisions he could carry, tied the skull to his beltwith a piece of rope taken from the tent, and led the way amidst thetrees. 

Two days later, at noon, still lost, unutterably weary, they saw throughthe trees before them a sight to slay all hope. 

It was the tent and the litter just as they had left them. 

Two days' heart-breaking labour had brought them to this by all sorts ofpaths. 

They had not wandered in a circle. They had travelled in segments ofcircles, and against all mathematical probability, had struck the camp. 

But the camp was not tenantless. Someone was there. A huge man-like form, a monstrous gorilla, the evil spirit that haunted the forest, bent andgray and old-looking, was picking the things about, sniffing at them, turning them over. 

When they saw him first, he was holding the tent-cloth between both hishands just as a draper holds a piece of cloth, then he ripped it up with arending sound, flung the pieces away, and began turning over the litter. 

He heard the steps of the human beings, and sat up, looking around him, sniffing the air. He could not see them, for he was purblind. 

The human beings passed on into the terrible nowhere of the forest. 

When you are lost like this, you cannot rest. You must keep moving, eventhough you are all but hopeless of reaching freedom. 

Two days later they were still lost, and now entirely hopeless. 

To torment their hearts still more, faint sun-rays came through the leavesoverhead. 

The sun was shining overhead; the sun they would never see again. It wasthe very end of all things, for they had not eaten for twelve hours now. 

The sun-rays danced, for a breeze had sprung up, and they could hear itpassing free and happily in the leaves overhead. 

Berselius cast himself down by a huge tree and leaned his head against thebark. Adams stood for a moment with his hand upon the tree-bole. He knewthat when he had cast himself down he would never rise again. It was thefull stop which would bring the story of his life to a close. 

He was standing like this when, borne on the breeze above the tree-tops, came a sound, stroke after stroke, sonorous and clear. The bell of asteamboat!

It was the voice of the Congo telling of Life, Hope, Relief. 

 * * * * *

Berselius did not hear it. Sunk in a profound stupor, he would not evenraise his head. 

Adams seized his companion in his arms and came facing the direction ofthe breeze. He walked like a man in his sleep, threading the maze of thetrees on, on, on, till before him the day broke in one tremendous splashof light, and the humble frame-roof of M'Bina seemed to him the roofs ofsome great city, beyond which the river flowed in sheets of burnishedgold. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE SUBSTITUTE

District Commissioner De Wiart, chief at M'Bina, was a big man with ablond beard and a good-natured face. He worked the post at M'Bina with theassistance of a subordinate named Van Laer. 

De Wiart was a man eminently fitted for his post. He had a genius fororganization and overseeing. He would not have been worth a centime awayup-country, for his heart was far too good to allow him to personallysupervise the working of the niggers, but at M'Bina he was worth a gooddeal to the Government that employed him. 

This man who would not hurt a fly--this man who would have made anexcellent father of a family--was terrible to his subordinates when hetook a pen in his hand. He knew the mechanism of every _Chef de Poste_ inhis district, and the sort of letter that would rouse him up, stimulatehim to renewed action, and the slaves under him to renewed work. 

Van Laer was of quite a different type. Van Laer had the appearance of afamished hound held back by a leash. He was tall and thin. He had been aschoolmaster dismissed from his school for a grave offence; he had been abilliard-marker; he had walked the streets of Brussels in a frock-coat andtall hat, a "guide" on the lookout for young foreigners who wished toenjoy the more dubious pleasures of the city. He had been many things, till, at the age of thirty-five, he became a servant of the crown. 

The pale blue eyes of Van Laer held in them a shallowness and murderouscruelty, an expression of negation and coldness combined with mind such asone finds nowhere in the animal kingdom, save that branch of it whichprides itself on its likeness to God. His thumbs were cruelly shaped andenormous. A man may disguise his soul, he may disguise his mind, he maydisguise his face, but he cannot disguise his thumbs unless he wearsgloves. 

No one wears gloves on the Congo, so Van Laer's thumbs were openlydisplayed. 

He had been six months now at M'Bina and he was sick of the place, accounts were of no interest to him. He was a man of action, and he wantedto be doing. He could make money up there in the forest at the heart ofthings; here, almost in touch with civilization, he was wasting his time. And he wanted money. The bonus-ache had seized him badly. When he saw thegreat tusks of green ivory in their jackets of matting, when he saw thebales of copal leafed round with aromatic unknown leaves, and speakingfervently of the wealth of the tropics and the riches of the primevalforests, when he saw the tons of rubber and remembered that this stuff, which in the baskets of the native collectors looks like fried potatochips, in Europe becomes, by the alchemy of trade, minted gold, a greathunger filled his hungry soul. 

At M'Bina great riches were eternally flowing in and flowing out. Wealthin its original wrappings piled itself on the wharf in romantical packetsand bales, piled itself on board steamers, floated away down the goldenriver, and was replaced by more wealth flowing in from the inexhaustibleforests. 

The sight of all this filled Van Laer with an actual physical hunger. Hecould have eaten that stuff that was wealth itself. He could have devouredthose tusks. He was Gargantua as far as his appetite was concerned, andfor the rest he was only Van Laer driving a quill in the office of DeWiart. 

He did not know that he was here on probation; that the good-natured andseemingly lazy de Wiart was studying him and finding him satisfactory, that very soon his desires would be fulfilled, and that he would be letloose like a beast on the land of his longing, a living whip, an animatedthumb-screw, a knife with a brain in its haft. 

When the soldiers had lost Berselius and Adams, they struck at once forM'Bina, reaching it in a day's march. 

Here they told their tale. 

_Chef de Poste_ Meeus was dead. They had escorted a sick white man and abig white man toward M'Bina. One night three leopards had prowled roundthe camp and the soldiers had gone in pursuit of them. 

The leopards escaped, but the soldiers could not find the white menagain. 

De Wiart listened to this very fishy tale without believing a word of it, except in so far as it related to Meeus. 

"Where did you lose the white men?" asked de Wiart. 

The soldiers did not know. One does not know where one loses a thing; ifone did, then the thing would not be lost. 

"Just so, " said De Wiart, agreeing to this very evident axiom, and morethan ever convinced that the story was a lie. Meeus was dead and the menhad come to report. They had delayed on the road to hold some jamboree oftheir own, and this lie about the white men was to account for theirdelay. 

"Did anyone else come with you as well as the white men?" asked De Wiart. 

"Yes, there was a porter, a Yandjali man. He had run away. "

De Wiart pulled his blond beard meditatively, and looked at the river. 

From the office where he was sitting the river, great with the rains andlit by the sun which had broken through the clouds, looked like a movingflood of gold. One might have fancied that all the wealth of the elephantcountry, all the teeming riches of the forest, flowing by a thousandstreams and disdaining to wait for the alchemy of trade, had joined in onePactolian flood flowing toward Leopoldsville and the sea. 

De Wiart was not thinking this. He dismissed the soldiers and told them tohold themselves in readiness to return to M'Bassa on the morrow. 

That evening he called Van Laer into the office. 

"_Chef de Poste_ Meeus of Fort M'Bassa is dead, " said De Wiart; "you willgo there and take command. You will start to-morrow. "

Van Laer flushed. 

"It is a difficult post, " said De Wiart, "wild country, and the nativesare the laziest to be found in the whole of the state. The man beforeMeeus did much harm; he had no power or control, he was a weak man, andthe people frankly laughed at him. Actually rubber came in here one-thirdrubbish, the people were half their time in revolt, they cut the vines intwo districts. I have a report of his saying, 'There is no ivory to begot. The herds are very scarce, and the people say they cannot makeelephants. ' Fancy writing nigger talk like that in a report. I replied inthe same tone. I said, 'Tell the people they must make them: and make themin a hurry. Tell them that they need not trouble to make whole elephants, just the tusks will do--eighty-pound tusks, a hundred-pound if possible. 'But sarcasm was quite thrown away on him. He listened to the natives. Oncea man does that he is lost, for they lose all respect for him. They arejust like children, these people; once let children get in the habit ofmaking excuses and you lose control. 

"Meeus was a stronger man, but he left much to be desired. He had too muchwhalebone in his composition, not enough steel, but he was improving. 

"You will find yourself at first in a difficult position. It always is sowhen a _Chef de Poste_ dies suddenly and even a few days elapse before heis replaced. The people get out of hand, thinking the white man is gonefor ever. However, you will find yourself all right in a week or so, ifyou are firm. "

"Thank you, " said Van Laer. "I have no doubt at all that I will be able tobring these people into line. I do not boast. I only ask you to keep youreye on the returns. "

Next day Van Laer, escorted by the soldiers, left M'Bina to take up thestation at Fort M'Bassa left vacant by the death of _Chef de Poste_Andreas Meeus. 

Three days later at noon De Wiart, drawn from his house by shouts from thesentinels on duty saw, coming toward him in the blazing sunshine, a greatman who stumbled and seemed half-blinded by the sunlight, and who wasbearing in his arms another man who seemed dead. 

Both were filthy, ragged, torn and bleeding. The man erect had, tied tohis waistbelt by a piece of liana, a skull. 

Fit emblem of the forest he had passed through and the land that laybehind it. 

CHAPTER XXXV

PARIS

One hot day in June Schaunard was seated in the little office just behindhis shop. He was examining an improved telescopic sight which had justbeen put upon the market by an opponent, criticizing it as one poetcriticizes the poem of another poet--that is to say, ferociously. 

To him, thus meditating, from the Rue de la Paix suddenly came a gush ofsound which as suddenly ceased. 

The shop door had opened and closed again, and Schaunard leaving hisoffice came out to see who the visitor might be. 

He found himself face to face with Adams. He knew him by his size, but hewould scarcely have recognized him by his face, so brown, so thin and sodifferent in expression was it from the face of the man with whom he hadparted but a few months ago. 

"Good day, " said Adams. "I have come to pay you for that gun. "

"Ah, yes, the gun, " said Schaunard with a little laugh, "this is apleasant surprise. I had entered it amidst my bad debts. Come in, monsieur, come into my office, it is cooler there, and we can talk. Thegun, ah, yes. I had entered that transaction in Ledger D. Come in, comein. There, take that armchair, I keep it for visitors. Well, and how didthe expedition go off?"

"Badly, " said Adams. "We are only back a week. You remember what you saidto me when we parted? You said, 'Don't go. ' I wish I had taken youradvice. "

"Why, since you are back sound and whole, it seems to me you have not doneso badly--but perhaps you have got malaria?"

The old man's sharp eyes were investigating the face of the other. Schaunard's eyes had this peculiarity, that they were at once friendly toone and cruel, they matched the eternal little laugh which was everspringing to his lips--the laugh of the eternal mocker. 

Schaunard made observations as well as telescopic sights andwind-gauges--he had been making observation for sixty years--he tookalmost as much interest in individual human beings as in rifles, and muchmore interest in Humanity than in God. 

He was afflicted with the malady of the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies--he did not believe in God, only instead of hiding his diseaseunder a cloak of mechanical religion, or temporizing with it, he franklydeclared himself to be what he was, an atheist. 

This fact did not interfere with his trade--a godly gunmaker gets no morecustom than an atheistical one; besides, Schaunard did not obtrude hisreligious opinions after the fashion of his class, he was a good deal of agentleman, and he was accustomed to converse familiarly with emperors andkings. 

"No, it is not malaria, " replied Adams, following the old man who wasleading the way into the office. "I never felt better in my life. It isjust the Congo. The place leaves an impression on one's mind, M. Schaunard, a flavour that is not good. "

He took the armchair which Schaunard kept for visitors. He was only a weekback--all he had seen out there was fresh to him and very vivid, but hefelt in Schaunard an antagonistic spirit, and he did not care to go deeperinto his experiences. 

Schaunard took down that grim joke, Ledger D, placed it on the table andopened it, but without turning the leaves. 

"And how is Monsieur le Capitaine?" asked he. 

"He has been very ill, but he is much better. I am staying with him in theAvenue Malakoff as his medical attendant. We only arrived at Marseilles aweek ago. "

"And Madame Berselius, how is she?"

"Madame Berselius is at Trouville. "

"The best place this weather. _Ma foi_, you must find it warm here evenafter Africa--well, tell me how you found the gun to answer. "

Adams laughed. "The gun went off--in the hands of a savage. All yourbeautiful guns, Monsieur Schaunard, are now matchwood and old iron, tents, everything went, smashed to pieces, pounded to pulp by elephants. "

He told of the great herd they had pursued and how in the dark it hadcharged the camp. He told of how in the night, listening by the camp fire, he had heard the mysterious boom of its coming, and of the marvelloussight he had watched when Berselius, failing in his attempt to waken theZappo Zap, had fronted the oncoming army of destruction. 

Schaunard's eyes lit up as he listened. 

"Ah, " said he, "that is a man!"

The remark brought Adams to a halt. 

He had become strangely bound up in Berselius; he had developed anaffection for this man almost brotherly, and Schaunard's remark hit himand made him wince. For Schaunard employed the present tense. 

"Yes, " said Adams at last, "it was very grand. " Then he went on to tell ofBerselius's accident, but he said nothing of his brain injury, for aphysician does not speak of his patient's condition to strangers, exceptin the vaguest and most general terms. 

"And how did you like the Belgians?" asked the old man, when Adams hadfinished. 

"The Belgians!" Adams, suddenly taken off his guard, exploded; he had saidnothing as yet about the Congo to anyone. He could not help himself now;the horrors rushed to his mouth and escaped--the cry of the great mournfulcountry--the cry that he had brought to Europe with him in his heart, found vent. 

Schaunard sat amazed, not at the infamies pouring from Adams's mouth, forhe was well acquainted with them, but at the man's vehemence and energy. 

"I have come to Europe to expose him, " finished Adams. 

"Expose who?"

"Leopold, King of the Belgians. "

"But, my dear Monsieur Adams, you have come to waste your time; he isalready exposed. Expose Leopold, King of the Belgians! Say at once thatyou are going to expose the sun. He doesn't care. He exposes himself. Hispublic and his private life are common property. "

"You mean to say that everyone knows what I know?"

"Precisely, and perhaps even more, but everyone has not seen what you haveseen, and that's all the difference. "

"How so?"

"In this way, monsieur; let us suppose that you have just seen a child runover in the Rue de la Paix. You come in here and tell me of it; the horrorof it is in your mind, but you cannot convey that horror to me, simplybecause I have not seen what you have seen. Still, you can convey a partof it, for I know the Rue de la Paix, it is close to me, outside my door, and I know French children. 

"You come to me and tell me of hideous sights you have seen in Africa. That does not move me a tenth so much, for Africa is very far away--it is, in fact, for me a geographical expression; the people are niggers I havenever seen, dwelling in a province I have never heard of. You come to seeksympathy for this people amongst the French public? Well, I tell youfrankly you are like a man searching in a dark room for a black hat thatis not there. "

"Nevertheless I shall search. "

"As monsieur wills, only don't knock yourself against the chairs andtables. Ah, monsieur, monsieur, you are young and a medical man. Remainso, and don't lose your years and your prospects fighting the impossible. Now listen to me, for it is old Schaunard of the Rue de la Paix who isspeaking to you. The man you would expose, as you term it, is a king tobegin with; to go on with, he is far and away the cleverest king inChristendom. That man has brains enough to run what you in America call adepartment store. Every little detail of his estate out there, even to thecap guns and rifles of the troops, he looks after himself; that's why itpays. It is a bad-smelling business, but it doesn't poison the nose ofEurope, because it is so far away. Still, smells are brought over insamples by missionaries and men like you, and people say 'Faugh!' Do youthink he did not take that into his consideration when he planned theaffair and laid down the factory? If you think so, you would be vastlymistaken. He has agents everywhere--I have met them, apologistseverywhere--in the Press, in Society, in the Church. The Roman CatholicChurch is entirely his; he is triple-ringed with politicians, priests, publicists, and financiers, all holding their noses to keep out the stenchand all singing the _Laus Leopold_ at the top of their voices. 

"Ah! you don't know Europe. I do, from the Ballplatz to Willhelmstrasse, from the Winter Palace to the Elysée, my trade has brought me everywhere, and if you could see with my eyes, you would see the great, smooth plainof ice you hope to warm with your poor breath in the name of Humanity. "

"At all events I shall try, " replied Adams, rising to go. 

"Well, try, but don't get frozen in making the trial----"

"Oh, the gun--well, look here--you are starting on another huntingexpedition, it seems to me, a more dangerous one, too, than the last, forthere is no forest where one loses oneself more fatally than the forest ofsocial reform--pay me when you come back. "

"Very well, " said Adams, laughing. 

"Only if you are successful though. "

"Very well. "

"And, see here, in any event come and tell me the result. _Bon jour_, monsieur, and a word in your ear----"

The old man was opening the shop door. 

"Yes?"

"Don't go. "

Schaunard closed his door and retired to his office to chuckle over hisjoke, and Adams walked off down the Rue de la Paix. 

Paris was wearing her summer dress; it was the end of the season, and thestreets were thronged with foreigners--the Moor from Morocco, in his whiteburnous, elbowed the Slav from Moscow; the Eiffel Tower had become averitable Tower of Babel; the theatres were packed, the _cafés_ crowded. Austrian, Russian, English, and American gold was pouring into thecity--pouring in ceaselessly from the four corners of the world and byevery great express disgorging at the Gare du Nord, the Gare de l'Est, andthe Gare de Lyons. 

To Adams, fresh from the wilderness and the forest, fresh from thosegreat, silent, sunlit plains of the elephant country and the tremendouscavern of the jungle, the city around him and the sights affected him withvividness and force. 

Here, in the centre of the greatest civilization that the world has everseen, he stood fresh from that primeval land. 

He had seen civilization with her mask off, her hair in disorder, her footon the body of a naked slave and the haft of a blood-stained knife betweenher teeth, he was watching her now with her mask on, her hair in powder, Caruso singing to her; sitting amidst her court of poets, philosophers, churchmen, placemen, politicians, and financiers. 

It was a strange experience. 

He took his way down the Rue de Rivoli and then to the Avenue Malakoff, and as he walked the face of the philosophic Schaunard faded from his mindand was replaced by the vision of Maxine Berselius. Opposites in the worldof thought often awaken images one of the other, just because of the factthat they are opposites. 

Maxine was not at Trouville. She had met them at the railway station onthe day of their arrival. 

_La Joconde_ had been cabled for from Leopoldsville, and the great yachthad brought them to Marseilles. Nothing had been cabled as to Berselius'saccident or illness, and Madame Berselius had departed for Trouville, quite unconscious of anything having happened to her husband. 

Maxine was left to discover for herself the change in her father. She haddone so at the very first sight of him, but as yet she had said no word. 

CHAPTER XXXVI

DREAMS

When Adams arrived at the Avenue Malakoff he found Berselius in thelibrary. He was seated in a big armchair, and M. Pinchon, his secretary, aman dry-looking as an account-book, bald, and wearing spectacles, was justleaving the room with some shorthand notes of business letters to betyped. 

Berselius was much changed; his hair was quite gray, his eyes, once socalm, forceful, and intrinsically brilliant, had lost their lustre, hisface wore the expression of a confirmed invalid. 

Great discontent was the predominant feature of this expression. 

It was only within the last few days that this had appeared. On recoveringfrom the hardships of the forest and on the voyage home, though weakenough, he had been serene, mild, amiable and rather listless, but duringthe last few days something was visibly troubling him. 

He had "gone off, " to use an expressive phrase sometimes employed byphysicians. 

A strange thing had happened to Berselius. Ever since the recovery of hismemory his new self had contemplated the past from the heights of newbirth, calmly conscious of the fact that this past belonged to a man whowas dead. The more he examined this past the more he loathed the man towhom it had belonged, but the difference between that man and himself wasso profound that he felt, rightly, that he was not _He_. 

Three mornings ago Berselius, who rarely dreamt, had awakened from a longnight of hunting in Dreamland. In Dreamland he had cast off his newpersonality and became his old self, and then, in his hunting shirt andwith a cordite rifle in his hand, accompanied by the Zappo Zap, he hadtracked elephant herds across illimitable plains. 

He had awakened to his new self again with the full recognition in hismind that only a few moments ago he had been thinking with that otherman's brain, acting under his passions, living his life. 

The Berselius of Dreamland had not the remotest connection with, orknowledge of, the Berselius of real life. Yet the Berselius of real lifewas very intimately connected with the Berselius of Dreamland, knew allhis actions, knew all his sensations, and remembered them to the minutestdetail. 

The next night he did not dream at all--not so on the third night, whenthe scene of horror by the Silent Pools was reenacted, himself in theoriginal _role_. The incidents were not quite the same, for scenes fromreal life are scarcely ever reproduced on the stage of Dreamland in theirentirety; but they were ghastly enough in all conscience, and Berselius, awake and wiping the sweat from his brow, saw them clearly before him andremembered the callousness with which he had watched them but a fewmoments ago. 

No man can command his dreams; the dreaming man lives in a world beyondlaw, and it came as a shock to Berselius that his old self should be alivein him like this, powerful, active, and beyond rebuke. 

Physically, he was a wreck of his old self, but that was nothing to thefact which was now borne in on him--the fact that this new mentality wasbut a thin shell covering the old, as the thin shell of earth, with itsflowers and pleasant landscapes, covers the burning hell which is theearth's core. 

The thing was perfectly natural. A great and vivid personality, and fortyyears of exuberant and self-willed life had at a stroke been checked andchanged. The crust of his mind had cooled; tempestuous passions had passedfrom the surface, giving place to kindlier emotions, but the furnace wasthere beneath the flower garden just as it is in the case of the earth. 

Captain Berselius was still alive, though suppressed and living insecrecy. At night, touched by the magic wand of sleep, he became awake, and became supreme master of the tenement in the cellars of which he wascondemned to sleep by day. 

So far from having been touched by death, Captain Berselius was now securefrom death or change; a thing not to be reasoned with or altered--beyondhuman control--yet vividly alive as the fabled monster that inhabits thecellars of Glamis Castle. 

Between the dual personalities of the man complete fission had takenplace, a terrible accident of the sort condemning the cast-off personalityto live in darkness beyond the voice of mind or amendment. 

"Well, " said Adams, as he entered the room. "How are you to-day?"

"Oh, about the same, about the same. If I could sleep properly I wouldmend, but my sleep is broken. "

"I must give you something to alter that. "

Berselius laughed. 

"Drugs?"

"Yes, drugs. We doctors cannot always command health, but we can commandsleep. Do you feel yourself able to talk for a bit?"

"Oh, yes, I feel physically well. Sit down, you will find some cigars inthat cabinet. "

Adams lit a cigar and took his seat in an armchair close to his companion. All differences of rank and wealth were sunk between these two men who hadgone through so much together. On their return, when Berselius had desiredAdams to remain as his medical attendant, he had delegated M. Pinchon asintermediary to deal with Adams as to the financial side of the question. 

Adams received a large salary paid monthly in advance by the secretary. Berselius did not have any hand in the matter, thus the feeling ofemployer and employed was reduced to vanishing point and the positionrendered more equal. 

"You know, " said Adams, "I have always been glad to do anything I can foryou, and I always shall be, but since I have come back to Paris I havebeen filled with unrest. You complain of sleeplessness--well, that is mydisease. "

"Yes?"

"It's that place over there; it has got into my blood. I declare to Godthat I am the last man in the world to sentimentalize, but that horror iskilling me, and I must act--I must do something--even if I have to go intothe middle of the Place de la Concorde and shout it aloud. I shall shoutit aloud. I'm not made so that I can stand seeing a thing like that insilence. "

Berselius sat with his eyes fixed on the carpet; he seemed abstracted andscarcely listening. He knew perfectly well that Adams was acquainted withthe affair at the Silent Pools, but the subject had never been mentionedbetween them, nor was it now. 

"That missionary I met on the return home at Leopoldsville, " went onAdams, "he was a Baptist, a man, not a religion-machine. He gave medetails from years of experience that turned my heart in me. With my owneyes I saw enough----"

Berselius held up his hand. 

"Let us not speak of what we know, " said he. "The thing is there--has beenthere for years--can you destroy the past?"

"No; but one can improve the future. " Adams got up and paced the floor. "Now, now as I am talking to you, that villainy is going on; it is likeknowing that a murder is slowly being committed in the next house and thatone has no power to interfere. When I look at the streets full of peopleamusing themselves; when I see the _cafés_ crammed, and the rich drivingin their carriages; the churches filled with worshippers worshipping a Godwho serenely sits in heaven without stretching a hand to help His poor, benighted creatures--when I see all this and contrast it with what I haveseen, I could worship _that_!"

He stopped, and pointed to the great gorilla shot years ago in German WestAfrica by Berselius. "That was a being at least sincere. Whateverbrutalities he committed in his life, he did not talk sentiment andreligion and humanitarianism as he pulled his victims to pieces, and hedid not pull his victims to pieces for the sake of gold. He was an honestdevil, a far higher thing than a dishonest man. "

Again Berselius held up his hand. 

"What would you do?"

"Do? I'd break that infernal machine which calls itself a State, and I'dguillotine the ruffian that invented it. I cannot do that, but I can atleast protest. "

Berselius, who had helped to make the machine, and who knew better thanmost men its strength, shook his head sadly. 

"Do what you will, " said he. "If you need money my funds are at yourdisposal, but you cannot destroy the past. "

Adams, who knew nothing of Berselius's dream-obsession, could notunderstand the full meaning of these words. 

But he had received permission to act, and the promise of that financialsupport without which individual action would be of no avail. 

He determined to act; he determined to spare neither Berselius's money norhis own time. 

But the determination of man is limited by circumstance, and circumstancewas at that moment preparing and rehearsing the last act of the drama ofBerselius. 

CHAPTER XXXVII

BERSELIUS BEHOLDS HIS OTHER SELF

On the morning after Berselius's conversation with Adams, Berselius leftthe Avenue Malakoff, taking his way to the Avenue des Champs Elysées onfoot. 

The change in the man was apparent even in his walk. In the old days hewas rapid in his movements, erect of head, keen of eye. The weight offifteen years seemed to have suddenly fallen on his shoulders, bowing themand slowing his step. He was in reality carrying the most terrible burdenthat a man can carry--himself. 

A self that was dead, yet with which he had to live. A past which brokecontinually up through his dreams. 

He was filled with profound unrest, irritation and revolt; everythingconnected with that other one, even the money he had made and the house hehad built for himself and the pursuits he had followed, increased thisirritation and revolt. He had already formed plans for taking a new housein Paris, but to-day, as he walked along the streets, he recognized thatParis itself was a house, every corner of which belonged to that otherone's past. 

In the Avenue Champs Elysées, he hailed a _fiacre_ and drove to the houseof his lawyer, M. Cambon, which was situated in the Rue d'Artiles. 

Cambon had practically retired from his business, which was carried on nowby his son. But for a few old and powerful clients, such as Berselius, hestill acted personally. 

He was at home, and Berselius was shown into a drawing room, furnishedheavily after the heart of the prosperous French _bourgeois_. 

He had not to wait long for the appearance of the lawyer, a fat, pale-faced gentleman, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, tightly buttoned upin a frock-coat, the buttonhole of which was adorned with the red rosetteof the Legion of Honour. 

Cambon had known Berselius for years. The two men were friends, and evenmore, for Cambon was the depository of Berselius's most confidentialaffairs. 

"Well, " said the lawyer, "you have returned. I saw a notice of your returnin the _Echo de Paris_, and indeed, this very day I had promised myselfthe pleasure of calling on you. And how is Madame Berselius?"

"She is at Trouville. "

"I had it in my mind that you proposed to remain away twelve months. "

"Yes, but our expedition came to an end. "

Berselius, in a few words, told how the camp had been broken up, withoutreferring, however, to his accident; and the fat and placid Cambonlistened, pleased as a child with the tale. He had never seen an elephantexcept at the Jardin d'Acclimatation. He would have run from a milch-cow. Terrible in the law courts, in life he was the mildest of creatures, andthe tale had all the attraction that the strong has for the weak and theferocious for the mild. 

But even as he listened, sitting there in his armchair, he was examininghis visitor with minute attention, trying to discover some clue to themeaning of the change in him. 

"And now, " said Berselius, when he had finished, "to business. "

He had several matters to consult the lawyer about, and the most importantwas the shifting of his money from the securities in which they wereplaced. 

Cambon, who was a large holder of rubber industries, grew pale beneath hisnatural pallor when he discovered that Berselius was about to place hisentire fortune elsewhere. 

Instantly he put two and two together. Berselius's quick return, hischanged appearance, the fact that suddenly and at one sweep he was sellinghis stock. All these pointed to one fact--disaster. 

The elephant story was all a lie, so resolved Cambon, and, no sooner hadhe bowed his visitor out, than he rushed to the telephone, rang up hisbroker, and ordered him to sell out his rubber stock at any price. 

Berselius, when he left the lawyer's house, drove to his club. The sellingof his rubber industry shares had been prompted by no feeling ofcompunction; it was an act entirely dictated by the profound irritation hefelt against the other one who had made his fortune out of those samerubber industries. 

He wished to break every bond between himself and the infernal entity thatdominated him by night. Surely it was enough to be that other one atnight, without being perpetually haunted by that other one's traces byday. 

In the Place de L'Opera, his _fiacre_ paused in a crowd of vehicles. Berselius heard himself hailed. He turned his head. In a barouche drawn upbeside his carriage, was seated a young and pretty woman. It was SophiaMelmotte, a flame from his past life, burning now for a space in the lifeof a Russian prince. 

"_Ma foi_, " said Sophia, as her carriage pushed up till it was quite levelwith Berselius. "So you are back from--where was it you went to? And howare the tigers? Why, heavens, how you are changed! How gloomy you look. One would think you had swallowed a hearse and had not digested thetrappings----"

To all of which Berselius bowed. 

"_You_ are just the same as ever, " said he. 

The woman flushed under her rouge, for there was something in Berselius'stone that made the simple words an insult. Before she could reply, however, the block in the traffic ceased, and as the carriage drove onBerselius bowed again to her coldly, and as though she were a strangerwith whom he had spoken for a moment, and whom he had never seen before. 

At the club in the smoking room, where he went for an absinthe beforeluncheon, he met Colonel Tirard, the very man who had presided at thebanquet given to him on the day of his leaving for Africa. This man, whohad been his friend, this man, in whose society he had always feltpleasure, was now obnoxious to him. And after a while the weird fact wasborne in on the mind of Berselius that Tirard was not talking to him. Tirard was talking to the man who was dead--the other Berselius. The newrifle for the army, which filled Tirard's conversation, would have been aninteresting subject to the old Berselius; it was absolutely distasteful tothe new. 

Now, for the first time, he quite clearly recognized that all the friends, pursuits, and interests that had filled his life till this, were uselessto him and dead as the cast-off self that had once dominated his being. Not only useless and dead, but distasteful in a high degree. He would haveto re-create a world of interests for himself out of new media. He wasliving in a world where all the fruit and foliage and crops had beenblighted by some wizard's wand; he would have to re-plant it over anew, and at the present moment he did not know where to cast about him for asingle seed. 

Yet he did not give in all at once. Like a person persisting in somedisagreeable medicine, hoping to become accustomed to it, he continued hisconversation with Tirard. 

After luncheon, he sat down to a game of écarté in the card-room with anold acquaintance, but after half an hour's play he left the table on theplea of indisposition and left the club, taking his way homeward on foot. 

Near the Madeleine occurred one of those incidents which, in tragic lives, appear less incidents than occurrences prepared by Fate, as though shewould say, "Look and deny me if you dare. "

Toward Berselius was approaching a victoria drawn by two magnificenthorses, and in the victoria lolled a man. An old man with a gray beard, who lolled on the cushions of the carriage, and looked about him with thelanguid indifference of a king and the arrogance of a megalomaniac. 

It was Leopold, King of the Belgians. 

When Berselius's eyes fell upon that face, when he saw before him that manwhom all thinking men abhor, a cold hand seemed laid upon his heart, asthough in that person he beheld the dead self that haunted his dreams bynight, as though he saw in the flesh Berselius, the murderer, who, byconsent, had murdered the people of the Silent Pools; the murderer, byconsent, who had crushed millions of wretched creatures to death for thesake of gold; the villain of Europe, who had spent that gold in namelessdebauchery; the man whose crimes ought to have been expiated on thescaffold, and whose life ought to have been cut short by the executionerof justice, many, many years ago. 

It was thus at one stroke that Berselius saw his other self, the self thathaunted him in his dreams, saw it clearly, and in the light of day. 

The terrible old man in the carriage passed on his way and Berselius onhis. 

When he reached home, in the hall, just as he was handing his hat to aservant, Maxine appeared at the door of the library. Her beauty, innocence, and sweetness formed a strange vision contrasted with thatother vision he had seen near the Madeleine. Was it possible that God'sworld could hold two such creatures, and that God's air should give thembreath? For a week or ten days after this, Berselius remained in his ownsuite of apartments without leaving the house. 

It was as if the sight of Leopold, so triumphantly alive, had shown himfully his own change and his weakness had demonstrated to him clearly thathe was but the wraith of what he had been. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE REVOLT OF A SLAVE

The day after that on which Berselius had seen Leopold, Madame Berselius, moved by one of those fits of caprice common to women of her type, cameback suddenly from Trouville. 

She knew of her husband's return, but she knew nothing of the injury or ofthe alteration that had come in him until Maxine, who met her at thestation, hinted at the fact. Berselius was standing at the window of hisprivate sitting room when Madame Berselius was announced. 

He turned to greet her; even as he turned she perceived the change. Thiswas not the man who had left her a few months ago, strong, confident, impassive; the man who had been her master and before whom she had shrunklike a slave. Intuition told her that the change was not the changewrought by sickness--Berselius was not ill, he was gone, leaving anotherman in his place. They conversed for some time on indifferent matters, andthen Madame Berselius took her departure for her own apartments. 

But she left the room of Berselius a changed woman, just as he hadreturned to it a changed man. 

The slave in her had found her freedom. Utterly without the capacity forlove and without honour, without conscience and with a vague superstitionto serve for religion, Madame Berselius had, up to this, been held in herplace by the fear of her husband. His will up to this had been her law;she had moved in the major affairs of life under his direction, and evenin the minor affairs of life everything had to be surrendered at hisword. 

And now she hated him. 

She had never hated him before, she had admired him; indeed, as far as herpower of admiration went, his strength had appealed to her as onlystrength can appeal to a woman of her type; but now that his strength wasgone hatred of him rose up in her heart, petty yet powerful, a dwarfpassion that had been slumbering for years. 

When the engine seizes the engineer in its wheels, when the slave getspower over his master, cruel things happen, and they were to happen in thecase of Berselius. 

Madame's rooms were so far away from the rooms of her husband that theymight have been living in different houses. There was none of the intimacyof married life between this couple; they met formally at meal times, andit was at _déjeuner_ on the morning after her return that she showedopenly before Adams, Maxine, and the servants her contempt for the man whohad once held her in subjection. Without a rude word, simply by hermanner, her tone, and her indifference to him, she humbled to the dust thestricken man and proclaimed the full measure of his disaster. 

As day followed day the dominance of the woman and the subjection of theman became more marked. Madame would, if the spirit took her, countermandher husband's orders; once, with absolute rudeness, she, at table andbefore the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was a guest, turned toridicule a remark which Berselius had let escape. The flush that came tohis cheek told Maxine that her father's sensibilities were not dead--hewas dominated. 

Nothing could be stranger than this reduction of a man from greatness toinsignificance. The old Berselius dying, bound in chains, would havemastered this woman with one glance of his eye. The new Berselius, free, wealthy, and with all his material powers at command, was yet hercreature, an object of pity to his daughter and of derision to hisservants. 

Eight days after her return Madame Berselius, now free and her ownmistress, left Paris for Vaux on a short visit to some friends, littledreaming of the momentous event that was to cause her return. 

CHAPTER XXXIX

MAXINE

On the night of the day upon which Berselius had paid his visit to M. Cambon, Adams, seated in the smoking room at a writing table before abroad sheet of white paper covered with words, suddenly took the paper, tore it up, and threw the pieces in a wastepaper-basket. 

He had been trying to put in language the story of the Congo as it hadbeen revealed to him. 

It was all there in his mind like a tremendous dramatic poem: the greatsunlit spaces of the elephant country watched over by the vultures, theeternal and illimitable forests old as Memnon, young as Spring, unwitheredand unbroken by the suns and rains and storms of the ages; the riverflooding to the sea, and the people to whom this place belonged, and thestory of their misery and despair. 

When he contrasted what he had written with what was in his mind, herecognized the hopelessness of his attempt. He had not the power to put onpaper more than the shadow of what he had seen and of what he knew. 

To represent that people under the heel of that Fate was a task for anÆschylus. 

Sitting thus before the picture he could not reproduce, there rose beforehis mind another picture he had seen that day. It was a large photographof the Laocoon. He had seen it in Brentano's window, and, now, with theeye of memory, he was looking at it again. 

That wonderful work of art washed up to us by the ages, that epic inmarble, expressed all that words refused to say: the father and thechildren in the toils of Fate; the hand upholding for a moment thecrushing coil of the serpent, the face raised to a sky devoid of God orpity; the agony, the sweat and the cruelty, all were there; and as Adamsgazed, the python-like lianas of the forest became alive in his mind, thesnake-like rubber vine twined in coils, circling about and crushing anation and its children, remote from help and from God, as Laocoon and hissons. 

Ages have passed since the sculptor of that marble laid down his chiseland gazed at his completed work. Little dreamt he that thousands of yearslater it would stand as a parable, representing civilization in the formof the python which he had carved with such loathing yet such lovingcare. 

Adams, in the grasp of this startling thought, was recalled from reverieby a sound behind him. 

Someone had entered the room. It was Maxine Berselius. 

They had seen very little of each other since his return. Adams, indeed, had purposely avoided her as much as it is possible for one person toavoid another when both are dwelling in the same house. 

The pride of manhood warned him against this woman who was rich and thedaughter of the man from whom he received a salary. 

Maxine knew nothing of the pride of manhood; she only knew that he avoidedher. 

She was dressed entirely in white with a row of pearls for her onlyornament. She had just returned from some social function, and Adams as herose to meet her noticed that she had closed the door. 

"Dr. Adams, " said the girl, "forgive me for disturbing you at this hour. For days I have wished to speak to you about my father. I have put it off, but I feel I must speak--what has happened to him?"

She took a seat in an armchair, and Adams stood before her with his backto the mantelpiece and his hands behind him. 

The big man did not answer for a moment. He stood there like a statue, looking at his questioner gravely and contemplatively, as a physicianlooks at a patient whose case is not quite clear. 

Then he said, "You notice a change in your father?"

"No, " said Maxine, "it is more than a change. He is quite different--he isanother man. "

"When we were hunting out there, " said Adams, "Captain Berselius had anaccident. In trying to rescue a servant he was caught by an elephant andflung some distance; he hurt his head, and when he recovered consciousnesshis memory was quite gone. It slowly returned----" He paused, for it wasimpossible to give details, then he went on--"I noticed, myself, as thememory was returning, that he seemed changed; when he had fully recoveredhis memory, the fact was obvious. He was, as you say, quite different--infact, just as you see him now. "

"But can an injury change a person like that?"

"Yes; an injury to the head can change a person completely. "

Maxine sighed. She had never seen the dark side of her father; she hadnever loved him in the true sense of the word, but she had respected himand felt a pride in his strength and dominance. 

The man who had returned from Africa seemed to her an inferior being; thewreck, in fact, of the man she had always known. 

"And this happened to him, " said she, "when he was trying to save aservant's life?"

"Ah, " said Adams, "if you could have seen it, you would have called itsomething even higher than that--it was a sublime act. "

He told her the details, even as he had told them to Schaunard, but withadditions. 

"I myself was paralyzed--I could only cling to the tree and watch. Thefury of that storm of beasts coming down on one was like a wind--I can putit no other way--like a wind that stripped one's mind of everything butjust the power of sight. I can imagine now the last day, when the sunshall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood. It was as bad asthat--well, _he_ did not lose his mind or nerve, he found time to think ofthe man who was lying drugged with hemp, and he found courage enough inhis heart to attempt to save him. He was fond of the man, for the man wasa great hunter though an absolute savage, without heart or soul. 

"Without heart or soul----" Adams paused. There was something about MaxineBerselius that made her different from the ordinary woman one meets inlife--some inheritance from her father, perhaps, who knows? But throughthe sweetness of her nature which spoke in voice and expression, throughher loveliness and her womanliness, there shone a light from within. Likethe gleam from the lamp that lives in an opal, this mind-brightness ofMaxine's pierced the clouds of her beauty capriciously, now half-veiled, now shining forth. It was the light of that flame which men calloriginality. Maxine saw the world by the light of her own lamp. Adams, though he had seen far more of the world than she, had seen it by thelight of other people's lamps. 

The Hostage House of Yandjali would have told Maxine infinitely more thanit told Adams. She would have read in Meeus's face a story that he neverdeciphered; she would have seen in the people of the Silent Pools a wholenation in chains, when he with his other-people-begotten ideas of niggersand labour only saw a few recalcitrant blacks. It wanted skulls and bonesto bring him to a sense of the sorrow around him; the sight of thesepeople would have told Maxine of their tears. 

This instinct for the truth of things made her a reader of people. Adamshad interested her at first sight, because she found him difficult toread. She had never met a man like him before; he belonged to a differentrace. The man in him appealed powerfully to the woman in her; they werephysical affinities. She had told him this in a hundred ways halfunconsciously and without speech before they parted at Marseilles, but themind in him had not appealed to the mind in her. She did not know hismind, its stature or its bent, and until that knowledge came to her shecould not love him. 

As he stood with his back to the fireplace after that pronouncement on thespiritual and moral condition of the Zappo Zap, his thoughts strayed for amoment with a waft of the wing right across the world to the camping placeby the great tree. Out there now, under the stars, the tree and the poolwere lying just as he had seen them last. Away to the east the burstelephant gun was resting just where it had been dropped; the bones of thegiraffe, clean-picked and white, were lying just where the gun had laidthem; and the bones of the man who had held the gun were lying just wherethe leopards had left him. 

Adams knew nothing of this triangle drawn by death; he still fancied theZappo Zap alive and deadly. Stirred into speech by that thought he wenton:

"A cannibal--a creature worse than a tiger--that was the being for whomyour father risked his life. "

"A cannibal?" said Maxine, opening her eyes wide. 

"Yes; a soldier of the Government who was detailed to act as our guide. "

"A soldier--but what Government employs cannibals as soldiers?"

"Oh, " said Adams, "they call them soldiers, that is just a name. Slavedrivers is the real name, but the Government that employs them does notuse the word slave--oh, no, everyone would be shocked--_scoundrels_!"

He spoke the word with suddenly flashing eyes, uplifted head, and a faceas stern the face of Themis. He seemed for a moment fronting someinvisible foe, then, smothering his wrath, he went on:

"I lose control of myself when I think of what I have seen--the suffering, the misery, and the wretchedness. I saw enough at first to have made meopen my eyes, but the thing was not shown to me really till I saw thebones of murdered people--people whom I had seen walking aboutalive--lying there a few weeks later, just skeletons; a little child I hadtalked to and played with----"

He stopped and turned to the fireplace and rested his elbow on the mantel. He had turned his back on Maxine, and volumes could not have said morethan what was expressed by that abrupt stoppage of speech and turningaway. 

The girl scarcely breathed till the man turned from the mantelpiece andfaced her again. There was no trace of emotion on his face, but the traceof a struggle with it. Maxine's eyes were filled with tears. 

"I am sorry, " said he, "that I should have dragged this subject before youat all. Why should I torment your heart as well as my own?"

She did not reply for a moment. She was tracing the vague pattern of thecarpet with her eyes, her chin resting on her hand, and the light fromabove made a halo of the burnished red-gold hair that was her crowningcharm. 

Then she said, speaking slowly, "I am not sorry. Surely if such thingsare, they ought to be known. Why should I turn away my face fromsuffering? I have never done so in Paris, and I have seen much of themisery of Paris, for I have gone amongst it as much as a girl can, butwhat you tell me is beyond what I have ever heard of, or read of, ordreamed. Tell me more, give me facts; for, frankly, though I believe you, I cannot yet fully realize, and with my mind fully believe. I am likeThomas; I must put my fingers in the wounds. "

"Are you brave enough to look at material evidence?" asked Adams. 

"Yes; brave enough to face the suffering of others if not my own----"

He left the room and in a few minutes later returned with a parcel. Hetook from it the skull he had brought with him through everything tocivilization. 

Maxine's eyes dilated when she saw the thing, but she did not turn pale, and she looked steadfastly at it as Adams turned it in his hands andshowed her by the _foramen magnum_ the hacks in the bone caused by theknife. 

She put out her finger and touched them, then she said, "I believe. "

Adams put the skull on the table; curious and small and ferocious andrepellent it looked. One would never have imagined the black face, thegrin, and the rolling eyes of the creature to whom it had once belonged. One thing only about it touched the heart with sadness--its size. 

"It is a child's, " said Maxine. 

"Yes; the child I told you of--all that remains of it. "

He was about to wrap the thing up again when the girl interposed. 

"Let it lie there whilst you tell me; it will bring things nearer to me. Iam not afraid of it--poor, poor creature. Tell me all you know--tell methe worst. I am not a young lady for the moment, please, just a personlistening. "

He took his seat in an armchair opposite to her, and resting his elbows onhis knees, talking just as if he were talking to a man, found the words hecould not find when, pen in hand, half an hour ago, he had tried toexpress himself in writing. 

He told of the Hostage House at Yandjali, and the wretched creaturespenned like animals eating their miserable food; he told of M'Bassa andthe Hostage House there, with its iron rings and chains; he told how allover that vast country these places were dotted, not by the hundred but bythe thousand; he told of the misery of the men who were driven into thedismal forests, slaves of masters worse than tigers, and of a task thatwould never end as long as rubber grew and Christ was a name in Europe andnot a power; he told the awful fact that murder there was used every dayas an agricultural implement, that people were operated upon, and sufferedamputation of limbs, not because of disease; and that their sex andage--those two last appeals of Nature to brutality--had no voice; he toldthe whole bitter tale of tears and blood, but he could not tell her all, for she was a girl, and it would be hard to speak even before a man of thecrimes against Nature, the crimes against men, against women, and againstchildren, that even if the Congo State were swept away to-morrow, willleave Belgium's name in the world's history more detestable than the namesof the unspeakable cities sunk in the Dead Sea. 

Maxine listened, entranced, swayed between the terror of the tale and thepower of the man who was telling it. 

Ah! if he could have spoken to Europe as he spoke to her; if he could havemade Europe see as he made her see, what a whirlwind of indignation wouldhave arisen; but he could not. 

It was the magnet of her sympathy that marshalled the facts, clad them inburning language, and led them forth in battalions that stormed her mindand made her believe what seemed unbelievable. Without that sympathy, hiswords would have been cold and lifeless statements bearing littleconviction. 

When he had finished, she did that which a woman never does unless movedby the very highest excitement. She rose up and paced the floor thrice. Without speaking, she walked the length of the room, then she turned toAdams. 

"But this must cease. "

"This shall cease, " said he, "if I can only make myself heard. To-day--to-night--just before you came in, I was trying to put the thingon paper--trying to put down what I have seen with my own eyes, and heardwith my own ears, but the ink seems ice. What I write seems nothing, nothing beside what I have seen. The mere statement that so many werekilled, so many were tortured, conveys nothing of the reality. The thingis too big for me. God made it, I suppose; but I wish to God I had neverseen it. "

Maxine was standing now with her hands resting on the back of an armchair. She seemed scarcely listening to what her companion was saying. She waslistening, but she was thinking as well. 

"You cannot do everything yourself, " said she, at last. "You must getothers to help, and in this I can, perhaps, assist you. Will you goto-morrow and see Monsieur Pugin? I do not know him personally, but I knowa friend of his. I will send him a note early to-morrow morning, and theservant can bring back the letter of introduction. You could call upon himto-morrow afternoon. "

"Who is Monsieur Pugin?"

This question, showing such a boundless ignorance of every-day French lifeand literature, rather shocked Maxine. She explained that Ary Pugin, theauthor of "Absolution" and twenty other works equally beautiful, was aboveall other men fitted to bring home to France the story of this great sin. "Absolution, " that masterpiece, had shown France her cruelty in theexpulsion of the religious orders. France had read it weeping, drying hertears with one hand and continuing the expulsion of the religious orderswith the other. 

That, however, was not Pugin's fault; he had done his best. It was not hisfault that logic and sentiment are so largely constituent of the Frenchnature, making between them that paradox, the French mind. 

"I will go and see him, " said Adams, when the girl had explained whatPugin was, what Pugin did, and what Pugin had written. "A man like thatcould do more with a stroke of his pen, than I with weary years ofblundering attempts to write. I can never thank you enough for listeningto me. It is strange, but half the weight of the thing seems to havepassed from my mind. "

"To mine, " she replied. Then, with charming _naïveté_, she held out bothhands to him. 

"Good night. "

As he held the door open, and as she passed out, he realized that, duringthe last few months, his faith in the goodness of God--the old simplefaith of his childhood--had been all but stolen by ferocious and fiendishhands from his mind, and that just now, in some miraculous way, it hadbeen returned. 

It was as though the gentle hands of Maxine had put it back. 

Maxine, when she reached her own apartments, turned on the electric lightin her sitting room, and sat down at once to write to the friend who was afriend of Pugin's. 

This friend was Sabatier. 

She had studied art under him, and between artist and pupil lay thatmysterious bond which unites craftsmen. For Maxine was great in knowledgeand power, and above all in that instinct without which an artist is atbest an animated brush, a pencil under the dominion of mechanical force. 

As she wrote, she little dreamed that the sympathy burning in her heartand moving to eloquence her pen, was a thing born not from the sufferingsof an afflicted people, but of the love of a man. A child of her mindbegotten by the man she had just left, and whom, that night, she hadlearned to love. 

CHAPTER XL

PUGIN

Pugin lived in the Boulevard Haussmann. He had begun life quite low downin the Parisian world on the quays as apprentice to Manasis, a jewbook-dealer, who has been dead twenty-five years, whose money has beendispersed, whose name has been forgotten, of whom nothing remains on earthbut the few hours a day of time filched from him by Pugin. 

Pugin had a hard and bitter fight for twenty years before he obtainedrecognition. The garret and starvation act had been unduly prolonged inthe case of this genius, and it seemed a mystery where and how in theruined city which is at the heart of every city, in that _cour desMiracles_ where the Bohemians camp, he had found, like a crystal vase, hisexquisite style, preserved it unbroken by mischance or shock of fate, andcarried it safely at last to the hands of Fame. 

He was very rich now, very powerful, and very fortunate. Charitable, too, and ever ready to assist a fellow-worker in straitened circumstances, andto-day as he sat reading in the cool recesses of his library, andlistening to the sound of the Paris he loved floating in with the warmJune air through the open window, he felt at peace with all the world andin a mood to do justice to his bitterest enemy. 

The striped sun-blinds filtered the blaze outside, letting pass only adiffused and honey-coloured twilight; a great bowl of roses filled theroom with the simple and deep poetry of summer, the story of the hedgesand the fields, of orchards shot through with the voices of birds, ofcattle knee-deep in cool water where the dragon-flies keep up theireternal dance to the flute-like ripple of the river amidst the reeds. 

Pugin, his book upon his knees, was enjoying these pictures of summerwoven by perfume, when a servant entered and handed him Adams's card andthe letter of introduction written by Sabatier. 

He ordered the visitor to be shown in. Adams, when he entered, foundhimself before a small man with a big head; an ugly little man, with alook of kindness and a very gracious and charming manner. 

To Pugin Adams seemed a giant. A giant bronzed by unknown suns, talkingFrench indifferently well, and with a foreign accent. An interestingperson, indeed, but a being quite beyond his range of knowledge. 

Pugin, in physical matters, was timid as a rabbit. He had never travelledfarther than Trouville or Ostend, and when he indicated a chair, and whenthese two sat down to talk to each other, the mastiff-man feltinstinctively the presence of the rabbit-man, and was at a loss how tobegin. 

Not for long, though. Bluffly, and with little grace enough, but withearnestness and a cunning one would never have suspected, he told ofMaxine's great admiration for the author's work, and how she had suggestedthe enlistment of the said author in the crusade against crime which he, Adams, was endeavouring to raise. 

Pugin listened, making little bows, sniffing the lettuce which themastiff-man had so cunningly placed before his nose. 

Then honestly and plainly and well, Adams told his tale, and the rabbitheld up its hands in horror at the black doings disclosed to it. But itwas horror divorced from sentiment. Pugin felt almost as great a revulsiontoward the negroes upon whom these things were done as toward the doers. 

He could not see the vast drama in its true proportions and its poeticalsetting of forest, plain, and sky. The outlandish names revolted him; hecould not see Yandjali and its heat-stricken palms or M'Bassa burning inthe sun. 

But he listened politely and it was this that chilled the heart of thestory-teller who instinctively felt that though he had shocked his hearer, he had not aroused that high spirit of revolt against injustice whichconverts a man into a living trumpet, a living axe, or a living sword. 

Pugin would have been a great force could his sentiment have beenawakened; but he could not see palm trees. 

"What would you have? You cannot grow baobabs on the Boulevards. "

"_Ma foi!_" said he, "it is terrible what you tell me, but what are we todo?"

"I thought you might help, " said Adams. 

"I? With all the power possible and goodwill. It is evident to me thatshould you wish for success in this matter, you should found a society. "

"Yes?"

"There is nothing done in a public way without coöperation. You must founda society; you may use my name. I will even let you put it on thecommittee list. I will also subscribe. "

Now Pugin was on the committee lists of half a dozen charitable andhumanitarian concerns. His secretary had them all down in a book; butPugin himself, lost in his art and the work of his life, had forgottentheir very names. So would it be with this. 

"Thanks, " said the visitor. 

Pugin would lend his purse to the cause, and his name, but he would notlend his pen--simply because he could not. To every literary man there aredead subjects; this question was dead to the author of "Absolution"--asuninspiring as cold mutton. 

"Thanks, " said Adams, and rose to take his leave. His rough-hewn mindunderstood with marvellous perspicuity Pugin's position. 

"And one moment, " cried the little man, after he had bidden his visitorgood-bye and the latter was leaving the room. "One moment; why did I notthink of it before? You might go and see Ferminard. "

He ran to a desk in the corner of the room, took a visiting card andscribbled Ferminard's address upon it, explaining as he wrote thatFerminard was the deputy for ---- in Provence; a Socialist it is true, buta terrible man when roused; that the very name of injustice was sufficientto bring this lion from his den. 

"Tell him Pugin said so, " cried he, following his visitor this time out onthe landing and patting him on the shoulder in a fatherly manner, "and youwill find him in the Rue Auber, No. 14; it is all on the card; and conveymy kind regards to Mademoiselle ----, that charming lady to whoseappreciation of my poor work I owe the pleasure of your visit. "

"Nice little man, " said Adams to himself as he walked down the BoulevardHaussmann. 

He found Ferminard at home, in an apartment smelling of garlic and thesouth. Ferminard, a tall, black-bearded creature, with a glittering eye; abrigand from the Rhone Valley who had flung himself into the politics ofhis country as a torpedo flings itself into the sea, greeted Adams witheffusion, when he read Pugin's card; gave him cigarettes, and shut theopen window in honour of his guest. 

He worked himself into a state of indignation over Adams's story; as amatter of fact he knew the whole thing well; but he was too polite todiscount his visitor's grievance, besides it gave him an opportunity todeclaim--and of course the fact that a king was at the bottom of it all, added keenness to the arrows of his invective. 

As Adams listened, delighted to have awakened such a trumpet; as helistened to Ferminard thundering against all that over there, speaking asthough he were addressing the Chambre, and as though he had known Africaintimately from his childhood, he noticed gradually and with alarm thatthe topic was changing; just a moment ago it was Africa and its lucklessniggers; the Provençal imagination picturing them in glowing colours, andthe Provençal tongue rolling off their disabilities and woes. One wouldhave fancied from the fervour of the man that is was Ferminard who hadjust returned from the Congo, not Adams. 

Well, a moment after, and Africa had quite fallen out of the discussion. As a child lets a Noah's Ark fall from its hands--elephants, zebras andall on to the floor whilst he grasps for a new toy--so Ferminard letAfrica tumble whilst he grasped for Socialism, found it and swung it likea rattle, and Socialism went the way of Africa as he seized at last thatdarling toy--himself. The speech, in its relationship to the subject inpoint, was the intellectual counterpart of the cry of those mechanicalpigs which the street venders blow up, and which, standing on a board, scream in the face of Oxford Street, loudly at first, and then, as thefigure collapses, weakening in voice to the buzzing of a fly. 

Ferminard was, in fact, a great child with a good heart, a Provençalimagination, a power of oratory, a quickness in seizing upon little thingsand making them seem great, coupled with a rather obscure understanding asto the relative value of mountains and mole-hills. A noise maker of afirst-class description, but useless for any serious work. _Feu de bruit_was his motto, and he lived up to it. 

It is only when you try to enlist men on your side in some great and holycause, that you come to some knowledge of the general man's weakness andwant of holiness--your own included. Adams, during the fortnight thatfollowed his visit to Pugin, had this fact borne in on him. All thethinking minds of the centre of civilization were so busy thinkingthoughts of their own making, that it was impossible to attract theirattention for more than a moment; from Bostoc the dramatist to Bastichethe anarchist, each individual was turning his own crank diligently, andnot to be disturbed, even by Papeete's skull. 

With such a thing in one's hand, picked up like some horrible talismanwhich, if not buried, will eventually cast its spell upon human thoughtand the future of the world; with such a thing in one's hand, surely theChurch would present itself to the mind as a court of appeal. 

But as the Roman Catholic Church had actually put its broad back againstthe door of the torture chamber, and was, in fact, holding it tight shutwhilst Papeete's head was being hacked from his body, it would scarcely belogical to bring out the victim's skull hoping for redress. Otherdenominations being of such little power in France, Adams determined toleave the attempt to rouse them till he reached England, whither hedetermined to go as soon as Berselius's health would permit him. 

One evening, a fortnight after his visit to Pugin, on his return to theAvenue Malakoff, Maxine met him in the hall. 

He saw at once from her face that something had happened. 

Berselius was worse; that afternoon he had suddenly developed acuteneuralgia of the right side of the head, and this had been followed almostimmediately by twitching and numbness of the left arm. Thénard had beensummoned and he had diagnosed pressure on the brain, or, at least, irritation from depressed bone, due to the accident. 

He declared himself for operation, and he had gone now to makearrangements for nurses and assistants. 

"He will operate this evening, " said Maxine. 

"And Madame Berselius?"

"I have telegraphed for her. "

CHAPTER XLI

THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN BERSELIUS

Berselius, for the last fortnight, had been going back, slowly going frombad to worse, and keeping the fact to himself. 

Sulphonal, trional, morphia, each tried in turn had no power to preventhim from dreaming. Sleep as soundly as he would, just as he was awaking, the black blanket of slumber, turned up at a corner or an edge by somemysterious hand, would reveal a dream or part of one. 

There was nothing in these dreams to terrify him when he was dreamingthem; in them, he was just the old brave Berselius that nothing couldterrify, but there was often a good deal to terrify him when he awoke. 

Many of them were quite innocent and as fatuous as dreams are wont to be, but even these innocent dreams fretted the soul of the waking man, for inevery scrap and vestige of them he recognized the mind of that otherpersonality. 

After the first few days, his intellect, so severe and logical, began tolose its severity and logic, and to take up sides with his heart and tocry aloud against the injustice of this persecution. 

Why should he be haunted like this? He felt no trace of remorse now forthe past; the sense of injustice swallowed all that. Every day seemed todrive that past further off, and to increase the sense of detachment fromthat other man and his works; yet every night a hand, like the hand ofsome remorseless chess player, put things back in their places. 

With the falling of the curtain of sleep he became metamorphosed. 

Then came the day when the evil he was suffering from declared itself in aphysical manner and Thénard was called in. 

Thénard found his patient in bed. His mind was quite clear, but the pupilsof his eyes were unequal; there was numbness in the left arm and want ofgrip in the hand. He had been prepared for the change evident inBerselius's face and manner, for Maxine had told him in a few words of theaccident and loss of memory, and as he took his seat by the bedside he wasabout to put some questions relative to the injury, when Berseliusforestalled him. 

Berselius knew something about medicine. He guessed the truth about hisown case, and he gave a succinct account of the accident and the loss ofmemory following it. 

"This is due to the result of the injury, is it not?" said Berselius, pointing to his left arm when he had finished. 

"I am afraid so, " said TThénard, who knew his patient, and that plainspeaking would be best. 

"Some pressure?"

"So I imagine. "

"Oh, don't be afraid of speaking out. I don't mind the worst. Will anoperation remove that pressure?"

"If, as I imagine, there is some pressure from the inner table of theskull on the brain, it will. "

"Well, now, " said Berselius, "I want you to listen to me attentively; eversince that accident, or, at least, since I regained memory, I have feltthat I am not the same man. Only in sleep do I become myself again--do youunderstand me? I have quite different aims and objects; my feelings aboutthings are quite different; my past before the accident is ruled off frommy present--that is, when I am awake. 

"When I dream I become my old self again--is that not strange?"

"No, " said Thénard, "every man is double. We have numerous cases where, from accident or other circumstances, a man's personality changes; oneside of his nature is suppressed. There is one strange point about yourcase, though, and that is the waking up of the suppressed personality sovividly during sleep; but in your case it is perhaps not so strange. "

"Why not?"

"Because, and excuse me for being personal even though I am complimentary, your personality as I knew you before your accident was so profound, andvivid, and powerful, that even though it is suppressed it must speak. Andit speaks in dreams. "

"So!--perhaps you are right. Now tell me, if you operate and remove thepressure, may I become myself again?"

"You may. "

"Even after all this time?"

"The mind, " said Thénard, "has nothing to do with time. At the Battle ofthe Nile, a sea captain, one of those iron-headed Englishmen, was struckon his iron head with fragment of shell. He lost his memory. Eight monthsafter he was trephined; he awoke from the operation completing the orderhe was giving to his sailors when the accident cut him short----"

"I would be the same man. I would not be tormented with the other selfwhich is me, now?"

"Possibly--I do not say probably, but possibly. "

"Then, " said Berselius, "for God's sake, operate at once. "

"I would like to wait for another twelve hours, " said Thénard, rising andre-examining the slight dent of his patient's skull. 

"Why?"

"Well, to see if things may be cleared up a bit, and the necessity foroperation be removed. "

"Operate. "

"You know, in every operation, however slight, there is an element ofdanger to life. "

"Life! what do I care? I insist on your operating. Not another night shallpass----"

"As you will, " said Thénard. 

"And now, " said Berselius, "make your preparations, and send me mysecretary. "

 * * * * *

At twelve o'clock that night, Maxine was seated in the library, with abook which she had been vainly trying to read face downward on the floorbeside her. 

Thénard, his assistant surgeon, and two nurses, had arrived shortly afterten. Operating table, instruments, everything necessary had been brought, set up, and fixed by Thénard's own man. 

Adams had no part in the proceedings except as a looker-on. No man couldassist Thénard in an operation who was not broken to the job, for, whenoperating Thénard became quite a different person to the every-day Thénardof lecture room and hospital ward. 

That harsh voice which we noticed in him in the first pages of this bookwhen on entering the lecture room of the Beaujon he could not find hiscoloured chalks, came out during an operation, and he would curse hisassistant to the face for the slightest fault or fancied fault, and hewould speak to the nurses as no Frenchman ever spoke to Frenchwoman unlesswith deliberate intent to insult. When the last stitch was in, all thischanged; nurses and assistant forgot what had been said, and in the easeof released tension, worshipped more than ever the cadaverous genius whowas now unwinding from his head and mouth the antiseptic gauze in which healways veiled them when operating. 

The clock on the mantel pointed to a few minutes past the hour, when thedoor opened, and Adams came in. 

Maxine rose to meet him. 

She read both good and bad news in his face. 

"The operation has been successful, but there is great weakness. " Herolled an armchair for her to sit down, and then he told her as much asshe could understand. 

Thénard had found a slight depression of the inner table of the skull, andsome congestion and thickening of the dura mater. It all dated from theaccident. There would, without doubt, have been severe inflammation of thebrain, but for Berselius's splendid condition at the time of the accident, and the fact that Adams had bled him within an hour of the injury. Thénardhad relieved the pressure by operation, but there was great weakness. 

It was impossible to say what the result would be yet. 

"Has he regained consciousness?"

"He is just recovering from the anæsthetic. "

The girl was silent for a moment, then she asked where Thénard was. 

"He has left. He has to operate again to-night on a case which has justcalled for him by telephone. He asked me to tell you that everythingpossible has been done. He will call in the morning, and he has lefteverything till then in my hands. "

"I shall not go to bed, " said Maxine. "I could not sleep, and should myfather want to see me, I shall be ready. "

"Yes, " said Adams, "perhaps it will be better so. I will go up and staywith him, and I will call you if it is necessary. "

He left the room, and Maxine took up the book she had dropped, but shecould not read. Her eyes, travelling about the room, rested here and thereon the trophies and the guns and the wild implements of destructioncollected by the hunter, who was now lying upstairs, like a child dandledon the dark knees of death. 

The books on philosophy, natural history, oceanography, and history, intheir narrow cases contrasted strangely with the weapons of destructionand the relics of the wild. The room was like a mirror of the mind ofBerselius, that strange mind in which the savage dwelt with the civilizedman, and the man of valour by the side of the philosopher. 

But the strangest contrast in the room was effected by Maxine herself--thecreation of Berselius--his child, blossoming like a beautiful and fragileflower, amidst the ruins of the things he had destroyed. 

When, after daybreak, Adams came to find her, she was asleep. 

Berselius, awaking from a sleep that had followed the effects of theanæsthetic, had asked for her. 

Thénard had fixed upon the white marble bathroom adjoining Berselius'ssleeping chamber as his operating theatre, and after the operation theweakness of the patient was so great, and the night so hot, theydetermined to make up a bed for him there, as it was the coolest room inthe house. 

It was a beautiful room. Walls, pillars, floor and ceiling, of pure whiteCarrara marble, and in the floor, near the window, a sunk bath, which, when not in use, was covered by a grating of phosphor bronze, showing adesign of sea serpents and seaweed. There were no basins or lavatoryarrangements, nothing at all to break the pure and simple charm of thisideal bathing-place whose open French window showed, beyond a balcony ofmarble, the tops of trees waving against the blue sky of early morning. 

Berselius was lying on the bed which had been arranged for him near thedoor; his eyes were fixed on the waving tree tops. He turned his headslightly when Maxine entered, and looked at her long and deliberately. 

In that one glance Maxine saw all. He was himself again. The old, imperious expression had returned; just a trace of the half-smile wasvisible about his lips. 

The great weakness of the man, far from veiling the returned personality, served as a background which made it more visible. One could see the willdominating the body, and the half-helpless hands lying on the coverletpresented a striking contrast to the inextinguishable fire of the eye. 

Maxine sat down on the chair by the bed. She did not attempt to stroke thehand near her, and she smothered whatever emotion she felt, for she knewthe man who had returned. 

"Your mother?" said Berselius, who had just sufficient voice to conveyinterrogation as well as words. 

"She has not returned yet; we telegraphed for her, she will be hereto-day. "

"Ah!"

The sick man turned his head again, and fixed his eyes on the tree tops. 

The hot, pure, morning air came through the open window, bringing with itthe chirruping and bickering of sparrows; a day of splendour and greatheat was breaking over Paris. Life and the joy of life filled the world, the lovely world which men contrive to make so terrible, so full ofmisery, so full of tears. 

Suddenly Berselius turned his head, and his eyes found Adams with a notunkindly gaze in them. 

"Well, doctor, " he said, in a voice stronger than the voice with which hehad spoken to Maxine. "This is the end of our hunting, it seems. "

Adams, instead of replying, took the hand that was lying on the coverlet, and Berselius returned the pressure, and then relinquished his hold. 

Just a handshake, yet it told Adams in some majestic way, that the man onthe bed knew that all was up with him, and that this was good-bye. 

Berselius then spoke for a while to Maxine on indifferent things. He didnot mention his wife's name, and he spoke in a cold and abstracted voice. He seemed to Adams as though he were looking at death, perfectly serenely, and with that level gaze which never in this world had been lowered beforeman or brute. 

Then he said he was tired, and wished to sleep. 

Maxine rose, but the woman in her had to speak. She took the hand on thecoverlet, and Berselius, who was just dozing off, started awake again. 

"Ah!" said he, as though he had forgotten something, then he raised thelittle hand of Maxine and touched it with his lips. 

Then he asked that his wife should be sent to him on her return. 

Alone, he closed his eyes and one might have fancied that he slept, yetevery now and then his eyelids would lift, and his eyes, unveiled bydrowsiness, would fix themselves on some point in the room with the intentgaze of a person who is listening; so in the forest, or on the plain, orby the cane brake had he often listened at night, motionless, gun in handand deadly, for the tiger or the water buck. 

Half an hour passed and then from the adjoining room came a footstep, thedoor opened gently, and Madame Berselius entered. She was dressed just asshe had traveled from Vaux. She had only just arrived, to find death inthe house, and as she looked at the figure on the bed she fancied shebeheld it indeed. 

Closing the door gently she approached the bed. No, it was not death butsleep. He was breathing evenly and rhythmically, sleeping, apparently, aspeacefully as a child. 

She was about to turn away when, like a bather who has ventured into somepeaceful tropic rock pool wherein lurks an octopus, she found herselfseized and held. Berselius's eyes were open, he was not asleep. His gazewas fixed on hers, and he held her with his eyes as the cat holds the birdor the python the man. 

He had been waiting for her with the patience and the artfulness of thehunter, but no game had ever inspired such ferocity in him as this woman, vile and little, who yet had abased him to the earth. 

He was dying, but what beast full of life is more dangerous than the dyingtiger?

As Berselius gazed at the woman, she, with all her will urging her body toretreat, approached him. Then, her knees touching the bed, she fell on herknees beside him and his hand fell on her shoulder. 

Holding her thus, he gazed on her coldly, dispassionately, and critically, as an emperor of old might have gazed on a defaulting slave. Then, asthough his anger had turned to disgust, as though disdaining to waste aword on her, he struck her full in the face with the back of his righthand, a blow that caused her to cry out and sent her groveling on themarble floor, where a moment after the nurse on duty, attracted by thecry, found her. 

Berselius was dead, but the mocking smile on his lips remained, almostjustified by the words of the nurse imploring the woman on the floor tocalm herself and restrain her grief. 

Whatever his life may have been, his death affected Adams strangely. Themagnetism of the man's character had taken a strong hold upon him, fascinating him with the fascination that strength alone can exercise. Andthe man he regretted was not the ambiguous being, the amended Berselius, so obviously a failure, but the real Berselius who had returned to meetdeath. 

CHAPTER XLII

AMIDST THE LILIES

One day in March, nine months later, at Champrosay, in the garden of alittle cottage near the Paris road, Maxine Berselius stood directing themovements of an old man in a blue blouse--Father Champardy by name, and agardener by profession. 

On the death of her father, Maxine had come to an arrangement with hermother, eminently suited to the minds and tastes of both women. 

Maxine absolutely refused to touch any part of the colossal fortune leftby her father. She knew how it had been come by, and as she had a smallfortune of her own, a very small fortune of some ten thousand francs ayear settled on her by an uncle at her birth, she determined to live onit, and go her own way in life. 

Art was to her far preferable to society, and in a little cottage with onewoman for a servant, ten thousand francs a year were affluence. 

Madame Berselius, who had no scruple in using money obtained in any waywhatsoever, fell in with her daughter's views after a few formalobjections. 

Gillette had furnished the cottage as only a French firm can furnish acottage, and the garden, which had gone to decay, Maxine had furnishedherself with the help of Father Champardy. 

Adams, after the death of Berselius, had lingered on in Paris to settle uphis affairs, going back to the Rue Dijon and taking up his old lifeprecisely at the point where he had broken it off. 

But he was richer by three things. Two days after Berselius's death, newscame to him from America of the death of an uncle whom he had never seenand the fact that he had inherited his property. It was not very much asmoney goes in America, but it was real estate in New York City and wouldbring in some seven or eight hundred pounds a year. He was richer by theexperience he had gained and the Humanity he had discovered in himself, and he was richer by his love for Maxine. 

But love itself was subordinate in the mind of Adams to the burningquestion that lay at his heart. He had put his hand to the plough, and hewas not the man to turn aside till the end of the furrow was reached. Hewould have time to go to America, in any event, to look after hisproperty. He decided to stay some months in England; to attack the BritishLion in its stronghold; to explain the infamies of the Congo, and thencross the Atlantic and put the matter before the American Eagle. 

He did. 

For seven months he had been away, and every week he had written toMaxine, saying little enough about the progress of his work, andfrequently using the cryptic statement, "I will tell you everything when Icome back. "

And "He will be back to-day, " murmured Maxine, as she stood in the littlegarden watching the old man at his work. 

The newness and the freshness of spring were in the air, snow that hadfallen three days ago was nearly gone, just a trace of it lay on the blackearth of the flower beds; white crocuses, blue crocuses, snow-drops, thosefirst trumpeters of spring, blew valiantly in the little garden, the airwas sharp and clear, and the sky above blue and sparkling. Great masses ofwhite cloud filled the horizon, sun-stricken, fair, and snow-bright, solidas mountains, and like far-off mountains filled with the fascination andthe call of distance. 

"Spring is here, " cried the birds from the new-budding trees. 

The blackbird in Dr. Pons's garden to the left, answered a rapturousthrush in the trees across the way, children's voices came from the Parisroad and the sounds of wheels and hoofs. 

A sparrow with a long straw in its beak flew right across Maxine's garden, a little winged poem, a couplet enclosing the whole story of spring. 

Maxine smiled as it vanished, then she turned; the garden gate had clickedits latch, and a big man was coming up the path. 

There was only Father Champardy to see; and as his back was turned, he sawnothing and as he was deaf, he heard nothing. The old man, bent and warpedby the years, deaf, and blind to the little love-scene behind him, was, without knowing it, also a poem of spring; but not so joyous as the poemof the sparrow. 

"And now tell me all, " said Maxine, as they sat in the chintz-hung sittingroom before a bright fire of logs. They had finished their privateaffairs. The day was two hours older, and a sunbeam that had pointed atthem through the diamond-paned window had travelled away and vanished. Theday was darker outside, and it was as though spring had lost her sportivemood and then withdrawn, not wishing to hear the tale that Adams had totell. 

In Adams's hand Papeete's skull had been a talisman of terrible andmagical power, for with it he had touched men, and the men touched haddisclosed their worth and their worthlessness. It had been a lamp whichshowed him society as it is. 

The life and death of Berselius had been an object lesson for him, teaching vividly the fact that evil is indestructible; that wash yourselfwith holy water or wash yourself with soap, you will never wash away theevil being that you have constructed by long years of evil-doing andevil-thinking. 

His pilgrimage in search of mercy and redress for a miserable people hademphasized the fact. 

The great crime of the Congo stood gigantic, like a shadowy engine for themurdering of souls. 

"Destroy that, " said the devil triumphantly. "You cannot, for it is pastdestruction; it has passed into the world of the ideal. No man's hand maytouch it; it is beyond the reach like the real self of your friendBerselius. Sweep the Congo State away to-morrow; this will remain. A thingsoul-destroying till the end of time. It began small in the brain of oneruinous man, God whom I hate! look at it now. 

"It has slain ten million men and it will slay ten million more, that isnothing; it has ruined body and soul, the stokers who fed it and theengineers who worked it, that is nothing; it has tangled in its wheels anddebased the consciences of five nations, that is nothing. It iseternal--that is everything. 

"Since I was flung out of heaven, I have made many things, but this is mymasterpiece. If I and all my works were swept away, leaving only thisthing, it would be enough. In the fiftieth century it will still have itsclutch on man, yea, and to the very end of time. "

Cause and effect, my friend, in those two words you have the genius ofthis machine which will exist forever in the world of consequence, a worldbeyond divine or human appeal. 

In England, Adams had found himself confronted with the dull lethargy ofthe people, and the indifference of the Established Church. The two greatdivisions of Christ's Church were at the moment at death grapples over thequestion of Education. Only amongst the Noncomformists could be found anyreal response to the question which was, and is, the test question whichwill disclose, according to its answer, whether Christianity is a livingvoice from on high, or an echo from the Pagan past; and a debased echo atthat. Debased, for if Adams could have stood in the Agora of Athens andtold his tale of horror and truth, could Demosthenes have taken up thestory; could Leopold the Barbarian have been a king in those days, andhave done in those days, under the mandate of a deluded Greece, what hehas done under the mandate of a deluded England; what a living spiritwould have run through Athens like a torch, how the phalanxes would haveformed, and the beaked ships at Piræus torn themselves from theirmoorings, to bring to Athens in chains the ruffian who had murdered andtortured in her name!

To complete the situation and give it a touch of hopelessness, he foundthat others had striven well, yet almost vainly in the field. Men workingfor truth and justice as other men work for gold, had attacked the publicwith solid battalions of facts, tabulated infamies; there had beenmeetings, discussions, words, _palabres_, as they say in the south; butthe murderer had calmly gone on with his work, and England had put out nohand to stay him. 

But it was not till he reached America, that Adams found himself fightingthe machine itself. 

One great man with a living voice he found--Mark Twain--and one greatpaper, at least. These had raised their voices calling for Justice--withwhat result?

Two side facts the skull of Papeete showed to the searcher, as a lampshows up other things than the things searched for. The deadness of theEnglish Church to the spiritual, and the corruption of his owncountrymen. 

When he had finished, it was dark outside. The firelight lit up the littleroom. Glancing through the diamond-paned window at that happy interior, one would never have guessed that the man by the fire had been telling thegirl by his side not a love story, but the story of the world's greatestcrime. 

Maxine, whose hand was resting on the hand of her companion, said nothingfor a moment after he had ceased speaking. Then, in a half-whisper, andleaning her forehead on his hand, "Poor things, " sighed Maxine. 

So attuned were her thoughts to the thoughts of her companion, that shevoiced the very words that were in his mind, as gazing beyond his ownhappiness and a thousand miles of sea and forest, he saw again themoonlight on the mist of the Silent Pools, and the bleached and miserablebones. 

THE END