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diff --git a/26889.txt b/26889.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ab5586 --- /dev/null +++ b/26889.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9196 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pools of Silence, by H. de Vere Stacpoole + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Pools of Silence + +Author: H. de Vere Stacpoole + +Release Date: October 12, 2008 [EBook #26889] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POOLS OF SILENCE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +THE +POOLS OF SILENCE + +BY +H. de VERE STACPOOLE + +AUTHOR OF +"THE BLUE LAGOON," "THE CRIMSON AZALEAS," +"GARRYOWEN," ETC. + +NEW YORK +DUFFIELD & COMPANY +1910 + + + + +Copyright, 1910, by +DUFFIELD & COMPANY + +Published, July, 1910 +THE 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 273 +XXXVIII. 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, like +the 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 not +unlike the lowermost slats of a Venetian blind; one might have fancied +that a great finger had tilted them up whilst the red, callous, cruel face +took a last peep at the frost-bitten city, the frost-bound +country--Montmartre and its windows, winking and bloodshot; Bercy and its +barges; Notre Dame, where icicles, large as carrots, hung from the lips of +the gargoyles, and the Seine clipping the _cite_ and flowing to the clean +but distant sea. + +It was the fourth of January and the last day of Felix Thenard's +post-graduate course of lectures at the Beaujon Hospital. + +Post-graduate lectures are intended not for students, using the word in +its limited sense, but for fully fledged men who wish for extra training +in some special subject, and Thenard, the famous neurologist of the +Beaujon, had a class which practically represented the whole continent of +Europe and half the world. Men from Vienna and Madrid, Germany and Japan, +London and New York, crowded the benches of his lecture room. Even the +Republic of Liberia was represented by a large gentleman, who seemed +carved from solid night and polished with palm oil. + +Dr. Paul Quincy Adams, one of the representatives of America at the +lectures of Thenard, was just reaching the entrance of the Beaujon as the +last rays of sunset were touching the heights of Montmartre and the first +lamps of Paris were springing alight. + +He had walked all the way from his rooms in the Rue Dijon, for omnibuses +were slow and uncomfortable, cabs were dear, and money was, just at +present, the most unpleasant thing that money can convert itself into--an +object. + +Adams was six feet two, a Vermonter, an American gentleman whose chest +measurements were big, almost, as his instincts were fine. He had fought +his way up, literally from the soil, putting in terms as seaside _cafe_ +waiter to help to pay his college fees; putting aside everything but +honour in his grand struggle to freedom and individual existence, and +finishing his college career with a travelling scholarship which brought +him to Paris. + +Individualism, the thing that lends something of greatness to each +American, but which does not tend to the greatness of the nation, was the +mainspring of this big man whom Nature had undoubtedly designed with her +eye on the vast plains, virgin forests, and unfordable rivers, and across +whose shoulder one half divined the invisible axe of the pioneer. + +He was just twenty-three years of age, yet he looked thirty: plain enough +as 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 you +guessed the power that lay behind it by the set of the cheek-bones, the +breadth 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 found +his way to the swing-door of the lecture theatre. It wanted five minutes +to the hour. He peeped over the muffing of the glass; the place was nearly +full, so he went in and took his seat, choosing one at the right hand end +of the first row of the stalls--students' vernacular for the lowest row of +the theatre benches. + +The theatre was lit with gas. It had whitewashed walls bare as the walls +of a barn; a permanent blackboard faced the audience, and the air was +suffocatingly hot after the crisp, cold air of the streets. It would be +like this till about the middle of the lecture, when Alphonse the porter +would pull the rope of the skylight and ventilate the place with an arctic +blast. + +This room, which had once been an anatomical theatre, and always a lecture +room, had known the erect form of Lisfranc; the stooping shoulders of +Majendie had cast their shadow on its walls; Flourens had lectured here on +that subject of which he had so profound a knowledge--the brain; the +echoes of this room had heard the foundations of Medicine shift and +change, 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 listening +to the gas sizzling above his head; then he turned for a moment and +glanced at the men behind him: the doctor from Vienna in a broadly braided +frock-coat with satin facings, betraying himself to all men by the end of +the clinical thermometer protruding from his waistcoat pocket; the two +Japanese gentlemen--brown, incurious, and inscrutable--men from another +world, come to look on; the republican from Liberia, and the rest. Then he +turned his head, for the door on the floor of the theatre had opened, +giving entrance to Thenard. + +Thenard was a smallish man in a rather shabby frock-coat; his beard was +scant, pointed, and gray-tinged; he had a depressed expression, the +general air of a second-rate tradesman on the verge of bankruptcy; and as +he entered and crossed to the _estrade_ where the lecture table stood and +the glass of water, he shouted some words vehemently and harshly to +Alphonse, the theatre attendant, who, it seemed, had forgotten to place +the box of coloured chalks on the table--the sacred chalks which the +lecturer used for colouring his diagrams on the blackboard. + +One instantly took a dislike to this shabby-looking _bourgeois_, with the +harsh, irritable voice, but after awhile, as the lecture went on, one +forgot him. It was not the profundity of the man's knowledge, great though +it was, that impressed one; or the subtlety of his reasoning or the +lucidity of his expression, but his earnestness, his obvious disregard for +everything earthly but Truth. + +This was borne in on one by every expression of his face, every gesture of +his 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 "Brain +Conceived as a Machine Pure and Simple." + +It was a cold and pitiless lecture, striking at the root of poetry and +romance, speaking of religions, not religion, and utterly ignoring the +idea which stands poised like a white-winged Victory over all other +ideas--the Soul. + +It was pitiless because it did these things, and it was terrible because +it was spoken by Thenard, for he was just standing there, a little, oldish +man, 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 the +profundity of his knowledge with, at his elbow, a huge army of facts, +instances, and cases, not one of which did not support his logical +deductions. + +I wish I could print his lecture in full. I can only give some few +sentences taken at haphazard from the peroration. + +"The fundamental basis of all morality can be expressed by the words +Left--or Right. 'Shall I take the path to the right, when my child is +being threatened with death by a pterodactyl, or shall I take the path to +the 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 laid +the 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 the +cries 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 court +self-destruction in attempting to save _It_, or shall I seek safety with +_Him_?' Do we know how she answered that question? Undoubtedly she took +the path to the left. + +"The woman's Right was the man's Left, and she took it not from any motive +of goodness but just because her child appealed to her as powerfully as +his dinner appealed to the man. And which was the nobler instinct? In +prehistoric times, gentlemen, they were both equally noble, for the +instinct of the man was as essential to the fact that you and I are here +gathered together in enlightened Paris, as the instinct of the woman. + +"Right or Left? That is still the essence of morals--all the rest is +embroidery. Whilst I am talking to you now, service is being held at the +Madeleine, the Bourse is closed (looking at his watch), but other gaming +houses are opening. The _Cafe de Paris_ is filling, the Little Sisters of +the Poor are visiting the sick. + +"We feel keenly that some people are doing good and some people are doing +evil. We wonder at the origin of it all, and the answer comes from the +prehistoric 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 the +woman's heart _that_ way. + +"'I am not religion, but between the man and the woman I have created an +essential antagonism of motive which will be the basis of all future +religions and systems of ethics. I have already dimly demarcated a line +between ferocity and greed, and a thing which has yet no name, but which +will in future ages be called Love. + +"'_I_ am a constant quantity, but the dim plan I have traced in the +plastic brain will be used by the ever-building years; spires and domes +shall fret the skies, priests unroll their scrolls of papyri, infinite +developments of the simple basic Right and Left laid down by me shall +combine to build a Pantheon of a million shrines to a million gods--who +are yet only three: the tramp of the mastodon, the cry of the child in the +pterodactyl's grip, and myself, who in future years shall be the only +surviving god of the three--Determination.' + + * * * * * + +"The Pineal Gland had no known function, so Descartes declared it to be +the 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 an +eye 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 to +leave Paris like the others. Have you any plans?" + +The lecture was over, the audience was pouring out of the theatre, and +Adams was talking to Thenard, whom he knew personally. + +"Well, no," said Adams. "None very fixed just at present. Of course I +shall practise in my own country, but I can't quite see the opening yet." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DR. DUTHIL + + +Thenard, with his case-book and a bundle of papers under his arm, stood +for a moment in thought. Then he suddenly raised his chin. + +"How would you like to go on a big-game shooting expedition to the +Congo?" + +"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 Thenard. "A patient of mine, Captain Berselius, +is starting on a big-game shooting expedition to the Congo. He requires a +medical man to accompany him, and the salary is two thousand francs a +month 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 was +visiting her yesterday the Captain put the thing before me--in fact, gave +me _carte blanche_ to choose for him. He requires the services of a +medical man--an Englishman if possible----" + +"But I'm an American," said Adams. + +"It is the same thing," replied Thenard, with a little laugh. "You are all +big and strong and fond of guns and danger." + +He had taken Adams by the arm and was leading him down the passage toward +the entrance hall of the hospital. + +"The primitive man is strong in you all, and that is why you are so vital +and important, you Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Celts, and Anglo-Teutons. Come in +here." + +He opened the door of one of the house-surgeon's rooms. + +A youngish looking man, with a straw-coloured beard, was seated before the +fire, with a cigarette between his lips. + +He rose to greet Thenard, was introduced to Adams, and, drawing an old +couch a bit from the wall, he bade his guests be seated. + +The armchair he retained himself. One of the legs was loose, and he was +the only man in the Beaujon who had the art of sitting on it without +smashing it. This he explained whilst offering cigarettes. + +Thenard, like many another French professor, unofficially was quite one +with the students. He would snatch a moment from his work to smoke a +cigarette with them; he would sometimes look in at their little parties. I +have seen him at a birthday party where the cakes and ale, to say nothing +of the cigarettes and the unpawned banjo, were the direct products of a +pawned microscope. I have seen him, I say, at a party like this, drinking +a health to the microscope as the giver of all the good things on the +table--he, the great Thenard, with an income of fifteen to twenty thousand +pounds a year, and a reputation solid as the four massive text-books that +stood to his name. + +"Duthil," said Thenard, "I have secured, I believe, a man for our friend +Berselius." He indicated Adams with a half laugh, and Dr. Duthil, turning +in his chair, regarded anew the colossus from the States. The great, +large-hewn, cast-iron visaged Adams, beside whom Thenard looked like a +shrivelled monkey and Duthil like a big baby with a beard. + +"Good," said Duthil. + +"A better man than Bauchardy," said Thenard. + +"Much," replied Duthil. + +"Who, then, was Bauchardy?" asked Adams, amused rather by the way in which +the two others were discussing him. + +"Bauchardy?" said Duthil. "Why, he was the last man Berselius killed." + +"Silence," said Thenard, then turning to Adams, "Berselius is a perfectly +straight man. On these hunting expeditions of his he invariably takes a +doctor with him; he is not a man who fears death in the least, but he has +had bitter experience of being without medical assistance, so he takes a +doctor. 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 is +another side--the character of Berselius. A man, to be the companion of +Captain Berselius, needs to be big and strong in body and mind, or he +would be crushed by the hand of Captain Berselius. Yes, he is a terrible +man in a way--_un homme affreux_--a man of the tiger type--and he is going +to the country of the big baboons, where there is the freedom of action +that the soul of such a man desires----" + +"In fact," said Adams, "he is a villain, this Captain Berselius?" + +"Oh, no," said Thenard, "not in the least. Be quiet, Duthil, you do not +know the man as I do. I have studied him; he is a Primitive----" + +"An Apache," said Duthil. "Come, dear master, confess that from the moment +you heard that this Berselius was intent on another expedition, you +determined to throw a foreigner into the breach. 'No more French doctors, +if possible,' said you. Is not that so?" + +Thenard laughed the laugh of cynical confession, buttoning his overcoat at +the same time and preparing to go. + +"Well, there may be something in what you say, Duthil. However, there the +offer is--a sound one financially. Yes. I must say I dread that two +thousand francs a month will prove a fatal attraction, and, if Mr. Adams +does 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't +say I will take the post, but I might at least go and see him." + +"Certainly," replied Thenard, and taking one of his own cards from his +pocket, 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 Balkan +prince, whose malady, hitherto expressed by evil living, had suddenly +taken an acute and terrible turn and Adams found himself alone with Dr. +Duthil. + +"That is Thenard all over," said Duthil. "He is the high priest of +modernism. He and all the rest of the neurologists have divided up +devilment into provinces, and labelled each province with names all ending +in _enia_ or _itis_. Berselius is a Primitive, it seems; this Balkan +prince 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 be +boiled 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 have +heard, he is a regular buccaneer of the old type, who values human life +not one hair. Bauchardy, that last doctor he took with him, was a friend +of mine. Perhaps that is why I feel vicious about the man, for he killed +Bauchardy as sure as I didn't." + +"Killed him?" + +"Yes; with hardship and overwork." + +"Overwork?" + +"_Mon Dieu_, yes. Dragged him through swamps after his infernal monkeys +and tigers, and Bauchardy died in the hospital at Marseilles of spinal +meningitis, brought on by the hardships of the expedition--died as mad as +Berselius himself." + +"As mad as Berselius?" + +"Yes; this infernal Berselius seemed to have infected him with his own +hunting fever, and Bauchardy--_mon Dieu_, you should have seen him during +his illness, shooting imaginary elephants, and calling for Berselius." + +"What I want to get at is this," said Adams. "Was Bauchardy driven into +these swamps you speak of, and made to hunt against his will--treated +cruelly, 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. A +man of iron with the ferocity of a tiger--a very devil, who made others +follow him as poor Bauchardy did, to his death----" + +"Well," said Adams, "this man interests me somehow, and I intend to have a +look at him." + +"The pay is good," said Duthil, "but I have warned you fully, if Thenard +hasn't. Good evening." + +The Rue Dijon, where Adams lived, was a good way from the Beaujon. He made +his way there on foot, studying the proposition as he went. + +The sporting nature of the proposal coming from the sedate Thenard rather +tickled him. + +"He wants to pit me against this Berselius," said Adams to himself, "same +as if we were dogs. That's the long and short of it. Yes, I can understand +his meaning in part; he's afraid if Berselius engages some week-kneed +individual, he'll give the weak-kneed individual more than he can take. He +wants to stick a six-foot Yankee in the breach, instead of a five-foot +froggie, all absinthe and cigarette ends. Well, he was frank, at all +events. Hum, I don't like the proposition--and yet there's +something--there's something--there's something about it I _do_ like. Then +there'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 big +hairy 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 Thenard spoke of Berselius there was something more than +absence of friendship in his tone. Can old man Thenard have a down on this +Berselius and does he in his heart of hearts imagine that by allotting P. +Quincy Adams to the post of physician extraordinary to the expedition, he +will get even with the Captain? My friend, remember that hymn the English +Salvationists were yelling last Sunday outside the American Presbyterian +Church 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 _Cafe d'Italie_, which, as everyone knows, is next to +Mouton's, the pork shop, on the left-hand side of the Boul' Miche, as you +go from the Seine; called for a boc, and then plunged into a game of +dominoes with an art student in a magenta necktie, whom he had never met +before, and whom, after the game, he would, a million to one, never meet +again. + +That night, when he had blown out his candle, he reviewed Thenard's +proposition in the dark. The more he looked at it the more attraction it +had for him, and--"Whatever comes of it," said he to himself, "I will go +and see this Captain Berselius to-morrow. The animal seems worth the +trouble 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 Elysees, and it half veiled the +Avenue Malakoff as Adams's _fiacre_ turned into that thoroughfare and drew +up at No. 14, a house with a carriage drive, a porter's lodge, and +wrought-iron gates. + +The American paid off his cab, rang at the porter's lodge, was instantly +admitted, and found himself in an enormous courtyard domed in with glass. +He noted the orange and aloe trees growing in tubs of porcelain, as the +porter led him to the big double glass doors giving entrance to the +house. + +"He's got the money," thought Adams, as the glass swing-door was opened by +a flunkey as magnificent as a Lord Mayor's footman, who took the visitor's +card and the card of M. Thenard and presented them to a functionary with a +large pale face, who was seated at a table close to the door. + +This personage, who was as soberly dressed as an archbishop, and had +altogether a pontifical air, raised himself to his feet and approached the +visitor. + +"Has monsieur an appointment----" + +"No," said Adams. "I have come to see your master on business. You can +take him my card--yes, that one--Dr. Adams, introduced by Dr. Thenard." + +The functionary seemed perplexed; the early hour, the size of the visitor, +his decided manner, all taken together, were out of routine. Only for a +moment he hesitated, then leading the way across the warm and +flower-scented hall, he opened a door and said, "Will monsieur take a +seat?" Adams entered a big room, half library, half museum; the door +closed behind him, and he found himself alone. + +The four walls of the room showed a few books, but were mostly covered +with arms and trophies of the chase. Japanese swords in solid ivory +scabbards, swords of the old Samurai so keen that a touch of the edge +would divide a suspended hair. Malay krisses, double-handed Chinese +execution swords; old pepper-pot revolvers, such as may still be found on +the African coast; knob-kerries, assegais, steel-spiked balls swinging +from whips of raw hide; weapons wild and savage and primitive as those +with which Attila drove before him the hordes of the Huns, and modern +weapons of to-day and yesterday; the big elephant gun which has been +supplanted by the express rifle; the deadly magazine rifle, the latest +products of Schaunard of the Rue de la Paix and Westley Richards of +London. + +Adams forgot time as he stood examining these things; then he turned his +attention to the trophies, mounted by Borchard of Berlin, that prince of +taxidermists. Here stood a great ape, six feet and over--_monstrum +horrendum_--head flung back, mouth open, shouting aloud to the imagination +of the gazer in the language that was spoken ere the earliest man lifted +his face to the chill mystery of the stars. In the right fist was clutched +the branch of a M'bina tree, ready lifted to dash your brains out--the +whole thing a miracle of the taxidermist's art. Here crawled an alligator +on a slab of granitic rock; an alligator--that is to say, the despair of +the taxidermist--for you can make nothing out of an alligator; alive and +not in motion he looks stuffed, stuffed, he looks just the same. +Hartbeest, reedbuck, the maned and huge-eared roan antelope, gazelle, and +bush-buck, all were here, skull or mask, dominated by the vast head of the +wildebeest, with ponderous sickle-curved horns. + +Adams had half completed the tour of the walls when the door of the +library opened and Captain Berselius came in. Tall, black-bearded and +ferocious looking--that was the description of man Adams was prepared to +meet. But Captain Berselius was a little man in a frock-coat, rather worn, +and slippers. He had evidently been in _neglige_ and, to meet the visitor, +slipped into the frock-coat, or possibly he was careless, taken up with +abstractions, dreams, business affairs, plans. He was rather stout, with +an oval, egg-shaped face; his beard, sparse and pointed and tinged with +gray, had originally been light of hue; he had pale blue eyes, and he had +a perpetual smile. + +It is to be understood by this that Captain Berselius's smile was, so to +speak, hung on a hair-trigger; there was always a trace of it on his face +round the lips, and in conversation it became accentuated. + +At first sight, during your first moments of meeting with Captain +Berselius, you would have said, "What a happy-faced and jolly little +man!" + +Adams, completely taken aback by the apparition before him, bowed. + +"I have the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Adams, introduced by Dr. Thenard?" +said Captain Berselius, motioning the visitor to a chair. "Pray take a +seat, take a seat--yes----" He took a seat opposite the American, crossed +his legs in a comfortable manner, caressed his chin, and whilst chatting +on general subjects stared full at the newcomer, as though Adams had been +a statue, examining him, without the least insolence, but in that thorough +manner with which a purchaser examines the horse he is about to buy or the +physician of an insurance company a proposer. + +It was now that Adams felt he had to deal with no common man in Captain +Berselius. + +Never before had he conversed with a person so calmly authoritative, so +perfectly at ease, and so commanding. This little commonplace-looking, +negligently dressed man, talking easily in his armchair, made the spacious +Adams feel small and of little account in the world. Captain Berselius +filled all the space. He was _the_ person in that room; Adams, though he +had personality enough, was nowhere. And now he noticed that the perpetual +smile of the Captain had no relation to mirth or kindliness, it was not +worn as a mask, for Captain Berselius had no need for masks; it was a +mysterious and unaccountable thing that was there. + +"You know M. Thenard intimately?" said Captain Berselius, turning suddenly +from 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. He +took his stand before the great ape and contemplated it for a moment. "I +shot him near M'Bassa on the West Coast two years ago. The natives at the +village where we were camping said there was a big monkey in a tree near +by. They seemed very much frightened, but they led me to the tree. He knew +what a gun was; he knew what a man was, too. He knew that his hour of +death had arrived, and he came roaring out of the tree to meet me. But +when he was on the ground, with the muzzle of my Mannlicher two yards from +his head, all his rage vanished. He saw death, and to shut out the sight +he 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 are +interesting to me, for each has a history. That tiger skin there in front +of the fireplace once covered a thing very much alive. He was a full-sized +brute, and I met him in a rice field near Benares. I had not even time to +raise my gun when he charged. Then I was on my back and he was on top of +me. He had overshot the mark a bit--I was not even scratched. I lay +looking up at his whiskers; they seemed thick as quills, and I counted +them. I was dead to all intents and purposes, so I felt no fear. That was +the lesson this gentleman taught me; it is as natural to be dead as to be +alive. I have never been afraid of death since. Well, something must have +distracted his attention and frightened him, for he lifted himself, passed +over me like a cloud, and was gone. Well, so much for the tiger. And now +for business. Are you prepared to act as medical attendant to my new +expedition?" + +"Well," said Adams, "I would like a little time to consider----" + +"Certainly," said Captain Berselius, taking out his watch. "I will give +you five minutes, as a matter of form. Thenard, in a note to me this +morning, 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 my +decision about you, I suppose you have already made your decision about +me?" + +"Absolutely," said Berselius. "Two minutes have passed. Why waste the +other 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 great +deal of thinking. + +He had never met a man before at all like Berselius. He had never before +come across a man with such a tremendous personality. Berselius fascinated +yet repelled him. That there was evil in this man he felt, but he felt +also that there was good. Much evil and much good. And beyond this he +divined an animal ferocity latent--the ferocity of a tiger--a cold and +pitiless and utterly divorced from reason ferociousness, the passion of a +primitive man, who had never known law except the law of the axe wielded +by the strongest. And yet there was something in the man that he liked. He +knew by Berselius's manner that if he did not take the offer now, he would +lose it. He reckoned with lightning swiftness that the expedition would +bring him in solid cash enough to start in a small way in the States. He +was as poor as Job, as hungry for adventure as a schoolboy, and he only +had 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 to +indicate that the time was almost expired. + +"I will come," said Adams, and it seemed to him that he said the words +against his will. + +Captain Berselius went to a writing table, took a sheet of paper and wrote +carefully and with consideration for the space of some five minutes. Then +he handed the paper to Adams. "These are the things you want," said he. "I +am an old campaigner in the wilds, so you will excuse me for specifying +them. 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 it +is useful to you, I can give you a cheque now on the Credit Lyonnais, if +you will state the amount." + +"Thank you, thank you," said Adams. "I have quite sufficient money for my +needs, and, if it is the same to you, I would rather pay for my outfit +myself." + +"As you please," said Captain Berselius, quite indifferently. "But +Schaunard's account and the account for drugs and instruments you will +please 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 +_dejeuner_?" + +Adams bowed. + +"I will notify you to-night at your address the exact date we start," said +Captain Berselius as he led the way from the room. "It will be within a +fortnight. 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 very +much more comfortable." + +They crossed the hall, Captain Berselius opened a door, motioned his +companion 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 the +fireplace two women--a girl of about eighteen and a woman of thirty-five +or so--were seated. + +The elder woman, Madame Berselius, a Parisienne, pale, stout, yet +well-proportioned, with almond-shaped eyes; full lips exquisitely cut in +the form of the true cupid's bow; and with a face vigorous enough, but +veiled by an expression at once mulish, blindish, and indolent--was a +type. + +The type of the poodle woman, the parasite. With the insolent expression +of a Japanese lady of rank, an insult herself to the human race, you will +see her everywhere in the highest social ranks of society. At the +Zooelogical Gardens of Madrid on a Sunday, when the grandees of Spain take +their pleasure amidst the animals at Longchamps, in Rotten Row, Washington +Square, 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 Cleo de Merode's, +gray eyes, and a wide mouth, with pomegranate-red lips. Goethe's dictum +that the highest beauty is unobtainable without something of disproportion +was exemplified in the case of Maxine Berselius. "Her mouth is too wide," +said the women, who, knowing nothing of the philosophy of art, hit upon +the defect that was Maxine's main charm. + +Berselius introduced Adams to his wife and daughter, and scarcely had he +done so than a servant, in the blue-and-gold livery of the house, flung +open the door and announced that _dejeuner_ was served. + +Adams scarcely noticed the room into which they passed; a room whose +scheme of colour was that watery green which we associate with the scenery +of early spring, the call of the cuckoo, and the river echoes where the +weir foams and the willow droops. + +The tapestry hanging upon the walls did not distract from this scheme. +Taken from some chateau of Provence, and old almost as the story of +Nicolete, it showed ladies listening to shepherds who played on flutes, +capering lambs, daffodils blowing to the winds of early spring under a sky +gray and broken by rifts of blue. + +Adams scarcely noticed the room, or the tapestry, or the food placed +before him; he was entirely absorbed by two things, Maxine and Captain +Berselius. + +Berselius's presence at the table evidently cast silence and a cloak of +restraint upon the women. You could see that the servants who served him +dreaded him to the very tips of their fingers, and, though he was chatting +easily and in an almost paternal manner, his wife and daughter had almost +the air of children, nervous, and on their very best behaviour. This was +noticeable, especially, in Madame Berselius. The beautiful, indolent, +arrogant face became a very humble face indeed when she turned it on the +man who was evidently, literally, her lord and master. Maxine, though +oppressed by the presence, wore a different air; she seemed abstracted and +utterly unconscious of what a beautiful picture she made against the +old-world tapestry of spring. + +Her eyes sometimes met the American's. They scarcely spoke to each other +once during the meal, yet their eyes met almost as frequently as though +they had been conversing. As a matter of fact, Adams was a new type of man +to her, and on that account interesting; very different was this son of +Anak, with the restful, forceful face, to the curled and scented dandies +of the Chaussee d'Antin, the "captains with the little moustaches," the +frequenters of the _foyer de Ballet_, the cigarette-dried mummies of the +Grand Club. It was like the view of a mountain to a person who had only +known hills. + +Maxine, in her turn, was a new type of woman to Adams. This perfect flower +from the Parisian hot-house was the rarest and most beautiful thing he had +met 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 the +smoking room, "I will let you know to-night the day and hour of our +departure. All my business in Paris will be settled this afternoon. You +had better come and see me the day before we start, so that we can make +our last arrangements. _Au revoir._" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +SCHAUNARD + + +The young man turned down the Avenue Malakoff, after he had left +Berselius's house, in the direction of the Avenue des Champs Elysees. + +In twenty-four hours a complete change had taken place in his life. His +line of travel had taken a new and most unexpected course; it was as +though a train on the North German had, suddenly, by some mysterious +arrangement of points and tracks, found itself on the Paris-Lyons and +Mediterranean Railway. + +Yesterday afternoon the prospect before him, though vague enough, was +American. A practice in some big central American town. It would be a hard +fight, 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 elbowed +itself out of vagueness stood before him: Africa, its palms and poisonous +forests, the Congo--Berselius. + +Something else besides these things also stood before him very definitely +and almost casting them into shade. Maxine. + +Up to this, a woman had never stood before him as a possible part of his +future, if we except Mary Eliza Summers, the eleven-year-old daughter of +old Abe Summers, who kept the store in Dodgeville, Vermont, years +ago--that is to say, when Paul Quincy Adams was twelve, an orchard-robbing +hooligan, whose chief worry in life was that, though he could thrash his +eldest brother left-handed, he was condemned by the law of entail to wear +his old pants. + +When a man falls in love with a woman--really in love--though the +attainment of his desire be all but impossible, he has reached the goal of +life; no tide can take him higher toward the Absolute. He has reached +life's zenith, and never will he rise higher, even though he live to wield +a sceptre or rule armies. + +Adams reached the Place de la Concorde on foot, walking and taking his way +mechanically, and utterly unconscious of the passers-by. + +He was studying in minute detail Maxine Berselius, the pose of her head +outlined against the tapestry, the curves of her lips that could speak so +well without speaking, the little shell-like ears, the brown-gold coils of +her hair, her hands, her dress. + +He was standing undetermined as to his route, and whether he would cross +over to the Rue St. Honore or turn toward the Seine, when someone gripped +his 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 the +Boulevard Haussmann and flourishing exceedingly. + +"Well, this is luck," said Stenhouse. "I lost your address, or I would +have written, asking you to come and see us. I remembered it was over on +the other side of the water somewhere, but where exactly I could not +remember. 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. Honore." + +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; but +I have to feel my way very cautiously, for the money market is not in a +particularly flourishing state with me." + +"Good heavens!" said Stenhouse, "when is it with a medical man, especially +when he is just starting? I've been through that. See here, why don't you +start in Paris?" + +"Paris?" + +"Yes, this is the place to make money. You say you are thinking of +starting in some American city; well, let me tell you, there are very few +American cities so full of rich Americans as Paris." + +"Well," said Adams, "the idea is not a bad one, but just for the present I +am 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 and +everything 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 returned +from having _dejeuner_ with him." + +Stenhouse whistled. They were in the Rue du Mont Thabor by this, in front +of a small _cafe_. + +"Well," said Adams, "what's wrong?" + +"Everything," replied the other. "This is the house where my patient +lives. Wait for me, for a moment, like a good fellow. I shan't detain you +long, and then we can finish our talk, for I have something to tell you." + +He darted into the _cafe_ and Adams waited, watching the passers-by and +somewhat perturbed in mind. Stenhouse's manner impressed him +uncomfortably, for, if Captain Berselius had been the devil, the +Englishman 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 fitted +Adams's mood as he waited, watching the passers-by and the small affairs +of 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. Honore, where I can +get a cup of tea and a bun. We will talk then." + +"Now," said Stenhouse, when he was seated at a little marble-topped table +with the cup of tea and the bun before him. "You say you have engaged +yourself 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 between +ourselves, 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 met +him at a reception at the Elysee. He goes everywhere. He belongs to the +best clubs; he's a _persona grata_ at more courts than one, and an +intimate friend of King Leopold of Belgium. His immense wealth, or part of +it, comes from the rubber industry--motor tires and so forth. And he's mad +after big game. That's his pleasure--killing. He's a killer. That is the +best description of the man. The lust of blood is in him, and the +astounding thing, to my mind, is that he is not a murderer. He has killed +two 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 man +who would murder for money. Give the devil his due. I mean that he is +quite beyond reason when aroused, and if you were to hit Captain Berselius +in the face he would kill you as certain as I'll get indigestion from that +bun I have just swallowed. The last doctor he took with him to Africa died +at Marseilles from the hardships he went through--not at the hands of +Berselius, for that would have aroused inquiry, but simply from the +hardships of the expedition; but he gave frightful accounts to the +hospital authorities of the way this Berselius had treated the natives. He +drove that expedition right away from Libreville, in the French Congo, to +God knows where. He had it under martial law the whole time, clubbing and +thrashing the niggers at the least offence, and shooting with his own hand +two of them who tried to desert." + +"You must remember," said Adams, taking up the cudgels for Berselius and +almost surprised himself at so doing, "that an expedition like that, if it +is not held together by a firm hand, goes to pieces, and the result is +disaster for everyone. And you know what niggers are." + +"There you are," laughed Stenhouse. "The man has obsessed you already, and +you'll come back, if you go, like Bauchardy, the man who died in the +hospital at Marseilles, cursing Berselius, yet so magnetized by the power +of 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. "Passing +him in the street one might take him for a very ordinary person. Meeting +him for the first time, he looks all good nature; that smile----" + +"Always," said Stenhouse. "Beware of a man with a perpetual smile on his +face." + +"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 a +profound and natural cynicism directed against all things--including all +things good." + +"You have put it," said Stenhouse, "in four words." + +"But, in spite of everything," said Adams, "I believe the man to have +great good qualities: some instinct tells me so." + +"My dear sir," said Stenhouse, "did you ever meet a bad man worth twopence +at his trade who had not good qualities? The bad man who is half good--so +to speak--is a much more dangerous villain than the barrier bully without +heart or soul. When hell makes a super-excellent devil, the devil puts +goodness in just as a baker puts soda in his bread to make it rise. Look +at 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, 'he +who 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. Honore, 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, he +determined to go to Schaunard's in the Rue de la Paix, and see about his +guns. + +Schaunard personally superintends his own shop, which is the first +gun-shop on the Continent of Europe. Emperors visit him in person and he +receives them as an equal, though far superior to them in the science of +sport. An old man now, with a long white beard, he remembers the +fowling-pieces and rifles which he supplied to the Emperor Maximilian +before that unfortunate gentleman started on his fatal expedition in +search of a throne. He is a mathematician as well as a maker of guns; his +telescopic sights and wind gauges are second to none in the world, and his +shop front in the Rue de la Paix exposes no wares--it has just a wire +blind, on which are blazoned the arms of Russia, England, and Spain. + +But, inside, the place is a joy to a rightly constituted man. Behind glass +cases the long processions of guns and rifles, smooth, sleek, nut-brown +and deadly, are a sight for the eyes of a sportsman. + +The duelling pistol is still a factor in Continental life, and the cases +containing them at Schaunard's are worth lingering over, for the modern +duelling pistol is a thing of beauty, very different from the murderous +hair-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, and +the old gun-merchant came forward through the silence of his shop to meet +his visitor. + +Adams explained his business. He had come to buy some rifles for a +big-game expedition. Captain Berselius had recommended him. + +"Ah! Captain Berselius?" said Schaunard, and an interested look came into +his face. "True, he is a customer of mine. As a matter of fact, his guns +for 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 his +fingers 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 you +with my advice?" + +"I should be very glad of your advice. No, I have not had much experience +in big-game shooting. I have shot bears, that's all----" + +"Armand!" cried Schaunard, and a pale-faced young man came forward from +the back part of the shop. + +"Open me this case." + +Armand opened a case, and the deft hand of the old man took down a +double-barrelled cordite rifle, light-looking and of exquisite +workmanship. + +"These are the guns we shoot elephants with nowadays," said Schaunard, +handling the weapon lovingly. "A child could carry it, and there is +nothing living it will not kill." He laughed softly to himself, and then +directed Armand to bring forward an elephant gun of the old pattern. In an +instant the young man returned, staggering under the weight of the immense +rifle, shod with a heel of india-rubber an inch thick. + +Adams laughed, took the thing up with one hand, and raised it to his +shoulder 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 gigantic +gun. + +"Oh, for you," said he, "it's all very well. _Ma foi_, but you suit one +another, you both are of another day." + +"God bless you," said Adams, "you can pick me up by the bushel in the +States. I'm _small_. Say, how much is this thing?" + +"_That!_" cried Schaunard. "Why, what on earth could you want with such an +obsolete 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 your +hands?" + +"Oh, yes," said Schaunard, "it hits harder, just as a cannon would hit +harder, but----" + +"I'll have her," said Adams. "I've taken a fancy to her. See here, Captain +Berselius is paying for my guns; they are his, part of the expedition--I +want this as my own, and I'll pay you for her out of my own pocket. How +much is she?" + +Schaunard, whose fifty years of trading had explained to him the fact that +when an American takes a whim into his head it is best for all parties to +let 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 must +have 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 old +cartridges, and I can have a couple of hundred of them emptied and +re-filled and percussioned. Ah, well, monsieur, you must have your own +way. Armand, take the gun; have it attended to and packed. And now that +monsieur has his play-toy," finished the old man, with one of his silent +little laughs, "let us come to business." + +They did, and nearly an hour was spent whilst the American chose a double +hammerless-ejector cordite rifle and a .256 sporting Mannlicher, for +Schaunard was a man who, when he took an interest in a customer, could be +very interesting. + +When business was concluded Schaunard gave his customer various tips as to +the treatment of guns. "And now," said he, opening the door as Adams was +taking his departure, "I will give you one more piece of advice about this +expedition. It is a piece of private advice, and I will trust you not to +tell 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 closed +the door. + +A passer-by might have imagined that the two men had just exchanged a good +joke. + +Before Adams had taken three steps, the door of the shop re-opened, and +Schaunard'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 I +come back. _Au revoir._" + +"_Adieu._" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +MARSEILLES + + +On the day of departure Berselius was entertained at _dejeuner_ by the +Cerele Militaire. He brought Adams with him as a guest. + +Nearly all the sporting members of the great club were present to speed +the man who after Schillings was reckoned on the Continent the most +adventurous big-game hunter in the world. + +Despite what Stenhouse, Duthil, and Schaunard had said, Adams by this time +inclined to a half-liking for Berselius; the man seemed so far from and +unconscious of the little things of the world, so destitute of pettiness, +that the half liking which always accompanies respect could not but find a +place in Adams's mind. + +Guest at a table surrounded by sixty of the wealthiest and most powerful +officers of a military nation, Berselius did not forget his companion, but +introduced him with painstaking care to the chief men present, included +him in his speech of thanks, and made him feel that though he was taking +Berselius's pay, he was his friend and on a perfect social equality with +him. + +Adams felt this keenly. On qualifying first he had obtained an appointment +as travelling physician to an American, a prominent member of the New York +smart set, a man of twenty-two, a motorist, a yachtsman, clean shaved as +an actor and smug as a butler, one of those men who make the great +American nation so small in the eyes of the world--the world that cannot +see beyond the servants' hall antics of New York society to the great +plains where the Adamses hew the wood and draw the water, build the cities +and bridge the rivers, and lay the iron roads, making rail-heads of the +roar of the Atlantic and the thunder of the Pacific. + +This gentleman treated Adams as a paid attendant and in such a manner that +Adams one morning lifted him from his bed by the slack of his silk pajamas +and all but drowned him in his own bath. + +He could not but remember the incident as he sat watching Berselius so +calm, so courtly, so absolutely destitute of mannerism, so incontestably +the superior, in some magnetic way, of all the other men who were +present. + +Maxine and M. Pinchon, the secretary, were to accompany them to +Marseilles. + +A cold, white Paris fog covered the city that night as they drove to the +station, and the fog detonators and horns followed them as they glided out +slowly from beneath the great glass roof. Slowly at first, then more +swiftly over rumbling bridges and clicking point, more swiftly still, +breaking from the fog-banked Seine valley, through snarling tunnel and +chattering cutting, faster now and freer, by long lines of poplar trees, +mist-strewn, and moonlit ponds and fields, spectral white roads, little +winking towns; and now, as if drawn by the magnetic south, swaying to the +rock-a-bye of speed, aiming for the lights of Dijon far away south, to the +tune 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 it +to the service of stockbrokers, society folk, and gamblers bound for +Monaco--but what a poem it is that we snore through between a day in Paris +and a day in Marseilles. A poem, swiftly moving, musical with speed, a +song built up of songs, telling of Paris, its chill and winter fog, of the +winter fields, the poplar trees and mist; vineyards of the Cote d'Or; +Provence with the dawn upon it, Tarascon blowing its morning bugle to the +sun; the Rhone, and the vineyards, and the olives, and the white, white +roads; ending at last in that triumphant blast of music, light and colour, +Marseilles. + +_La Joconde_, Berselius's yacht, was berthed at the Messagerie wharf, and +after _dejeuner_ at the Hotel Noailles, they took their way there on +foot. + +Adams had never seen the south before as Marseilles shows it. The vivid +light and the black shadows, the variegated crowd of the Canabier +Prolongue had for him an "Arabian Nights" fascination, but the wharves +held a deeper fascination still. + +Marseilles draws its most subtle charm from far away in the past. Beaked +triremes have rubbed their girding cables against the wharves of the old +Phocee; 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 Laeta +Acilia, so delightfully fabled by Anatole France. The Count of Monte +Cristo landed here after he had discovered his treasure, and here +Caderouse after the infamy at "La Reservee" watched old Dantes starving to +death. Multitudes of ships, fabled and real, have passed from the harbour +to countries curious and strange, but never one of them to a stranger +country than that to which _La Joconde_ was to bear Berselius and his +companion. + +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 the +sharp rattle of winch-chains, and perfumed with garlic, vanilla, fumes of +coal tar, and the tang of the sea, the wharves of Marseilles lay before +the travellers, a great counter eternally vibrating to the thunder of +trade; 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, the +cry of the stevedores, and the bugles of Port Saint Jean, shrill beneath +the blue sky and triumphant as the crowing of the Gallic cock. + +Between the breaks in the shipping one could see the sea-gulls fishing and +the harbour flashing, here spangled with coal tar, here whipped to deepest +sapphire by the mistral; the junk shops, grog shops, parrot shops, +rope-walks, ships' stores and factories lining the quays, each lending a +perfume, a voice, or a scrap of colour to the air vibrating with light, +vibrating with sound, shot through with voices; hammer blows from the +copper 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 and +the bells of St. Victor, all fused, orchestrated, into one triumphant +symphony beneath the clear blue sky and the trade flags of the world. + +_La Joconde_ was berthed beside a Messagerie boat which they had to cross +to reach her. + +She was a palatial cruising yacht of twelve hundred tons' burden, built +somewhat on the lines of Drexel's _La Margharita_, but with less width of +funnel. + +It was two o'clock in the afternoon when they went on board; all the +luggage 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-bye +across the lane of blue water widening between _La Joconde_ and her berth +mate. + +At the harbour mouth, looking back across the blue wind-swept water, he +fancied he could still see her, a microscopic speck in the great picture +of terraced Marseilles, with its windows, houses, flags, and domes +glittering and burning in the sun. + +Then the swell of the Gulf of Lyons took _La Joconde_ as a nurse takes an +infant and rocks it on her knee, and France and civilization were slowly +wrapped from sight under the veils of distance. + + + + +PART TWO + +CHAPTER VI + +MATADI + + +It was evening. _La Joconde_, Berselius's yacht, lay moored at the wharf +of Matadi; warpling against the starboard plates, whimpering, wimpling, +here smooth as glass, here eddied and frosted, a sea of golden light, a +gliding mirror, went the Congo. + +A faint, faint haze dulled the palms away on the other side; from the +wharf, where ships were loading up with rubber, ivory, palm-oil, and bales +of gum copal, the roar and rattle of steam-winches went across the water, +far away across the glittering water, where the red flamingoes were +flying, to that other shore where the palm trees showed their fringe of +hot and hazy green. + +The impression of heat which green, the coolest of all colours, can +produce, damp heat, heart-weakening heat, that is the master impression +produced by the Congo on the mind of man. All the other impressions +are--to paraphrase Thenard--embroideries on this. + +Yet how many other impressions there are! The Congo is Africa in a frank +mood. 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, draws +with it, like a moving dream, the pictures of the roaring rapids and the +silent pools, the swamps filled with darkness of vegetation and murderous +life; the unutterable loneliness of vast forests. The water brook of the +hartbeest and antelope, it brings with it their quiet reflections, just as +it brings the awful horn and the pig-like face of the rhinoceros. What +things have not slaked their thirst in this quiet water flooding past +Matadi--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-morrow +they were proceeding by rail to Leopoldville, which was to be the real +base 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, turning +in his chair as the roar and rattle of the winch chains, that had ceased +for a moment, flared up again like a flame of sound. "What are the exports +here?" + +"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 of +Berselius's hand, "over there"; little did he dream of what those words +held in their magic. + +Then Berselius went below. + +The moon rose; lights speckled the misty wharf and a broad road of silver +lay stretched across the moving water to the other bank that, under the +moonlight, lay like a line of cotton-wool. It was the mist tangled by and +tangling the trees. + +Adams paced the deck, smoking and occasionally pausing to flip off his +cigar-ash on the bulwark rail. He was thinking of Maxine Berselius. She +had come to Marseilles to see them off, and---- + +Not a word had been exchanged between them that a third person did not +hear or might not have heard, yet they had told each other the whole of +that 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 contemplate +possibilities. A social river, wide as the Congo, and flowing from as +mysterious a source, lay between them. Maxine was rich--so rich that the +contrast of her wealth with his own poverty shut the door for Adams on the +idea of marriage. He could not hope to take his true place in the world +for 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 social +temple by walking between the pillars of the portico, or smashing an +entrance way through the wall with his fist. + +He was a type of the true American man, the individual who trusts in +himself; an unpleasant person very often, but the most essentially male +creation in Nature. + +Though he could not contemplate Maxine as a wife, he did as a woman. In a +state of savagery he would have carried her off in his arms; surrounded as +he was by the trammels of civilization, he contented himself with +imagining her in that position. + +It is quite possible that no other woman would ever inspire the same +passion in him. He knew this, yet he did not grumble; for he was +practical, 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 the +Adamses. They look like houses out of a story by Dean Swift. The wildest +dreams of architecture. Yet they don't fall down; they serve their +purpose, for the dreamers who built them were at bottom practical men. + +As he paced the deck, smoking and contemplating the moonlit river, Maxine +gave place in his mind to her father. + +Berselius up to this had shown himself in no unfavourable light. Up to +this he had been almost companionable. + +Almost! They had dined together, paced the deck together, discussed all +sorts of subjects, yet not by the fraction of an inch had he advanced in +his knowledge of the man. A wall of ice divided Berselius from his +fellow-men. Between him and them a great gulf was fixed, a gulf narrow +enough to speak across, but of an impenetrable depth. Berselius was always +so assured, so impassively calm, so authoritative, his conversation so +penetrative, so lit by intuition and acquired knowledge, that Adams +sometimes in his company felt that elation which comes to us when we find +ourselves in the presence of a supreme mind. At other times this +overpowering personality weighed upon him so much that he would leave the +saloon and pace the deck so as to become himself again. + + * * * * * + +Next morning they left by rail for Leopoldville, where they found waiting +for them the _Leopold_, a shallow-draught steamer of some two hundred +tons. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +YANDJALI + + +The _Leopold_ was officered entirely by Belgians, and it would have been +almost 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 family +in Antwerp, and he was eternally damning the Congo and wishing himself +back in Antwerp. + +They transhipped to a smaller boat, the _Couronne_, and one morning +shortly after breakfast three strokes on the steamer bell announced their +approach to Yandjali. + +Imagine a rough landing-stage, a handful of houses, mostly mud-built, the +funereal heat-green of palm and banana, a flood of tropical sunshine +lighting the little wharf, crammed with bales of merchandise. + +Such was Yandjali, and beyond Yandjali lay the forest, and in front of +Yandjali flowed the river, and years ago _boom-boom_ down the river's +shining surface, from away up there where the great palms gave place to +reeds and water-grass, you might have heard the sound of the hippopotami +bellowing to the sun, a deep organ note, unlike the sound emitted by any +other creature on earth. You do not hear it now. The great brutes have +long 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-looking +blacks, each topped with a red fez and armed with an Albini rifle, stood +gazing straight before them with wrinkled eyes at the approaching boat. + +Verhaeren and Berselius were seemingly old friends; they shook hands and +Berselius introduced Adams; then the three left the wharf and walked up to +the District Commissioner's house, a frame building surrounded by palm +trees and some distance from the mud huts of the soldiers and porters. + +The Yandjali of this story, not to be confounded with Yandjali notorious +in Congo history for its massacre, is not in a rubber district, though on +the fringe of one; it is a game district and produces cassava. The Congo +State has parcelled out its territory. There are the rubber districts, the +gum copal districts, the food districts, and the districts where ivory is +obtained. In each of these districts the natives are made to work and +bring in rubber, gum copal, food, or ivory, as a tax. The District +Commissioner, or _Chef de Poste_, in each district draws up a schedule of +what is required. Such and such a village must produce and hand over so +many kilos of rubber, or copal, so much cassava, so many tusks, etc. + +Verhaeren was a stout, pale-faced man, with a jet-black beard, a +good-tempered looking man, with that strange, lazy, semi-Oriental look +which the Belgian face takes when the owner of it is fixed to a post, with +nothing to do but oversee trade, and when the post is on the confines of +civilization. + +Away up country, lost in the dim, green, heat-laden wilderness, you will +find a different type of man; more alert and nervy, a man who never +smiles, a preoccupied looking man who, ten years or five years ago, lost +his berth in an office for misconduct, or his commission in the army. A +_declasse_. He is the man who really drives the Congo machine, the last +wheel in the engine, but the most important; the man whose deeds are not +to be written. + +Verhaeren's living room in the frame house was furnished with steamer deck +chairs, a table and some shelves. Pinned to the wall and curling up at the +corners was a page torn from _La Gaudriole_, the picture of a girl in +tights; on one of the shelves lay a stack of old newspapers, on another a +stack of official papers, reports from subordinates, invoices, and those +eternal "official letters," with which the Congo Government deluges its +employees, and whose everlasting purport is "Get more ivory, get more +rubber, get more copal." + +Verhaeren brought out some excellent cigars and a bottle of Vanderhum, and +the three men smoked and talked. He had acted as Berselius's agent for the +expedition, and had collected all the gun-bearers and porters necessary, +and a guide. It was Berselius's intention to strike a hundred miles west +up river almost parallel to the Congo, and then south into the heart of +the elephant country. They talked of the expedition, but Verhaeren showed +little knowledge of the work and no enthusiasm. The Belgians of the Congo +have no feeling for sport. They never hunt the game at their doors, except +for food. + +When they had discussed matters, Verhaeren led the way out for Berselius +to inspect his arrangements. + +The porters were called up. There were _forty_ of them, and Adams thought +that he had never before seen such a collection of depressed looking +individuals; they were muscular enough, but there was something in their +faces, their movements and their attitude, that told a tale of spirits +broken to servitude by terror. + +The four gun-bearers and the headman were very different. The headman was +a Zappo Zap, a ferocious looking nigger, fez-tipped, who could speak +twenty words of French, and who was nicknamed Felix. The gun-bearers were +recruited from the "soldiers" of the state by special leave from +headquarters. + +Adams looked with astonishment at the immense amount of luggage they were +bringing. "Chop boxes," such as are used on the east coast, contained +stores; two big tents, a couple of "Roorkee" chairs, folding-beds and +tables, cork mattresses, cooking utensils, made up the pile, to say +nothing of the guns which had just been taken from their cases. + +"What did you bring this thing for?" asked Berselius, pointing to Adams's +elephant gun, which the Zappo Zap headman was just stripping from its +covering. + +"To shoot with," said Adams, laughing. + +Berselius looked at the big man handling the big gun, and gave a short +laugh. + +"Well, bring it," said he; "but I don't envy your gun-bearers." + +But Felix, the headman, did not seem of the same opinion. The enormous +rifle evidently appealed to his ferocious heart. It was a god-gun this, +and no mistake, and its lustre evidently spread to Adams, the owner of +it. + +Felix was a very big man, almost as big as Adams: a member of the great +cannibal fighting tribe of Zappo Zaps, he had followed Verhaeren, who had +once held a post in the Bena Pianga country, to Yandjali; he had a sort of +attachment for Verhaeren, which showed that he possessed some sort of +heart. 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 the +Brussels administration, for when they are used in punitive expeditions to +burn villages of recalcitrant rubber-getters, they, to use a local +expression, "_will_ eat when they have killed." When they are used _en +masse_, the old cannibal instinct breaks out; when the killing is over +they go for the killed, furious as dogs over bones. God help the man who +would come between them and their food! + +Of these men Felix was a fine specimen. A nature man, ever ready to slay, +and cruel as Death. A man from the beginning of the world. + +If Felix had possessed a wife, he and she might have stood for the man and +woman mentioned by Thenard in his lecture. + +The basic man and woman in whose dim brains Determination had begun to +work, sketching the vague line on either side of which lies the Right and +Left of moral action. + +A true savage, never to be really civilized. For it is the fate of the +savage that he will never become one of us. Do what you will and pray how +you will, you will never make up for the million years that have passed +him by, the million years during which the dim sketch which is the basis +of all ethics has lain in his brain undeveloped, or developed only into a +few fantastic and abortive God shapes and devil shapes. + +He will never become one of us. Extraordinary paradox--he never can become +a Leopold or a Felix Fuchs! + +Berselius disbanded the porters with a wave of the hand, and he and his +companions began a round of the station. Verhaeren, with a cigar in his +mouth, led the way. + +He opened the door of a go-down, and Adams in the dim light, saw bale upon +bale of stuff; gum copal it proved to be, for Yandjali tapped a huge +district where this stuff is found, and which lies forty miles to the +south. There was also cassava in large quantities, and the place had a +heady smell, as if fermentation were going on amidst the bales. + +Verhaeren shut the door and led on till, rounding a corner, a puff of hot +air 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 the +Hostage House. The women and children had just been driven back from the +fields where they had been digging and weeding, and they had been served +with their wretched dinners. They were eating these scraps of food like +animals, some in the sun amidst the tufts of grass and mounds of ordure in +the little yard, some in the shadow of the house. + +There were old, old women like shrivelled monkeys; girls of twelve and +fifteen, some almost comely; middle-aged women, women about to become +mothers, and a woman who had become a mother during the past night lying +there in the shelter of the Hostage House. There were little pot-bellied +nigger children, tiny black dots, who had to do their bit of work in the +fields with the others; and when the strangers appeared and looked over +the rail, these folk set up a crying and chattering, and ran about +distractedly, not knowing what new thing was in store for them. They were +the female folk and children of a village, ten miles away south; they were +here as "hostages," because the village had not produced its full tale of +cassava. They had been here over a month. + +The soldiers laughed, and struck with the butts of their rifles on the +palisading, as if to increase the confusion. Adams noticed that the young +girls and women were of all the terrified crowd seemingly the most +terrified. He did not know the reason; he could not even guess it. A good +man himself, and believing in a God in heaven, he could not guess the +truth. He knew nothing of the reason of these women's terror, and he +looked with disgust at the scene before him, not entirely comprehending. +Those creatures, so filthy, so animal-like, created in his mind such +abhorrence that he forgot to make allowances for the fact that they were +penned like swine, and that perchance in their own native state, free in +their own villages, they might be cleaner and less revolting. He could not +hear the dismal cry of the "Congo niggers," who of all people on the earth +are the most miserable, the most abused, the most sorrow-stricken, the +most dumb. He did not know that he was looking at one of the filthy acts +in the great drama that a hundred years hence will be read with horror by +a more enlightened world. + +They turned from the degrading sight and went back to Verhaeren's house +for dinner. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE VOICE OF THE CONGO FOREST + + +Just after daybreak next morning the expedition started. + +Berselius, Adams, the gun-bearers and Felix headed the line; a long way +after came the porters and their loads, shepherded by half a dozen +soldiers 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 under +their loads a hum like the hum of an awakened beehive. These people will +talk and chatter when the sun rises; club them, or threaten them, or load +them with burdens as much as you please, the old instinct of the birds and +beasts remains. + +At first the way led through cassava and manioc fields and past clumps of +palms; then, all at once, and like plunging under a green veil or into the +heart 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 sunlight +with a million tongues; you could hear the rustle and snap of branches +straightening themselves and sighing toward heaven after the long, damp, +chilly night. The tropical forest at daybreak flings its arms up to the +sun as if to embrace him, and all the teeming life it holds gives tongue. +Flights of coloured and extraordinary birds rise like smoke wreaths from +the steaming leaves, and the drone of a million, million insects from the +sonorous depths comes like the sound of life in ferment. + +The river lay a few miles to their left, and faintly from it, muffled by +the trees, they could hear the shrill whistling of the river steamboat. It +was like the "good-bye" of civilization. + +The road they were pursuing through the forest was just a dim track beaten +down by the feet of the copal and cassava gatherers bearing their loads to +Yandjali. Here and there the forest thinned out and a riot of umbrella +thorns, vicious, sword-like grass and tall, dull purple flowers, like +hollyhocks made a scrub that choked the way and tangled the foot; then the +trees would thicken up, and with the green gloom of a mighty wave the +forest would fall upon the travellers and swallow them up. + +Adams, tramping beside Berselius, tried vainly to analyze the +extraordinary 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 had +died to all the things he had ever known. At Yandjali he had felt himself +in a foreign country, but still in touch with Europe and the past; a mile +deep in the forest and Yandjali itself, savage as it was, seemed part of +the 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 the +friendly pines, the beeches, the oaks, whose forms have been known to us +from childhood. + +But here, where the beard-moss hangs from unknown trees, as we tramp +through the sweltering sap-scented gloom, we feel ourselves not in a +forest but under a cover. + +There is nothing of the perfume of the pine, nothing of the breeze in the +branches, nothing of the beauty of the forest twilight here. We are in a +great green room, festooned with vines and tendrils and hung about with +leaves. Nothing is beautiful here, but everything is curious. It is a +curiosity shop, where one pays with the sweat of one's brow, with the +languor of one's body, and the remembrance of one's past, for the sight of +an orchid shaped like a bird, or a flower shaped like a jug, or a bird +whose 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, yet +the place is full of life and war and danger. + +That crash followed by the shrieking of birds--you cannot tell whether it +is half a mile away or quite close, or to the right, or to the left, or +whether it is caused by a branch torn from a tree by some huge hand, or a +tree 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 themselves +and find their own salvation. + +Just as there is eternal war to the death between the beasts of this +jungle, so there is war to the death between the trees, the vines, and the +weeds. A frightful battle between the vegetable things is going on; we +scarcely recognize it, because the processes are so slow, but if five +years of the jungle could be photographed week by week, and the whole +series be run rapidly off on some huge cinematograph machine, you would +see a heaving and rending struggle for existence, vegetation fed by the +roaring tropical rains rising like a giant and flinging itself on the +vegetation 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 the +moss-bearded trees and the python-like loops of the lianas, one can see +the struggle crystallized, just as in the still marble of the Laocoon one +sees the struggle of life with death. + +In this place which covers an unthinkable area of the earth, a vast +population has dwelt since the beginning of time. Think of it. Shut off +from the world which has progressed toward civilization, alone with the +beasts and the trees, they have lived here without a guide and without a +God. The instinct which teaches the birds to build nests taught them to +build huts; the herd-instinct drove them into tribes. + +Then, ages ago, before Christ was crucified, before Moses was born, began +the terrible and pathetic attempt of a predamned people to raise their +heads and walk erect. The first lifting of purblind eyes destined never to +see even the face of Art. + +Yet there was a germ of civilization amongst them. They had villages and +vague 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 and +kindlier tribes, led their own comparatively quiet life; and Mohammed was +born somewhere in the unknown North, and they knew nothing of the fact +till the Arab slavers raided them, and robbed them of men and women and +children, just as boys rob an orchard. + +But the birth of Christ and the foundation of Christendom was the event +which in far distant years was destined to be this unhappy people's last +undoing. + +They had known the beasts of the forests, the storms, the rains, the Arab +raiders, but Fate had reserved a new thing for them to know. The +Christians. Alas! that one should have to say it, but here the fact is, +that white men, Christian men, have taken these people, have drawn under +the banner of Christianity and under Christian pay all the warlike tribes, +armed them, and set them as task-masters over the humble and meek. And +never in the history of the world has such a state of servitude been known +as at present exists in the country of this forlorn people. + +They had been marching some three hours when, from ahead came a sound as +of some huge animal approaching. Berselius half turned to his gun-bearer +for his rifle, but Felix reassured him. + +"Cassava bearers," said Felix. + +It was, in fact, a crowd of natives; some thirty or forty, bearing loads +of Kwanga (cassava cakes) to Yandjali. They were coming along the forest +path in single file, their burdens on their heads, and when the leaders +saw the white men they stopped dead. A great chattering broke out. One +could hear it going back all along the unseen line, a rattlesnake of +sound. Then Felix called out to them; the gun-bearers and the white men +stood aside, and the cassava bearers, taking heart, advanced. + +They were heavily laden, for most of them had from ten to twenty Kwanga on +their heads, and besides this burden--they were mostly women--several of +them 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 be +delivered at Yandjali every eight days. + +The people of this village were a lazy lot, and if you have ever collected +taxes in England, you can fancy the trouble of making such people--savages +living in a tropical forest, who have no count of time and scarcely an +idea of numbers--pay up. + +Especially when one takes into consideration the fact that to produce +three hundred cakes of cassava every eight days, the whole village must +work literally like a beehive, the men gathering and the women grinding +the stuff from dawn till dark. + +Only by the heaviest penalties could such a desirable state of things be +brought about, and the heavier and sharper the punishments inflicted at +any 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 by +like automatic figures, without raising their eyes from the ground. There +were some old women amongst them who looked more like shrivelled monkeys +than human beings; extraordinary anatomical specimens, whose muscles, +working as they ran, were as visible as though no skin covered them. There +were young women, young children, and women far advanced in pregnancy; and +they all went by like automatic figures, clockwork marionettes. + +It was a pitiable spectacle enough, these laden creatures, mute looking as +dumb beasts; but there was nothing especially to shock the eye of the +European, for it is the long-prepared treason against this people, devised +and carried out by nature, that their black mask covers a multitude of +other people's sins and their own untold sufferings. + +Had they been white, the despairing look, the sunken eyes, the hundred +signs that tell of suffering and slavery would have been visible, would +have appealed to the heart; but the black mass could not express these +things fully. They were niggers, uglier looking and more depressed looking +than other niggers--that was all. + +And so Adams passed on, without knowing what he had seen and the only +impression the sight made on his mind was one of disgust. + +One fact his professional eye noticed as the crowd passed by. Four of the +women had lost their left hands. + +The hands had been amputated just above the wrist in three cases, and one +woman 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, camping +for the night, after a twenty-five miles' journey, in a break of the +forest. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +BIG GAME + + +Just as going along the coast by Pondoland one sees English park scenery +running down to the very sea edge, so the Congo has its surprises in +strips of country that might, as far as appearance goes, have been cut out +of Europe and planted here. + +This glade which Felix had chosen for a camping place was strewn with +rough grass and studded here and there with what at first sight seemed +apple trees: they were in reality thorns. + +The camp was pitched and the fires lit on the edge of the forest, and then +Berselius proceeded to take tale of his people and found one missing. One +of the cook boys had dropped behind and vanished. He had been lame shortly +after the start. The soldiers had not seen him drop behind, but the +porters 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 a +group of savages, if they have the same idea in common, will all shout +together 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 heedlessness +and want of initiative. He would have flogged the whole lot soundly, but +he wanted them fresh for the morrow's work. Cutting down their rations +would but weaken them, and as for threatening to dock their pay, such a +threat has no effect on a savage. + +"Look!" said Berselius. + +He had just dismissed the porters with a reprimand when his keen eye +caught sight of something far up the glade. It wanted an hour of sunset. + +Adams, following the direction in which Berselius was gazing, saw, a great +distance off, to judge by the diminishing size of the thorn trees, a form +that 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 at +once what it was. + +"Bull rhinoceros," said Berselius. "Been lying up in the thick stuff all +day; come out to feed." He made a sign to Felix who, knowing exactly what +was wanted, dived into the tent and came back with a .400 cordite rifle +and Adams's elephant gun. + +"Come," said Berselius, "the brute is evidently thinking. They stay like +that for an hour sometimes. If we have any luck, we may get a shot +sideways before he moves. There's not a breath of wind." + +They started, Felix following with the guns. + +"I would not bother about him," said Berselius, "only the meat will be +useful, 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 a +rhino if you can reach it; for other animals aim at the neck, no matter +what animal it is, or whether it is a lion or a buck; the neck shot is the +knock-out blow. I have seen a lion shot through the heart travel fifty +yards and kill a man; had he been struck in the neck he would have fallen +in his tracks." + +"Cow," said Felix 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; she +was paler in colour, too, and showed up not nearly so well. Then she +vanished into the thick stuff, but the bull remained standing, immovable +as though he were made of cast iron, and the two awful horns, now more +distinct, cut the background like scimitars. + +The rhinoceros, like the aboriginal native of the Congo, has come straight +down from pre-Adamite days almost without change. He is half blind now; he +can scarcely see twenty yards, he is still moving in the night of the +ancient world, and the smell of a man excites the wildest apprehension in +his vestige of a mind. He scents you, flings his heavy head from side to +side, and then to all appearances he charges you. + +Nothing could appear more wicked, ferocious, and full of deadly intent +than this charge; yet, in reality, the unfortunate brute is not seeking +you at all, but running away from you; for the rhino when running away +always runs in the direction from which the wind is blowing. You are in +that direction, else your scent could not reach him; as your scent grows +stronger and stronger, the more alarmed does he become and the quicker he +runs. Now he sights you, or you fire. If you miss, God help you, for he +charges the flash with all his fright suddenly changed to fury. + +They had got within four hundred yards from the brute when a faint puff of +wind stirred the grass, and instantly the rhino shifted his position. + +"He's got our scent," said Berselius, taking the cordite rifle from Felix, +who handed his gun also to Adams. "He's got it strong. We will wait for +him here." + +The rhino, after a few uneasy movements, began to "run about." One could +see 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 for +Berselius and his companions, and charged. + +The sound of him coming was like the sound of a great drum beaten by a +lunatic. + +"Don't fire till I give the word," cried Berselius, "and aim just behind +the shoulder." + +Adams, who was to the left of the charging beast, raised the rifle and +looked down the sights. He knew that if he missed, the brute would charge +the flash and be on him perhaps before he could give it the second +barrel. + +It was exactly like standing before an advancing express engine. An +engine, moreover, that had the power of leaving the metals to chase you +should you not derail it. + +Would Berselius never speak! Berselius all the time was glancing from the +rhino to Adams. + +"Fire!" + +The ear-blasting report of the elephant gun echoed from the forest, and +the 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 had +never gone through a moment of more deadly nerve tension. + +He was moving toward his quarry, now stretched stiff and stark, when he +was arrested by Felix. + +"Cow," said Felix 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, and +touched off, perform the same actions, the cow did exactly what the bull +had done--ran about in a fierce and distressed manner and then charged +right 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, since +the very starting of the expedition, shown little of his true character to +his companion. What he had shown up to this had not lowered Adams's +respect for him. + +Self-restraint seemed the mainspring of that commanding force which this +strange man exercised. His reprimand to the porters for the loss of the +boy, expressed in a few quiet words, had sent them shivering to their +places, cowed and dumb. Animal instinct seemed to tell them of a terrible +animal which the self-restraint of that quiet-looking little man, with the +pointed beard, alone prevented from breaking upon them. + +Berselius had allowed the bull to approach to a little over a hundred +yards before letting Adams fire. He had gauged the American's nerve to a +nicety and his power of self-restraint, and he knew that beyond the +hundred-yard limit he dared not trust them; for no man born of woman who +has not had a good experience of big game can stand up to a charging +rhinoceros and take certain aim when the hundred-yard limit has been +passed. + +The thunderous drumming of the oncoming brute echoed from the forest. Had +its head been a feather-pillow the impact of the three tons of solid flesh +moving behind it would have been certain death; but the head was an +instrument of destruction, devised when the megatherium walked the world, +and the long raking horn would have ripped up an elephant as easily as a +sharp 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 limit +was passed, and then he hung on his aim so horribly that Adams felt the +sweat-drops running on his face like ants, and even Felix swallowed like a +man who is trying to choke down something nauseous. It was a magnificent +exhibition of daring and self-restraint and cool assurance. + +At twenty-five yards or a little under, the cordite rang out. The brute +seemed to trip, just as the other had done, over some invisible +taut-stretched wire, and skidding with its own impetus, squealing, +striking out and tearing up the grass, it came right up to Berselius's +feet before stiffening in death. Like the great automaton it was, it had +scented the human beings just as the bull had scented them, "fussed" just +as 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. There +were no longer soldiers, or gun-bearers, or porters; every distinction was +forgotten; 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 stretched +forever in death. They lay as they had composed themselves after that long +stiff stretch which every animal takes before settling itself for eternal +sleep; and Adams stood looking at the great grinning masks tipped with the +murderous horns, whilst Berselius, with his gun butt resting on his boot, +stood watching with a brooding eye as the porters and gun-bearers swarmed +like ants around the slain animals and proceeded, under his direction, to +cut them up. Then the meat was brought into camp. The tails and the best +parts of the carcasses, including the kidneys, were reserved for the white +men, and the rations from the rest of the meat were served out; but a +dozen porters who had been last in the line, and who were accountable for +letting 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 the +missing boy limped into camp. He had a thorn half an inch long in his +foot, which Adams extracted. Then the camp went to bed. + +Adams in his tent under the mosquito net slept soundly and heard and knew +nothing of the incidents of the night. Berselius was also sleeping soundly +when, at about one o'clock in the morning, Felix aroused him. + +One of the porters had been caught stealing some of the meat left over +from the distribution of the night before. + +The extraordinary thing was that he had fed well, not being one of the +proscribed. He had stolen from pure greed. + +He was an undersized man, a weakling, and likely to break down and give +trouble anyway. His crime was great. + +Berselius sent Felix to his tent for a Mauser pistol. Then the body was +flung into the forest where the roaring, rasping cry of a leopard was +splitting the dark. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +M'BASSA + + +Seven days' march took them one hundred and twenty miles east of Yandjali +and 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 had +delayed here and there to shoot, and the extra porters, whose duty it was +to carry the trophies, were already in requisition. + +It had been forest most of the way, but forest broken by open spaces; they +had crossed two great swards of park-like country where the antelope herds +moved like clouds, marvellous natural preserves that might have been +English but for the tropic haze and heat and the great n'sambya trees with +their yellow bell-like blossoms, the m'binas with their bursts of scarlet +bloom, the tall feather-palms, and the wild papaws of the adjoining +woods. + +But in the last two days of the march the forest had thickened and taken a +more sombre note; nothing they had come upon heretofore had been quite so +wild as this, so luxuriant and tropical. It was the haunt of the rubber +vine, that mysterious plant which requires a glass-house atmosphere and a +soil especially rich. The great rubber forest of M'Bonga, thousands of +square miles in extent, is really composed of two forests joined by an +isthmus of woods. Dimly, it is shaped like an hourglass; south of the +constriction where the two forests join lies the elephant country for +which Berselius was making, and Felix had led them so craftily and well, +that they struck into the rubber district only fifty miles from the +constriction. + +In the forest, thirty miles from the elephant ground, lies the Belgian +fort M'Bassa. They were making for this place now, which was to be the +base from which they would start on the great hunt. + +The fort of M'Bassa is not used to-day as a fort, only as a +collecting-place for rubber. In the early days it was a very necessary +entrenchment for the Belgians, as a tribe almost as warlike as the Zappo +Zaps terrorized the districts; but the people of this tribe have long been +brought 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 by +the Government. + +In the great forest of M'Bonga the rubber vines are not equally +distributed. Large areas occur in which they are not found; only in the +most desolate places do they grow. You cannot tame and prune and bring the +rubber vine into subjection; it will have nothing to do with the vineyard +and the field; it chooses to grow alone. + +Everything else comes to its harvest with a joyous face, but the rubber +vine, 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 found +in patches, so the harvesters cannot go in a body, as men do to the +harvesting of the corn, or the cotton, or the grape; they have to break up +into small parties and these again subdivide, leaving a single individual +here and there where the vines are thickest. He, entirely alone, at the +mercy of the evil spirits that are in his imagination and the beasts that +are in the forest, makes a rude shelter out of boughs and leaves, and sets +to work making incisions in the vine and draining them drop by drop of +their viscous sap. + +Sometimes he sings over this monotonous work, and in the long rains +between the intervals of the shower-bath roarings you can hear the +ululations of these folk through the drip of the leaves, and at night the +spark-like glimmer of their fires dots the reeking gloom. + +These are the conditions of the rubber collector's task, and it is not a +task that ever can be finished; year in, year out, it never ceases. + +These woods through which Felix led them were to the woods near Yandjali +what the music of Beethoven is to the music of Mozart. + +Immense and gloomy symphonies. The trees were huge, and groaned beneath +the weight of lianas cable-thick. At times they had to burst their way +through the veils of leaves and vines, the porters losing themselves and +calling one to the other, and the head of the expedition halting till the +stragglers were collected; at times the ground they trod on was like +grease from the cast-down fruit of the plantains that grew here enormous, +and sodden, and dismal, showering their fruit in such quantities that the +bush-pigs, devour as they might, could never dispose of it all. + +On some of the trees, like huge withered leaves, hung bats, and from some +of the trees the beard-moss hung yards long, and of a spectral gray; the +very weeds trodden underfoot were sappy, and the smell of their squirting +juice mixed itself with the smell of decay. + +It was not even ground, either; the whole forest would dip down into an +unseen valley; you felt yourself going down hill, down, down, and then you +knew you were at the bottom of a sub-arboreal valley by the deeper +stagnation of the air. Open spaces, when they came, showed little sky, and +they were less open spaces than rooms in the surrounding prison. + +Felix was not leading them through the uttermost depths of this place; he +was following the vague indications of a road by which the rubber from +M'Bassa was carted to the river. + +They were travelling along a highway, in fact, and the dimmest indication +of a track where other men have been before is a thing which robs the +wilderness of much of its terror. + +The loneliness of the forest beyond track or way, in those vast depths +where 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 they +struck 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 the +highest 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 the +returning 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--what +could be more acceptable to the eye after the long, long tramp through the +heart-breaking forest! + +The fort of M'Bassa was quite small; the surrounding walls had gone to +decay, but the "guest house" and the office, and the great go-down where +the 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, with +the eternal red fez on his head and a rifle slung on his back, was the +first to sight the coming expedition, and to notify its approach with a +yell that brought a dozen like him from the sun-baked hovels and, a moment +later from the office, a white man in a pith helmet, who stood for a +moment looking across the half-ruined wall at the newcomers, and then +advanced to meet them. + +He was a middle-sized man, with a melancholy face that showed very white +under the shadow of the helmet; he was dressed in dingy white drill, and +he had a cigarette between his lips. + +He looked like a man who had never in his life smiled, yet his face was +not an unpleasant face altogether, though there was much in it to give the +observer pause. + +His voice was not an unpleasant voice, altogether, yet there was that in +it, as he greeted Berselius, which struck Adams sharply and strangely; for +the voice of Andreas Meeus, _Chef de Poste_ at M'Bassa, was the voice of a +man who for two years had been condemned to talk the language of the +natives. It had curious inflections, hesitancies, and a dulness that +expressed the condition of a brain condemned for two years to think the +thoughts of the natives in their own language. + +Just as the voice of a violin expresses the condition of the violin, so +does the voice of a man express the condition of his mind. And that is the +fact that will strike you most if you travel in the wilds of the Congo +State and talk to the men of your own colour who are condemned to live +amongst the people. + +One might have compared Meeus's voice to the voice of a violin--a violin +that had been attacked by some strange fungoid growth that had filled its +interior and dulled the sounding board. + +He had been apprised a month before of the coming of Berselius's +expedition, and one might imagine the servility which this man would show +to the all-powerful Berselius, whose hunting expeditions were +red-carpeted, who was hail-fellow-well-met with Leopold, who, by lifting +his finger, could cause Andreas Meeus to be dismissed from his post, and +by crooking his finger cause him to be raised to a Commissionership. + +Yet he showed no servility at all. He had left servility behind him, just +as 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 the +fort, or rather into the enclosure surrounded by the ruinous mud walls, an +enclosure of about a hundred yards square. + +On the right of the quadrangle stood the go-down, where the rubber and a +small quantity of ivory was stored. + +In the centre stood the misnamed guest house, a large mud and wattle +building, with a veranda gone to decay. + +The blinding sun shone on it all, showing up with its fierce light the +true and appalling desolation of the place. There was not one thing in the +enclosure upon which the eye could rest with thankfulness. + +Turning from the enclosure and looking across the fort wall to the +distance, one saw a world as far from civilization as the world that +Romulus looked at when he gazed across the wall outlining the first dim +sketch of Rome. + +To the north, forest; to the south, forest; to the east, forest; and to +the west, eternal and illimitable forest. Blazing sun, everlasting haze +that in the rainy season would become mist and silence. + +In the storms and under the rains the great rubber forest of M'Bonga would +roar like a reef-tormented sea, but on a day like this, when, gazing from +the high ground of the fort, the eye travelled across the swelling domes +and 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 things +beyond, on a day like this, silence gazed at one Sphinx-like, and from the +distance of a million years. Silence that had brooded upon Africa before +Africa had a name, before Pharaoh was born, before Thebes was built. + +Meeus led the way into the guest house, which contained only two +rooms--rooms spacious enough, but bare of everything except the ordinary +necessities of life. In the living room there was a table of white +deal-like wood and three or four chairs evidently made by natives from a +European design. A leopard skin, badly dried and shrivelling at the edges, +hung on one wall, presumably as an ornament; on another wall some Congo +bows and arrows--bows with enormously thick strings and arrows poisoned so +skilfully that a scratch from one would kill you, though they had been +hanging there for many years. They were trophies of the early days when +Fort M'Bassa was really a fort, and from those woods down there clouds of +soot-black devils, with filed teeth, raided the place, only to be swept +away by rifle fire. + +There was no picture torn from an illustrated paper adorning the place, as +in Verhaeren's abode, but on a rudely constructed shelf there lay just the +same stack of "official letters," some of these two years old, some of +last month, all dealing with trade. + +Meeus brought out cigarettes and gin, but Berselius, safe now at his base +of operations, to make a little festival of the occasion sent to the +stores, which his porters had deposited in the go-down, for a magnum of +champagne. It was Cliquot, and as Meeus felt the glow of the wine in his +veins, a flush came into his hollow cheeks and a brightness into his dull +eyes; forgotten things stirred again in his memory, with the shadows of +people he had known--the glitter of lamplit streets in Brussels, the glare +of the _Cafe 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 clerkship +under the Belgian Government, from which he had been dismissed through a +fault of his own. + +This was five years ago. Up to his dismissal he had led the peddling and +sordid life that a small government clerk on the Continent leads if he has +nothing to save him from himself and from his fellows: the dry rot of +official life had left him useless for anything but official life. A +sensualist in a small way, he enlarged his sphere on the day of his +dismissal, when he found himself cut off from work and adrift in the +world, with five hundred francs in his pocket. In one glorious debauch, +which lasted a week, he spent the five hundred francs, and then he settled +down 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 annuity +died with her. He felt her loss deeply, for not only had her money helped +to support him, but she was his only real friend, and he had a heart in +those days that seemed so far distant from him now. + +Then it was that Poverty took him by the hand and explained patiently and +with diagrams the hardness of the world, the atrocious position of the +_declasse_, who has never studied the art of roguery so as to make a +living by it, and the utter uselessness as friends of those good fellows +who sat in the _cafes_ and walked the boulevards and ogled the women. + +He tramped the streets of Brussels, at first in seedy clothes and at last +in filth and horrible rags. A relative came to his assistance with two +hundred francs; he bought himself clothes and made himself respectable, +but, in a fortnight, found himself relapsing again, sinking like a swimmer +whose momentary support has gone to pieces. + +Just as the waves were again about to close over his benighted head, an +acquaintance got him a post under Government. Not under the Belgian but +the Congo Government. + +Andreas Meeus was exactly the type of man this Government required, and +still requires, and still uses and must continue to use as long as the +infernal machine which it has invented for the extraction of gold from +niggers continues to work. A man, that is to say, who has eaten +orange-peel picked up in the market-place; a man who has worn out his +friends--and his clothes. A man without hope. + +One would think for the work in hand they would choose the greatest +blackguards possible: convicts convicted of the worst crimes of violence. +Not at all. These men would be for one thing too intractable; for another +thing, too unstable, and for another thing (strange to say), possessed of +too much heart. The Congo Government knows its work far too well for that. +It does not take the murderer or the violent criminal from the +penitentiary to do its work; it takes from the streets the man without +hope. 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 of +going, but he had to go, or stay and starve. He was stationed three months +at Boma and then he was moved to a post on the Upper Congo, a small and +easily worked post, where he found out the full conditions of his new +servitude. + +This post had to do with what they call in the jargon of the Congo +administration, Forest Exploitation. Gum copal and wax was the stuff he +had to extract from the people round about. + +Here he found himself morally in the clutches of that famous and infamous +proclamation issued from Brussels on the twentieth of June, 1892, by +Secretary of State Van Estvelde. + +The Bonus Proclamation. + +According to the terms of this proclamation, Meeus found that besides his +pay he could get a bonus on every kilo of wax and copal he could extract +from the natives, and that the cheaper he could get the stuff the more his +bonus would be. + +Thus, for every kilo of wax or copal screwed out of the natives at a cost +of five centimes or less, he received into his pocket a bonus of fifteen +centimes, that is to say the bonus to Meeus was three times what the +natives got; if by any laxity or sense of justice, the cost of the wax or +copal rose to six centimes a kilo, Meeus only got ten centimes bonus, and +so on. + +The cheaper he got the stuff the more he was paid for it. And those were +the terms on which he had to trade with the natives. + +Then there were the taxes. The natives had to bring in huge quantities of +wax and copal for nothing, just as a tax owing to the State, a tax to the +Government that was plundering and exploiting them. + +Meeus, who had a spice of the tradesman in him, fell into this state of +things as easily as a billiard ball falls into a pocket when skilfully +directed. + +The unfortunate man was absolutely a billiard ball in the hands of a +professional player; the stroke of the cue had been given in Belgium, he +rolled 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 a +more 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 of +animals, but Matabiche, the god-devil of the Congo, changed all that. + +He saw nothing extortionate in his dealings, nothing wrong in them. When +things were going well, then all was well; but when the natives resisted +his charges and taxes, defrauding him of his bonus and lowering him in the +eyes 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 rubber +forest that was now speechless as a Sphinx, now roaring at him like a sea +in torment; here in the endless sunlight of the dry seasons and the +endless misery of the rains, Meeus driven in upon himself, had time to +think. + +There is no prison so terrible as a limitless prison. Far better for a man +to inhabit a cell in Dartmoor than a post in the desert of the forest. The +walls are companionable things, but there is no companionship in +distance. + +Meeus knew what it was to look over the walls of the fort and watch +another sun setting on another day, and another darkness heralding another +night. He knew what it was to watch infinite freedom and to know it for +his captor and jailer. He knew what it was to wake from his noonday siesta +and see the same great awful splash of sunlight striking the same old +space of arid yard, where the empty tomato tin lay by the rotten plantain +cast over by some nigger child. He knew what it was to lie and hear the +flies buzzing and wonder what tune of the devil it was they were trying to +imitate. He knew what it was to think of death with the impotent craving +of 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 from +hour to hour in this world where we live. Your morning paper, the new book +from the library you have just got to read, the pipe you hope to smoke +when you return from work, the very details of your work; a hundred and +one petty things that make up the day of an ordinary man, breaking the +monotony and breaking the prospect before him into short views. + +Meeus had none of these. Without literature or love, without a woman to +help 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 became +what he was. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +NIGHT AT THE FORT + + +The night was hot and close and the paraffin lamp in the guest house mixed +its smell with the tobacco smoke and with a faint, faint musky odour that +came from the night outside. Every now and then a puff of hot wind blew +through the open doorway, hot and damp as though a great panther were +breathing into the room. + +The nights in the forest were chill, but up here at Fort M'Bassa they were +stewing in a heat wave. + +Adams, with his coat off, pipe in mouth, was leaning back in a basket +chair with his feet on a sugar box. Berselius, in another easy chair, was +smoking a cigar, and Meeus, sitting with his elbows on the table, was +talking of trade and its troubles. There is an evil spirit in rubber that +gives a lot of trouble to those who deal with it. The getting of it is bad +enough, but the tricks of the thing itself are worse. It is subject to all +sorts of influences, climatic and other, and tends to deteriorate on its +journey to the river and the coast of Europe. + +It was marvellous to see the passion with which this man spoke of this +inanimate thing. + +"And then, ivory," said Meeus. "When I came here first, hundred-pound +tusks were common; when you reach that district, M. le Capitaine, you will +see for yourself, no doubt, that the elephants have decreased. What comes +in now, even, is not of the same quality. Scrivelloes (small tusks), +defective tusks, for which one gets almost nothing as a bonus. And with +the decrease of the elephant comes the increased subterfuge of the +natives. 'What are we to do?' they say. 'We cannot make elephants.' This +is the worst six months for ivory I have had, and then, on top of +this--for troubles always come together--I have this bother I told you of +with these people down there by the Silent Pools." + +A village ten miles to the east had, during the last few weeks, suspended +rubber payments, gone arrear in taxes, the villagers running off into the +forest 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 by +this, for I have had no word for two days; anyhow, to-morrow I will walk +over and see. If it hasn't blown over, I will give the people very clearly +to understand that there will be trouble. I will stay there for a few days +and 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 no +harm. 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 cigarette +between his fingers with a dreamy expression, and speaking as though he +were addressing it. "One lives." + +That, thought Adams, must be the worst part about it. But he did not speak +the 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 for +Meeus was profound. The man had been for two years in this benighted +solitude; two years without seeing a white face, except on the rare +occasion of a District Commissioner's visit. + +He ought to have been mad by this, thought Adams; and he was a judge, for +he had studied madness and its causes. + +But Meeus was not mad in the least particular. He was coldly sane. Lust +had saved his reason, the lust inspired by Matabiche. + +Berselius's cook brought in some coffee, and when they had talked long +enough about the Congo trade in its various branches, they went out and +smoked 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 a +boat-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 his +pocket 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 that +liquefies morals and manners and temper and nerve force, so that they run +with the sweat from the pores. Drink will not "bite" in this heat, and a +stiff glass of brandy affects the head almost as little as a glass of +water. + +"It is over there," said Meeus, pointing to the southeast, "that we are +going to-morrow to interview those beasts." + +Adams started at the intensity of loathing expressed by Meeus in that +sentence. He had spoken almost angrily at rubber and tusks, but his +languid, complaining voice had held nothing like this before. + +Those beasts! He hated them, and he would not have been human had he not +hated them. They were his jailers in very truth, their work was his +deliverance. + +The revolt of this village would make him short of rubber; probably it +would bring a reprimand from his superiors. + +A great bat flitted by so close that the smell of it poisoned the air, and +from the forest, far away to the west, came the ripping saw-like cry of a +leopard on the prowl. Many fierce things were hunting in the forest that +night, but nothing fiercer than Meeus, as he stood in the moonlight, +cigarette in mouth, staring across the misty forest in the direction of +the Silent Pools. + + + + +PART THREE + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE POOLS OF SILENCE + + +Next morning Berselius ordered Felix to have the tents taken from the +go-down and enough stores for two days. Tents and stores would be carried +by the "soldiers" of the fort, who were to accompany them on the +expedition. + +Adams noticed with surprise the childlike interest Meeus took in the +belongings of Berselius; the green rot-proof tents, the latest invention +of Europe, seemed to appeal to him especially; the Roorkee chairs, the +folding baths, the mosquito nets of the latest pattern, the cooking +utensils of pure aluminum, filled his simple mind with astonishment. His +mind during his sojourn at Fort M'Bassa had, in fact, grown childlike in +this particular; nothing but little things appealed to him. + +Whilst the expedition was getting ready Adams strolled about outside the +fort walls. The black "soldiers," who were to accompany them, were seated +in the sun near their hovels, some of them cleaning their rifles, others +smoking; but for their rifles and fez caps they might, with a view of +Carthage in the distance, have been taken for the black legionaries of +Hamilcar, ferocious mercenaries without country or God, fierce as the +music of the leopard-skin drums that led them to battle. + +Turning, he walked round the west wall till he came to the wall on the +north, which was higher than the others. Here, against the north wall, was +a sheltered cover like an immense sty, indescribably filthy and +evil-smelling; about thirty rings were fastened to the wall, and from each +ring depended a big rusty chain ending in a collar. + +It was the Hostage House of Fort M'Bassa. It was empty now, but nearly +always full, and it stood there like a horrible voiceless witness. + +A great disgust filled the mind of Adams; disgust of the niggers who had +evidently lately inhabited this place, and disgust of the Belgians who had +herded them there. He felt there was something very wrong in the state of +Congo. The Hostage House of Yandjali had started the impression; Meeus in +some subtle way had deepened it; and now this. + +But he fully recognized what difficult people to deal with niggers are. He +felt that all this was slavery under a thin disguise, this so-called +taxation and "trade," but it was not his affair. + +All work is slavery more or less pleasant. The doctor is the slave of his +patients, the shopkeeper of his clients. These niggers were, no doubt, +slaves of the Belgians, but they were not bought and sold; they had to +work, it is true, but all men have to work. Besides, Berselius had told +him that the Belgians had stopped the liquor traffic and stopped the Arab +raiders. There was good and bad on the side of the Belgians, and the +niggers were niggers. So reasoned Adams, and with reason enough, though +from insufficient data. + +At eight o'clock in the blazing sunshine, that even then was oppressive, +the expedition started. The white men leading, Felix coming immediately +behind, and eleven of the soldiers, bearing the tents and stores for two +days, following after. + +They plunged into the forest, taking a dim track, which was the rubber +track from the village of the Silent Pools and from half a dozen other +villages to the west. The ground here was different from the ground they +had traversed in coming to the fort. This was boggy; here and there the +foot sank with a sough into the pulp of morass and rotten leaves; the +lianas 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 the +rubber vines entrench themselves with these. The naked rubber collectors, +shivering over their fires, are attacked by the rheumatism and dysentery +and fever that lie in these swamps; diseases almost merciful, for the +aches and pains they cause draw the mind away from the wild beasts and +devils 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 forest +cleared away and fairyland appeared. + +Here in the very depths of the hopeless jungle, as if laid out and +forgotten by some ancient god, lie the Silent Pools of Matabayo and the +park-like lands that hold them. Like a beautiful song in some tragic and +gloomy opera, a regret of the God who created the hopeless forest, +sheltered by the great n'sambya trees, they lie; pools of shadowy and +tranquil water, broken by reflections of branches and mirroring speargrass +ten feet high and fanlike fern fronds. + +All was motionless and silent as a stereoscopic picture; the rocketing +palms bursting into sprays of emerald green, the n'sambyas with their +trumpet-like yellow blossoms, the fern fronds reduplicating themselves in +the water's glass, all and each lent their motionless beauty to the +completion of the perfect picture. + +In the old days, long ago, before the land was exploited and the forest +turned into a hunting ground for rubber, the lovely head of the oryx would +push aside the long green blades of the speargrass; then, bending her lips +to 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 came +here in herds from the elephant country away south, beyond the +hour-glass-like constriction which divided the great forest, and the tiny +dik-dik, smallest of all antelopes, came also to take its sip. But all +that is past. The rifle and the trap, at the instigation of the devouring +Government that eats rubber and antelope, ivory and palm-oil, cassava and +copal, has thinned out the herds and driven them away. The "soldier" must +be 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 in +that short time he found enormous change. But he could not grumble. He was +a shareholder in the company, and in twenty industries depending on it. + +Close up to the forest, where the m'bina trees showed their balls of +scarlet blossom, lay the village they had come to reason with. There were +twenty-five or more low huts of wattle and mud, roofed with leaves and +grass. No one was visible but an old woman, naked, all but for a slight +covering about the loins. She was on all fours, grinding something between +two stones, and as she sighted the party she looked backward over her +shoulder at them like a frightened cat. + +She cried out in a chattering voice, and from the huts six others, naked +as herself, came, stared at the whites, and then, as if driven by the same +impulse, and just like rabbits, darted into the forest. + +But Meeus had counted on this, and had detached seven of his men to crawl +round and post themselves at the back of the huts amidst the trees. + +A great hullaballoo broke out, and almost immediately the soldiers +appeared, driving the seven villagers before them with their rifle-butts. + +They were not hurting them, just pushing them along, for this was, up to +the present, not a punitive expedition but a fatherly visitation to point +out the evils of laziness and insubordination, and to get, if possible, +these poor wretches to communicate with the disaffected ones and make them +return to their work. + +Adams nearly laughed outright at the faces of the villagers; black +countenances drawn into all the contortions of fright, but the contortions +of their bodies were more laughable still, as they came forward like +naughty children, driven by the soldiers, putting their hands out behind +to evade the prods of the gun-butts. + +Berselius had ordered the tents to be raised on the sunlit grass, for the +edge of the forest, though shady, was infested by clouds of tiny black +midges--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 be +afraid, and when the tents were erected he and Berselius and Adams, +sitting in the shelter of the biggest tent, faced the seven villagers, all +drawn up in a row and backed by the eleven soldiers in their red fez +caps. + +The villagers, backed by the soldiers and fronted by Meeus, formed a +picture which was the whole Congo administration in a nutshell. In a +sentence, underscored by the line of blood-red fezzes. + +These seven undersized, downtrodden, hideously frightened creatures, with +eyeballs rolling and the marks of old chain scars on their necks, were the +representatives of all the humble and meek tribes of the Congo, the people +who for thousands of years had lived a lowly life, humble as the coneys of +Scripture; people who had cultivated the art of agriculture and had +carried civilization as far as their weak hands would carry it in that +benighted land. Literally the salt of that dark earth. Very poor salt, it +is true, but the best they could make of themselves. + +These eleven red-tipped devils, gun-butting the others to make them stand +erect and keep in line, were the representatives of the warlike tribes who +for 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 armed +and drilled and brought under good pay all the warlike tribes of the Congo +State 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 enacted +before their eyes. + +I am not fond of parallels, but as these people have ranged themselves +thus before my eyes, I cannot help pointing out the full meaning of the +picture. A picture which is photographically true. + +There was a little pot-bellied boy amongst the villagers, the old woman of +the grindstone was holding him by the hand; he, of all the crowd, did not +look in the least frightened. His eyeballs rolled, but they rolled in +wonder. + +The tent seemed to take his fancy immensely; then the big Adams struck his +taste, and he examined him from tip to toe. + +Adams, greatly taken with the blackamoor, puffed out his cheeks, closed +one eye, and instantly, as if at the blow of a hatchet, the black face +split, disclosing two white rows of teeth, and then hid itself, rubbing a +snub nose against the old woman's thigh. + +But a rolling white eyeball reappeared in a moment, only to vanish again +as 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 any +child. + +All this was quite unobserved by the rest, and all this time Meeus gravely +and slowly was talking to the villagers in a quiet voice. They were to +send one of their number into the forest to find the defaulters and urge +them to return. Then all would be well. That was the gist of his +discourse; and the wavering line of niggers rolled their eyes and +answered, "We hear, we hear," all together and like one person speaking, +and they were nearly tumbling down with fright, for they knew that all +would not be well, and that what the awful white man with the pale, grave +face said to them was lies, lies, lies--all lies. + +Besides the old woman and the child there were two young girls, an old +man, a boy of fifteen or so, with only one foot, and a pregnant woman very +near her time. + +Adams had almost forgotten the nigger child when a white eyeball gazing at +him from between the old woman's legs recalled its existence. + +He thought he had never seen a jollier animal of the human tribe than +that. The creature was so absolutely human and full of fun that it was +difficult to believe it the progeny of these downtrodden, frightened +looking folk. And the strange thing was, it had all the tricks of an +English or American child. + +The hiding and peeping business, the ready laugh followed by bashfulness +and self-effacement, the old unalterable impudence, which is not least +amidst the _prima mobilia_ of the childish mind. In another moment, he +felt, the thing would forget its respect and return his grimaces, so he +ignored it and fixed his attention on Meeus and the trembling wretches he +was addressing. + +When the lecture was over they were dismissed, and the boy with the +amputated foot was sent off to the forest to find the delinquents and +bring them back. Till sunrise on the following day was the term given +him. + +If the others did not begin to return by that time there would be +trouble. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BEHIND THE MASK + + +The Silent Pools and the woods around were the haunts of innumerable +birds. Rose-coloured flamingoes and gorgeous ducks, birds arrayed in all +the jewellery of the tropics, birds not much bigger than dragon-flies, and +birds that looked like flying beetles. + +When they had dined, Adams, leaving the others to smoke and take their +siesta, went off by the water's edge on a tour of the pools. They were +three in number; sheets of water blue and tranquil and well-named, for +surely in all the world nowhere else could such perfect peace be found. +Perhaps it was the shelter of the forest protecting these windless sheets +of water; perhaps it was the nature of the foliage, so triumphantly alive +yet so motionless; perhaps beyond these some more recondite reason +influenced the mind and stirred the imagination. Who knows? The spirit of +the scene was there. The spirit of deep and unalterable peace. The peace +of shadowy lagoons, the peace of the cedar groves where the sheltering +trees shaded the loveliness of Merope, the peace of the heart which passes +all understanding and which men have named the Peace of God. + +It was the first time since leaving Yandjali that Adams had found himself +alone and out of sight of his companions. He breathed deeply, as if +breathing in the air of freedom, and as he strode along, tramping through +the 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 and +grace, a small antelope passed with the swiftness of an arrow; after it, +almost touching it, came another form, yellow and fierce and flashing +through the grass and vanishing, like the antelope, amidst the high +grasses on the edge of the pool. + +The antelope had rushed to the water for protection, and the leopard had +followed, carried forward by its impetus and ferocity, for Adams could +hear its splash following the splash of the quarry; then a roar split the +silence, echoed from the trees, and sent innumerable birds fluttering and +crying 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 from +the shore, in the midst of a lather of water that seemed beaten up with a +great swizzle-stick, the leopard's head, mouth open, roaring, horrified +his eyes for a moment and then was jerked under the surface. + +The water closed, eddied, and became still, and Silence resumed her sway +over the Silent Pools. + +Something beneath the water had devoured the antelope; something beneath +the water had dragged the leopard to its doom, and swish! a huge flail +tore the speargrass to ribbons and sent Adams flying backward with the +wind of its passage. + +Another foot and the crocodile's tail would have swept him to the fate of +the antelope and leopard. + +The place was alive with ferocity and horror, and it seemed to Adams that +the Silent Pools had suddenly slipped the mask of silence and beauty and +shown to him the face of hideous death. + +He wiped the sweat from his brow. He was unarmed, and it seemed that a +man, to walk in safety through this Garden of Eden, ought to be armed to +the teeth. He turned back to the camp, walking slowly and seeing nothing +of 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 their +siesta they had gone for a stroll by the water's edge in the opposite +direction to that which he had taken. The soldiers were on duty, keeping a +watchful eye on the villagers; all were seated, the villagers in front of +their 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 and +there, and who seemed quite destitute of fear or concern. + +When this creature saw the gigantic Adams who looked even more gigantic in +his white drill clothes, it laughed and ran away, with hands outspread and +head half slewed round. Then it hid behind a tree. There is nothing more +charming than the flight of a child when it wishes to be pursued. It is +the instinct of women and children to run away, so as to lead you on, and +it is the instinct of a rightly constituted man to follow. Adams came +toward the tree, and the villagers seated before their huts and the +soldiers seated in the shade all turned their heads like automata to +watch. + +"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 to +flight or to tree climbing. + +There was nothing visible but two small black hands clutching the tree +bole; 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, had +been looking on nervously, but when the big man sat down she knew he was +only playing with the child, and she called out something in the native, +evidently meant to reassure it. But she might have saved her breath, for +the black bundle behind the tree suddenly left cover and stood with hands +folded, looking at the seated man. + +He drew his watch from his pocket and held it up. It approached. He +whistled, 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 listen +to English children playing in the street you will often hear this +croaking 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 moment +was seized by the foot. + +It rolled on the ground like a dog, laughing and kicking, and Adams +tickled it; and the grim soldiers laughed, showing their sharp white +teeth, and the old grandmother beat her hands together, palm to palm, as +if pleased, and the other villagers looked on without the ghost of an +expression on their black faces. + +Then he jumped it on its feet and sent it back to its people with a slap +on its behind, and returned to his tent to smoke till Berselius and Meeus +returned. + +But he had worked his own undoing, for, till they broke camp, Papeete +haunted him like a buzz-fly, peeping at him, sometimes from under the +tent, trotting after him like a dog, watching him from a distance, till he +began to think of "haunts" and "sendings" and spooks. + +When Berselius and his companion returned, the three men sat and smoked +till supper time. + +At dark the villagers were driven into their huts and at the door of each +hut lay a sentry. + +A big fire was lit, and by its light two more sentries kept watch over the +others and their prisoners. Then the moon rose, spreading silver over the +silence 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 the +birds you could hear the gentle wind in the tree-tops like the sound of a +sea on a low-tide beach. + +The camp was still in gloom, but the whole arc of sky above the pools was +thrilled and filled with living light. Sapphire blue, dazzling and pale, +but deep with infinite distance, it had an intrinsic brilliancy as though +filled with sunbeams brayed to dust. + +The palm tops had caught the morning splendour and then, rapidly, as +though 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 the +golden wing of a vast and flying bird, bearing us along with it in the +wind of its flight? + +The rotation of the earth? But in the desert, on the sea, in the spaces of +the forest you will see in the dawn a vision divorced from time, a +recurring glance of a beauty that is eternal, a ray as if from the bright +world toward which the great bird Time is flying, caught and reflected to +our 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 to +communicate with them had not returned. + +"No news?" said Berselius, as he stepped from his tent-door and glanced +around him. + +"None," replied Meeus. + +Adams now appeared, and the servants who had been preparing breakfast laid +it on the grass. The smell of coffee filled the air; nothing could be more +pleasant than this out-of-doors breakfast in the bright and lovely +morning, the air fresh with the breeze and the voices of birds. + +The villagers were all seated in a group, huddled together at the extreme +left of the row of huts. They were no longer free, but tied together ankle +to ankle by strips of _n'goji_. Only Papeete was at liberty, but he kept +at a distance. He was seated near the old woman, and he was exploring the +interior 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. They +require a lesson." + +"Poor devils!" said Adams. + +Meeus during the meal did not display a trace of irritation. From his +appearance one might have judged that the niggers had returned to their +work, and that everything was going well. At times he appeared +absent-minded, and at times he wore a gloomy but triumphant look, as +though some business which had unpleasant memories attached to it had at +last been settled to his satisfaction. + +After breakfast he drew Berselius aside, and the two men walked away in +the direction of the pools, leaving Adams to smoke his pipe in the shade +of the tent. + +They came back in about half an hour, and Berselius, after speaking a few +words to Felix, turned to Adams. + +"I must ask you to return to Fort M'Bassa and get everything in readiness +for our departure. Felix will accompany you. I will follow in a couple of +hours with M. Meeus. I am afraid we will have to pull these people's +houses down. It's a painful duty, but it has to be performed. You will +save yourself the sight of it." + +"Thanks," said Adams. Not for a good deal of money would he have remained +to see those wretched hovels knocked to pieces. He could perceive plainly +enough that the thing had to be done. Conciliation had been tried, and it +was of no avail. He was quite on the side of Meeus; indeed, he had admired +the self-restraint of this very much tried _Chef de Poste_. Not a hard +word, not a blow, scarcely a threat had been used. The people had been +spoken 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 the +sight. He had nothing to do with the affair, so filling and lighting +another pipe, and leaving all his belongings to be brought on by +Berselius, he turned with Felix and, saying good-bye to his companions, +started. + +They had nearly reached the edge of the forest when shouts from behind +caused 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 few +yards 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 an +assumption 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, seated +beside 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 was +shaking, and he was biting the cigarette, and his lips were dry so that he +had to be continually licking them. + +Berselius was quite calm, but his face was pale, and he seemed +contemplating something at a distance. + +When half an hour had passed, Meeus rose suddenly to his feet and began to +walk 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 closer +together like sheep. Papeete alone seemed undisturbed. He was playing now +with the old tomato tin, out of which he had scraped and licked every +vestige of the contents. + +Suddenly Meeus began crying out to the soldiers in a hard, sharp voice +like the yelping of a dog. + +The time was up, and the soldiers knew. They ranged up, chattering and +laughing, and all at once, as if produced from nowhere, two rhinoceros +hide 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 almost +translucent when properly prepared. In the form of a whip it is less an +instrument of punishment than a weapon. These whips were not the smoothly +prepared whips used for light punishment; they had angles that cut like +sword edges. One wonders what those sentimental people would say--those +sentimental people who cry out if a burly ruffian is ordered twenty +strokes with the cat--could they see a hundred _chicotte_ administered +with a whip that is flexible as india-rubber, hard as steel. + +Two soldiers at the yelping orders of Meeus cut the old woman apart from +her fellows and flung her on the ground. + +The two soldiers armed with whips came to her, and she did not speak a +word, nor cry out, but lay grinning at the sun. + +Papeete, seeing his old grandmother treated like this, dropped his tomato +tin and screamed, till a soldier put a foot on his chest and held him +down. + +"Two hundred _chicotte_," cried Meeus, and like the echo of his words came +the 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 frantic +efforts to escape, and like boys whipping a top, the two soldiers with +their whips pursued her, blow following blow. + +A semicircle of blood on the ground marked her gyrations. Once she almost +gained her feet, but a blow in the face sent her down again. She put her +hands 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 the +stomach, cutting through the walls of the abdomen till the intestines +protruded. She flung herself on her face and they cut into her back with +the whips till her ribs were bare and the fat bulged through the long +slashes in the skin. + +Verily it was a beating to the bitter end, and Meeus, pale, dripping with +sweat, 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 the +instincts of murder and assassination, beyond the instincts that make a +Count Cajus or a Marquis de Sade, it lies, and it leads directly into the +last and nethermost depths of hell, where sits in eternal damnation +Eccelin de Romano. + +Cruelty for cruelty's sake: the mad pleasure of watching suffering in its +most odious form: that is the passion which hides demon-like beneath this +door, 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 draught +as this demon held now to his lips--and not for the first time. The +draught would have been nothing but for the bitterness of it, the horror +of 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 nothing +earthly except a bundle of red rags, gave up the miserable soul it +contained and, stiffening in the clutches of tetanus, became a hoop. + + * * * * * + +What happened then to the remaining villagers could be heard echoing for +miles through the forest in the shrieks and wails of the tortured ones. + +One cannot write of unnamable things, unprintable deeds. The screams +lasted till noon. + +At one o'clock the punitive expedition had departed, leaving the Silent +Pools to their silence. The houses of the village had been destroyed and +trampled out. The sward lay covered with shapeless remains, and scarcely +had the last of the expedition departed, staggering and half drunk with +the 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 a +few yards of the ground; then it spreads its wings and, with wide-opened +talons, lights on its prey. + +Then, a marabout with fore-slanting legs and domed-out wings, came sailing +silently 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 face +looked stiff and bloated, just as a man's face looks after a terrible +debauch. Meeus looked cold and hard and old, but his eyes were bright and +he was seemingly quite himself. + +"To-morrow I shall start," said Berselius. "Not to-day. I am tired and +wish to sleep." He went off to the room where his bed was, and cast +himself 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 enter +that dark country so close to the frontier of death. But what should the +innocent know of a Berselius, who was yet a living man and walked the +earth but a few years ago, and whose prototype is alive to-day. Alive and +powerful and lustful, great in mind, body, and estate. + + * * * * * + +Before sunrise next morning the expedition was marshalled in the courtyard +for the start. + +A great fire burned in the space just before the house, and by its light +the stores and tents were taken from the go-down. The red light of the +fire lit up the black glistening skins of the porters as they loaded +themselves with the chop boxes and tents and guns; lit up the red fez caps +of the onlooking "soldiers," their glittering white teeth, their white +eyeballs, and the barrels of their rifles. + +Beyond and below the fort the forest stretched in the living starlight +like 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 stillness +of all that dead-white world the sky, filled with leaping stars, seemed +alive and vocal. + +It was chill up here just before dawn. Hence the fire. Food had been +served out to the porters, and they ate it whilst getting things ready and +loading up. Berselius and his companions were breakfasting in the guest +house and the light of the paraffin lamp lay on the veranda yellow as +topaz 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 under +the 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 a +rose-red feather tipped with dazzling gold, and dissolved as if washed +away by the rising sea of light. + +A great bustle spread through the courtyard. The remaining stores were +loaded up, and under the direction of Felix, the porters formed in a long +line, their loads on their heads. + +As the expedition left the compound it was already day. The edge of the +sun had leaped over the edge of the forest, the world was filled with +light, and the sky was a sparkling blue. + +What a scene that was! The limitless sea of snow-white mist rippled over +by 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 the +green of tremendous vegetation, and over all, new-built and beautiful, the +blue, tranquil dome of sky. + +It was song materialized in colour and form, the song of the primeval +forests breaking from the mists of chaos, tremendous, triumphant, joyous, +finding day at last, and greeting him with the glory of the palms, with +the rustle of the n'sambyas tossing their golden bugles to the light, the +drip and sigh of the euphorbia trees, the broad-leaved plantains and the +thousand others whose forms hold the gloom of the forest in the mesh of +their 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 sang +the forest. A hundred million trees lent their voices to the song. A +hundred million trees--acacia and palm, m'bina and cottonwood, thorn and +mimosa; in gloom, in shine, in valley and on rise, mist-strewn and +sun-stricken, all bending under the deep sweet billows of the wind. + +At the edge of the forest Berselius and Adams took leave of Meeus. Neither +Berselius nor Meeus showed any sign of the past day. They had "slept it +off." As for Adams, he knew nothing, except that the villagers had been +punished and their houses destroyed. + +The way lay due south. They were now treading that isthmus of woods which +connects the two great forests which, united thus, make the forest of +M'Bonga. The trees in this vast connecting wood are different from the +trees in the main forests. You find here enormous acacias, monkey-bread +trees, raphia palms and baobabs; less gloom, and fewer creeping and +hanging plants. + +Berselius, as a rule, brought with him a taxidermist, but this expedition +was purely for sport. The tusks of whatever elephants were slain would be +brought back, but no skins; unless, indeed, they were fortunate enough to +find some rare or unknown species. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +SUN-WASHED SPACES + + +A two days' march brought them clear of the woods and into a broken +country, vast, sunstrewn and silent; a beautiful desolation where the tall +grass waved in the wind, and ridge and hollow, plain and mimosa tree, led +the eye beyond, and beyond, to everlasting space. + +Standing here alone, and listening, the only sound from all that great +sunlit 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 the +primeval forests. Strike eastward far enough and you would sight the +snow-capped crest of Kilimanjaro, King of African mountains, sitting +snow-crowned above the vast territory to which he has given his name, and +which stretches from Lake Eyasi to the Pare Mountains. The hunters of +Kilimanjaro, which once was the home of elephants, have thinned the herds +and driven them to wander. Elephants that a hundred years ago, even fifty +years ago, were almost fearless of man, have altered their habits from the +bitter lessons they have received, and now are only to be found in the +most inaccessible places. Should they cling to more inhabited districts, +they come out of the sheltered places only by night. A man may spend years +in an elephant district without once seeing an elephant. Driven by the +necessity of food and the fear of man, the great herds wander in their +wonderful and mysterious journeys for hundreds and hundreds of miles. +Never lying down, sleeping as they stand, always on guard, dim of sight +yet keen of smell, they pass where there are trees, feeding as they go, +stripping branches of leaves. Alarmed, or seeking a new feeding place, a +herd moves in the rainy season, when the ground is soft, with the silence +and swiftness of a cloud shadow; in the dry season when the ground is +hard, the sound of them stampeding is like the drums of an army. + +"Elephants," said Berselius, pointing to some bundles of dried stuff lying +near a vangueria bush. "That stuff is a bundle of bowstring hemp. They +chew it and drop it. Oh, that has been dropped a long time ago; see, there +you have elephants again." + +A tree standing alone showed half its bark ripped off, tusked off by some +old bull elephant, and above the tusk marks, some fifteen feet up, could +be seen the rubbing mark where great shoulders had scratched themselves. + +As they marched, making due south, Berselius in that cold manner which +never left him, and which made comradeship with the man impossible and +reduced companionship to the thinnest bond, talked to Adams about the game +they were after, telling in a few graphic sentences and not without +feeling the wonderful story of the moving herds, to whom distance is +nothing, to whom mountains are nothing, to whom the thickest jungle is +nothing. The poem of the children of the mammoth who have walked the earth +with the mastodon, who have stripped the trees wherein dwelt arboreal man, +who have wandered under the stars and suns of a million years, seen rivers +change their courses and hills arise where plains had been, and yet +remain, far strewn and thinned out, it is true, but living still. At noon +they halted and the tents were pitched for a four hours' rest. + +Adams, whilst dinner was preparing, walked away by himself till the camp +was 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 the +beds of dried-up streams, strewn here and there with mimosas and thorns, +here dim with the growth of vangueria bushes, here sharp and gray-green +with cactus; this giant land, infinite, sunlit, and silent, spoke to him +in 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 great +bird that had cast the shadow sailing away on the wind, dwindling to a +point, 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 to +be beyond pursuit; but before evening, just as they were about to camp by +some pools, they came across rhino. + +Berselius's quick eye spotted the beasts, a bull and a cow. They were in +the 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 the +stump of a broken tree. The cow was not visible at first, but almost +immediately after they sighted the bull, she heaved herself up and stood a +silhouette against the sky. + +The wind was blowing from the beasts, so it was quite possible to get +close up to them. The meat would be useful, so Berselius and his companion +started, with Felix carrying the guns. + +As they drew close Adams noticed that the back of the great cow seemed +alive and in motion. Half a dozen rhinoceros birds, in fact, were upon it, +and almost immediately, sighting the hunters, they rose chattering and +fluttering in the air. + +These birds are the guardians of the half-blind rhinoceros. They live on +the parasites that infest his skin. It is a partnership. The birds warn +the rhinoceros of danger, and he, vicariously, feeds the birds. Scarcely +had the birds given warning than the bull heaved himself up. Berselius's +rifle rang out, but the light was uncertain, and the brute wounded, but +not mortally, charged forward took a half circle, swung his head from side +to side in search of his assailant, and sighted the cow. Instantly, horn +down and squealing, he charged her. She met him horn to horn, and the +smash could be heard at the camp where the porters and the soldiers stood +gazing open-mouthed at the battle between the two great brutes charging +each other in the low evening light, fighting with the ferocity of tigers +and the agility of cats. + +Adams, close up as he was, had a better view, and unless he had seen with +his own eyes, he could not have believed that two animals so heavy and +unwieldy could display such nimbleness and such quickness of ferocity. + +It was the wickedest sight, and it was brought to an end at last by the +rifle of Berselius. + +Curiously enough, neither brute had injured the other very much. The horns +which, had they been of ivory, must have been shivered, were intact, for +the horn of a rhinoceros is flexible; it is built up of a conglomeration +of 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, Felix, who was scouting just ahead +of 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 a +vast 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 track +of the beasts, but to the experienced eyes of Berselius and the Zappo Zap +everything was clear. A herd of elephant had passed not long ago, and they +were undisturbed and unsuspicious. When elephants are suspicious they +march in lines, single file, one stepping in the tracks of another. This +herd was spread wide and going easy of mind, but at what pace it would be +impossible to say. + +The long boat-shaped back feet of the bulls leave a print unmistakable in +the rainy season when the ground is soft, but still discernible to the +trained eye in the dry season. Felix declared that there were at least +twenty bulls in the herd, and some of huge size. + +"How long is it since they passed here?" asked Berselius. + +Felix held up the fingers of one hand. From certain indications he came to +the conclusion they had passed late in the night, three hours or so before +daybreak. They numbered forty or fifty, leaving aside the calves that +might be with them. He delivered these opinions, speaking in the native, +and Berselius instantly gave the order, "Left wheel!" to the crowd of +porters; and at the word the long column turned at right angles to the +line of march and struck due west, treading the track of the herd. + +Nothing is more exciting than this following in the track of a mammoth +army whose tactics you cannot foresee. This herd might be simply moving a +few miles in search of a new feeding ground, or it might be making one of +those great sweeping marches covering hundreds of miles that the +mysterious elephant people make at the dictates of their mysterious +instinct. It might be moving at a gentle pace, or swifter than a man could +run. A mile on the new route they came on a broken tree, a great tree +broken down as if by a storm; the fractures were quite recent. The +elephant folk had done this. They came across another tree whose sides, +facing north and south, had been clearly barked, and the pieces of the +bark, farther on, that had been chewed and flung away. + +With one stroke of a tusk passing a tree, and without stopping, an +elephant will tear off a strip of bark; and it was curious to see how the +bark of this tree to east and west was intact. The moving herd had not +stopped. Just in passing, an elephant on either side of the tree had taken +his slice of bark, chewed it and flung it away. There were also small +trees trodden down mercilessly under foot. Thus the great track of the +herd lay before the hunters, but not a sign in all the sunlit, silent +country before them of the herd itself. + +It was Berselius's aim to crowd up his men as quickly as a forced march +could do it, camp and then pursue the herd with a few swift followers, the +barest possible amount of stores and one tent. + +The calabashes and the water bottles had been filled at the last halt, but +it was desirable to find water for the evening's camping place. + +It was now that Berselius showed his capacity as a driver and his own +enormous store of energy. + +He took the tail of the column, and woe to the porters who lagged behind! +Felix was with him, and Adams, who was heading the column, could hear the +shouts 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 Felix. + +The heat was sweltering, but there was no rest. On, on, on, ever on +through a country that changed not at all; the same breaks and ridges, the +same limitless plains of waving grass, the same scant trees, the same +heat-shaken horizon toward which the elephant road led straight, +unwavering, endless. + +The brain reeled with the heat and the dazzle, but the column halted not +nor stayed. The energy of Berselius drove it forward as the energy of +steam drives an engine. His voice, his very presence, put life into +flagging legs and sight into dazzled eyes. He spared neither himself nor +others; the game was ahead, the spoor was hot, and the panther in his soul +drove him forward. + +Toward noon they halted for two hours where some bushes spread their +shade. The porters lay down on their bellies, with arms outspread, having +taken a draught of water and a bite of food; they lay in absolute and +profound slumber. Adams, nearly as exhausted, lay on his back. Even Felix +showed 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. Silent +and brooding, and morose to the point of savagery. + +One might almost have fancied that in far distant days this man had been a +tiger, and that the tiger still lived slumbering in his soul, triumphant +over death, driving him forth at intervals from civilization to wander in +the wild places of the earth and slay. + +Two hours past noon they resumed their journey: on, on, on, treading the +elephant track which still went due east straight as an arrow to the blue +horizon. The frightful tiredness they had felt before the noonday halt had +passed, giving place to a dull, dreamy feeling, such as comes after taking +opium. The column marched mechanically and without thought, knowing only +two things, the feel of the hard ground and grass beneath their feet, and +the smiting of the sun on their backs. + +Thus the galley slaves of old laboured at their oars and the builders of +the pyramids beneath their loads, all moving like one man. But here was no +tune 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 Felix +drumming on the ribs of laggards. + +A light, hot wind was blowing in their faces. Adams, still at the head of +the column, had suffered severely during the morning march, and the +re-start after the noon rest was painful to him as a beating; but the +reserve forces of a powerful constitution that had never been tampered +with were now coming into play, and, after a time, he felt little +discomfort. His body, like a wound-up mechanism, did all the work; his +mind became divorced from it; he experienced a curious exaltation, like +that which comes from drink, only finer far and more ethereal. The column +seemed marching far swifter than it was marching in reality, the vast +sunlit land seemed vaster even than it was; the wind-blown grass, the far +distant trees, the circling skyline, all spoke of freedom unknown to man: +the freedom of the herd they were pursuing; the freedom of the bird flying +overhead; the freedom of the wind blowing in the grass; the freedom of the +limitless, endless, sunlit country. Meridians of silence, and light, and +plains, and trees, and mountains, and forests. Parallels of virgin land. + +He was feeling what the bird knows and feels when it beats up the +mountains or glides down the vales of air; what the elephant herd knows +and feels when it moves over mountains and across plains; what the +antelopes know when distance calls them. + +A shout from Felix, and the Zappo Zap came running up the line; his head +was flung up and he was sniffing the air. Then, walking beside Adams, he +stared 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, and +tramped on beside Adams, his nose raised to the wind, of which each puff +brought the scent stronger. + +Adams could smell nothing, but the savage could tell that right ahead +there were elephants; close up, too, yet not a sign of them could be +seen. + +This puzzled him, and what puzzles a savage frightens him. + +His nose told him that here were elephants in sight of his eyes; his eyes +told him that there were none. + +All at once the column came to a dead halt. Porters flung down their loads +and cried out in fright. Even Berselius stood stock-still in +astonishment. + +From the air, blown on the wind from no visible source, came the shrill +trumpeting of an elephant. + +There, in broad daylight, close up to them, the sound came with the shock +of the supernatural. Nothing stirred in all the land but the grass bending +to the wind. There was not even a bird in the air; yet close to them an +elephant was trumpeting shrilly and fiercely as elephants trumpet when +they charge. + +Again came the sound, and once again, but this time it broke lamentably to +a complaint that died away to silence. + +Instantly the Zappo Zap came to himself. He knew that sound. An elephant +was dying somewhere near by, caught in a trap possibly. He rushed down the +line, 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 in +a minute the column was in motion again and going swiftly to make up for +lost 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 trickle +of water could be seen. On the floor of this river-bed, like a huge dark +rock, lay the body of an elephant. + +An African elephant is the biggest creature on earth, far bigger than his +Indian cousin, and far more formidable looking. Adams could scarcely +believe that the thing before him was the body of an animal, as he +contrasted its size with Felix, who had raced down the slope and was +examining the carcass. + +"Dead!" cried Felix, and the porters, taking heart, descended, but not +without groaning and lamentations, for it is well-known to the natives +that whoever comes across an elephant lying down must die, speedily and by +violent means; and this elephant was lying down in very truth, his tusks +humbly lowered to the ground, his great ears motionless, just as death had +left him. + +It was a bull and surely, from his size, the father of the herd. Berselius +considered the beast to be of great age. One tusk was decayed badly and +the other was chipped and broken, and on the skin of the side were several +of those circular sores one almost always finds on the body of a +rhinoceros, "dundos," as the natives call them; old scars and wounds told +their tale of old battles and the wanderings of many years. + +It might have been eighty or a hundred years since the creature had first +seen the light and started on its wonderful journey over mountains and +plains through jungle and forest, lying down maybe only twenty times in +all those years, wandering hither and thither, and knowing not that every +step of its journey was a step closer to here. + +Just this little piece of ground on which it lay had been plotted out for +it a hundred years ago, and it had come to it by a million mazy paths, but +not less surely than had it followed the leading of a faultlessly directed +arrow. + +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 old +men come to their end at last--the mechanism had failed, hindered, +perhaps, by some internal disease, and it had lain down to wait for +death. + +The tusks were not worth taking, and the party pursued its way up the +eastern bank of the river, where the herd had also evidently pursued its +way, and then on, on, across the country due east, in the track they had +followed since morning. + +As they left the river-bed a tiny dot in the sky above, which they had not +noticed, enlarged, and like a stone from the blue fell a vulture. It lit +on the carcass; then came a kite slanting down to the feast, and then from +the blue, like stones dropped from the careless hand of a giant, vulture +after vulture. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE GREAT HERD + + +Felix kept his place beside Adams at the head of the column. The black +seemed morose, and at the same time, excited. + +Two things had disturbed him: the bad luck of meeting a lying-down +elephant and the fact that a giraffe was with the herd. He had spotted +giraffe spoor in the river-bed where the ground was sandy and showed up +the impression well. + +Now, the giraffe has the keen eyesight of a bird, and when he throws in +his lot with the elephant folk who, though half-blind, have the keen scent +of 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 loads +beside them, their arms outspread absolutely broken with the weariness of +the march, broken, and speechless, and motionless, and plunged into such a +depth of slumber that had you kicked them they would not have moved. + +Berselius, himself, was nearly exhausted. He sat with his back against the +tree and gave his orders in a languid voice, and it was very curious to +see 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 of +evening that lent unreality to the scene. + +Luck was against Berselius. It was quite within the bounds of probability +that the herd might have halted here by the water for the night; but they +had not. They had drunk here, for the pool was all trodden up and still +muddy, and then gone on. + +They were evidently making one of their great marches, and it was probable +now 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 they +had finished supper Berselius, still with his back to the tree, sat +talking 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 see +elephants all over this place. They lie up in the inaccessible places in +the dry season, but when the wet weather comes the herds spread over the +plains. Not such herds as the one we have been following--it is rarely one +comes across one like that. However, to-morrow we may have better luck +with them. Felix tells me that forty miles beyond there, where they have +gone, there are a lot of trees. They may stop and feed, and if they do, we +will have them. To-morrow I shall start light. Leave the main camp here. +You and I and Felix, and four of the best of those men, and the smallest +tent, enough stores for three or four days. Yes, to-morrow----" The man +dozed off, sleep-stricken, the pipe between his teeth. + +"To-morrow!" Portentous word! + +They retired to their tents. Two sentries were posted to keep the fire +going and to keep watch. The porters lay about, looking just like men who +had fallen in battle, and after awhile the sentries, having piled the fire +with wood, sat down, and the moon rose, flooding the whole wide land with +light. + +She had scarcely lifted her own diameter above the horizon when the +sentries, flat on their backs, with arms extended, were sleeping as +soundly as the others. Brilliant almost as daylight, still and peaceful as +death, the light of the great moon flooded the land, paling the stars and +casting the shadows of the tents across the sleepers, and the wind, which +was now blowing from the west, shook the twigs of the tree, like skeleton +fingers, over the flicker of the red burning camp-fire. + +Now, the great herd of elephants had been making, as Berselius imagined +possible, for the forest that lay forty miles to the east. + +They had reached it before sundown, and had begun to feed, stripping +branches of their leaves, the enormous trunks reaching up like snakes and +whirling the leaves Catherine-wheellike down enormous throats; the purring +and grumbling of their cavernous bellies, the rubbing of rough shoulders +against the bark, the stamping of feet crushing the undergrowth, resounded +in echoes amongst the trees. The big bull giraffe that had cast its lot in +with the herd was busy, too, tearing and snapping down twigs and leaves, +feeding like the others, who were all feeding like one, even to the +eighteen-month-old calves busy at the teats of their enormous dams. + +The sunlight, level and low, struck the wonderful picture. Half the herd +were in the wood, and you could see the tree branches bending and shaking +to the reaching trunks. Half the herd were grazing on the wood's edge, the +giraffe amidst them, its clouded body burning in the sunset against the +green of the trees. + +The wind was blowing steadily along the edge of the wood and against a +band of hunters of the Congo State, blacks armed with rifles, who were +worming their way along from tree bole to tree bole, till within shooting +distance of the bull elephant nearest to them. + +The creatures feeding knew nothing of their danger till three shots, that +sounded like one, rang out, and the bull, struck in the neck, the +shoulder, and between the ear and eye, fell, literally all of a heap, as +though 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. The +whole visible herd on the edge of the wood, at the sound of the shots and +the crash of the falling bull, wheeled, trumpeted wildly, and with trunks +swung up, ears spread wide, swept away toward the sunset, following the +track by which they had come; whilst, bursting from the woods, +leaf-strewn, with green branches tangled in their tusks, furious and mad +with fright, came the remainder, following in the same track, sweeping +after 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 two +great clouds, which coalesced, the broken herd with the sound of a storm +passed away along the road they had come by, the night closing on them as +the sun vanished from the sky. + +Berselius had not reckoned on this. No man can reckon on what the +wilderness will do. The oldest hunter is the man who knows most surely the +dramatic surprises of the hunt, but the oldest hunter would never have +taken this into his calculations. + +Here, back along the road they had travelled all day, was coming, not a +peacefully moving herd, but a storm of elephants. Elephants who had been +disturbed in feeding, shot at, and shot after, filled with the dull fury +that dwells in an elephant's brain for days, and with the instinct for +safety that would carry them perhaps a hundred miles before dawn. + +And right in the track of this terrible army of destruction lay the +sleeping camp, the camp fire smouldering and fluttering its flames on the +wind. + +And the wind had shifted! + +With the dark, as though the scene had been skilfully prepared by some +infernal 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 the +setting sun, just as the great stars burst out above as if at the touch of +an electric button, the wind shifted right round and blew due east. + +This change of wind would dull the sound of the oncoming host to the +people at the camp; at the same time it would bring the scent of the human +beings to the elephants. + +The effect of this might be to make them swerve away from the line they +were taking, but it would be impossible to tell for certain. The only sure +thing was, that if they continued in their course till within eyeshot of +the camp fire, they would charge it and destroy everything round about it +in their fury. + +A camp fire to an angry elephant is the equivalent of a red rag to a +bull. + +Thus the dramatic element of uncertainty was introduced into the tragedy +unfolding on the plains, and the great stars seemed to leap like expectant +hearts of fire till the moon broke over the horizon, casting the flying +shadows of the great beasts before them. + +The first furious stampede had settled into a rapid trot, to a sound like +the sound of a hundred muffled drums beating a rataplan. + +Instinct told the herd that immediate danger was past, also that for +safety they would have to cover an immense space of country; so they +settled 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 beasts +and more fantastic shadows, in three divisions line ahead, with the lanes +of moonlight ruled between each line; calves by the cows, bulls in the +van, they went, keeping to the scent of the track they had come by as +unswervingly as a train keeps to the metals. + +The giraffe was still with them. He and his shadow, gliding with +compass-like strides a hundred yards away from the southward column; and +just as the scent of the camp came to his mammoth friends, the sight of +the 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 bulls +leading the van, who, with trunks flung up and crooked forward, were +holding 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 which +their minds can reason, and from their action it would seem that the +arbiters of Berselius's fate reasoned thus: "The enemy were behind; they +are now in front. So be it. Let us charge." + +And they charged, with a blast of trumpeting that shook the sky; with +trunks flung up and forward-driving tusks, ears spread like great sails, +and a sound like the thunder of artillery, they charged the scent, the +body of the herd following the leaders, as the body of a battering-ram +follows 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, and +was succeeded by a slumber in which, as in a darkened room where a +magic-lantern is being operated, vivid and fantastic pictures arose before +him. He was on the march with the column through a country infinite as is +space; the road they were taking, like the road to the tombs of the +Chinese kings, was lined on either side with animals done in stone. At +first these were tigers, and then, as though some veil of illusion had +been withdrawn, he discovered them to be creatures far larger and more +cruel, remorseless, and fearful than tigers; they were elephants--great +stone elephants that had been standing there under the sun from +everlasting, and they dwindled in perspective from giants to pigmies and +from pigmies to grains of sand, for they were the guardians of a road +whose end was infinity. + +Then these vanished, but the elephant country under the burning sun +remained. There was nothing to be seen but the sun-washed spaces of +wind-blown grass, and broken ground, and scattered trees, till across the +sky in long procession, one following the other, passed shadow elephants. +Shadows each thrice the height of the highest mountain, and these things +called forth in the mind of the sleeper such a horror and depth of dread +that he started awake with the sweat running down his face. + +Sleep was shattered, and in the excitement and nerve-tension of +over-tiredness he lay tossing on his back. The long march of the day +before, in which men had matched themselves against moving mountains, the +obsession of the things they had been pursuing, had combined to shatter +sleep. + +He came out in the open for a breath of air. + +The camp was plunged in slumber. The two sentries ordered by Berselius to +keep 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 to +feed it, when he saw a sight which was one of the strangest, perhaps, that +he would ever see. + +The sentry lying on the right of the fire sat up, rose to his feet, went +to 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 performed +this act with wide-staring eyes that saw nothing, returned to his place +and lay down. + +It was as if the order of Berselius still rang in his ears and the vision +of Berselius still dominated his mind. + +Adams, thinking of this strange thing, stood with the wind fanning his +face, looking over the country to the west, the country they had traversed +that day in tribulation under the burning sun. There was nothing to tell +now of the weary march, the pursuit of phantoms, the long, long miles of +labour; all was peaceful and coldly beautiful, moonlit and silent. + +He was about to return to his tent when a faint sound struck his ear. A +faint, booming sound, just like that which troubles us when the eardrum +vibrates 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 blowing +steadily in his face, and he strained his eyes to see the cause; but he +saw nothing. There was no cloud in the sky or storm on the horizon, yet +the sound was increasing. Boom, boom, becoming deeper and more sonorous, +now like the long roll of muffled drums, now like the sea bursting in the +sea-caves of a distant coast, or the drums of the cyclone when they beat +the charge for the rushing winds. But the heart-searching feature of this +strange 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 in +a storm; this sound was alive. + +Adams sprang to the tent where Berselius was sleeping, and dragged him out +by the arm, crying, "Listen!" + +He would have cried, "See!" but the words withered on his lips at the +sight which was now before him as he faced east. + +An acre of rollicking and tossing blackness storming straight for the camp +across the plain under the thunder that was filling the night. A thing +inconceivable and paralyzing, till the iron grip of Berselius seized his +arm, 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, and +scarcely had he gained his position than the sky split with the trumpeting +of the charge and, as a man dying sees his whole life with one glance, he +saw the whole camp of awakened sleepers fly like wind-blown leaves from +before the oncoming storm, leaving only two figures remaining, the figures +of Berselius and Felix. + +The Zappo Zap had gone apart from the camp to sleep. He had drugged +himself by smoking hemp, and he was lying half a hundred yards away, face +down 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 of +man. The soul-shattering terror of the advancing storm, the thunder and +the trumpeting that never ceased, had no effect on the iron heart of +Berselius. + +He made the instantaneous calculation that it was just possible to kick +the man awake (for sound has no effect on the hemp-drugged one) and get +him 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 foot +when he had made half the distance, and brought him down flat on his +face. + +It was as though God had said, "Not so." + +Adams, in an agony, sweat pouring from him, watched Berselius rise to his +feet. He rose slowly as if with deliberation, and then he stood fronting +the oncoming storm. Whether he was dazed, or whether he knew that he had +miscalculated his chances, who knows? But there he stood, as if disdaining +to fly, face fronting the enemy. And it seemed to the watcher that the +figure 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 from +a catapult somewhere into the night. + +Just as a man clings to a mast in a hurricane, deaf, blind, all his life +and energy in his arms, Adams clung to the tree bole above the branch upon +which he was. + +The storm below, the smashing of great bodies against the tree, the +trumpeting whose prolonged scream never ceased--all were nothing. His mind +was cast out--he had flung it away just as the elephant had flung +Berselius 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 as +they had kept from the start. The northern column, consisting of cows with +their calves, drove on as if to safety, the others, cows and bulls--the +cows even more ferocious than the bulls--attacked the camps, the tents, +and the fire. They stamped and trod the fire out, smashing tent poles and +chop boxes, stores and cooking utensils, tusking one another in the +tight-packed _melee_, and the scream of the trumpeting never ceased. + +Then they drove on. + +The porters, all except two, had, unhappily for themselves, fled in a body +to the west, and now mixed with the trumpeting and thunder could be heard +the screams of men trodden under foot or tusked to pieces. These sounds +ceased, and the trumpeting died away, and nothing could be distinguished +but the dull boom, boom of the herd sweeping away west, growing fainter +and fainter, and dying away in the night. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE BROKEN CAMP + + +The whole thing had scarcely lasted twenty minutes. During the storming +and trumpeting, Adams, clinging to the tree, had felt neither terror nor +interest. His mind was cast out, all but a vestige of it; this remnant of +mind recognized that it was lying in the open palm of Death, and it was +not afraid. Not only that, but it felt lazily triumphant. It is only the +reasoning mind that fears death, the mind that can still say to itself, +"What will come after?" The intuitive mind, which does not reason, has no +fear. + +Had not the herd been so closely packed and so furious, Adams would have +been smelt out, plucked from the tree and stamped to pieces without any +manner of doubt. But the elephants, jammed together, tusking each other, +and rooting the camp to pieces, had passed on, not knowing that they had +left a living man behind them. + +As the sound of the storm died away, he came to his senses as a man comes +to his senses after the inhalation of ether, and the first thing that was +borne in upon him was the fact that he was clinging to a tree, and that he +could not let go. His arms encircled the rough bark like bands of iron; +they had divorced themselves from his will power, they held him there +despite himself, not from muscular rigidity or spasm, but just because +they refused to let go. They were doing the business of clinging to safety +on their own account, and he had to _think himself free_. There was no use +in ordering them to release him, he had to reason with them. Then, little +by little, they (fingers first) returned to discipline, and he slipped +down and came to earth, literally, for his knees gave under him and he +fell. + +He was a very brave man and a very strong man, but now, just released from +Death, now that all danger was over, he was very much afraid. He had seen +and 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 might +feel to whom the gods had shown a near view of that tempest of fire we +call the sun. + +He sat up and looked around him on the pitiable ruins of the camp on which +a tornado could not have wrought more destruction. Something lay +glittering in the moonlight close to him. He picked it up. It was his +shaving-glass, the most fragile thing in all their belongings, yet +unbroken. Tent-poles had been smashed to matchwood, cooking utensils +trodden 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 him +turn his head. + +A dark figure was approaching in the moonlight. + +It was the Zappo Zap. The man whom Berselius, with splendid heroism, had +tried to save. Like the looking-glass, and protected, perhaps, by some god +of his own, the columns of destruction had passed him by. The column of +cows with their calves had passed him on the other side. Old hunters say +that elephants will not trouble with a dead man, and Felix, though +awakened by the shaking of the earth, had lain like a dead man as the +storm swept by. + +He was very much alive, now, and seemingly unconcerned as he came toward +Adams, stood beside him, and looked around. + +"All gone dam," said Felix. And volumes would not have expressed the +situation more graphically. Then the savage, having contemplated the scene +for a moment, rushed forward to a heap of stuff--broken boxes and what +not--dragged something from it and gave a shout. + +It was the big elephant rifle, with its cartridge-bag attached. The stock +was split, but the thing was practically intact. Felix waved it over his +head and laughed and whooped. + +"Gun!" yelled Felix. + +Adams beckoned to him, and he came like a black devil in the moonlight--a +black devil with filed teeth and flashing eyeballs--and Adams pointed to +the tree and motioned him to leave the gun there and follow him. Felix +obeyed, and Adams started in the direction in which he had seen Berselius +flung. + +It was not far to walk, and they had not far to search. A hundred yards +took them to a break in the ground, and there in the moonlight, with arms +extended, lay the body of the once powerful Berselius, the man who had +driven them like sheep, the man whose will was law. The man of wealth and +genius, great as Lucifer in evil, yet in courage and heroism tremendous. +God-man or devil-man, or a combination of both, but great, incontestably +great and compelling. + +Adams knelt down beside the body, and the Zappo Zap stood by with +incurious eyes looking on. + +Berselius was not dead. He was breathing; breathing deeply and +stertorously, as men breathe in apoplexy or after sunstroke or ruinous +injury to the brain. Adams tore open the collar of the hunting shirt; then +he examined the limbs. + +Berselius, flung like a stone from a catapult, had, unfortunately for +himself, not broken a limb. That might have saved him. His head was the +injured part, and Adams, running his fingers through the hair, matted with +blood, came on the mischief. The right parietal bone was dented very +slightly for a space nearly as broad as a penny. The skin was broken, but +the bone itself, though depressed slightly, was not destroyed. The inner +table of the skull no doubt was splintered, hence the brain mischief. + +There was only one thing to be done--trephine. And that as swiftly as +possible. + +Everything needful was in the instrument-case, but had it escaped +destruction? + +He raised Berselius by the shoulders. Felix took the feet, and between +them they carried the body to the tree, where they laid it down. + +Before starting to hunt for the instruments, Adams bled Berselius with his +penknife. The effect was almost instantaneous. The breathing became less +stertorous and laboured. Then he started to search hither and thither for +the precious mahogany case which held the amputating knives, the +tourniquets and the trephine. The Zappo Zap was no use, as he did not know +anything about the stores, and had never even seen the instrument case, so +Adams had to conduct the search alone, in a hurry, and over half an acre +of ground. The case had almost to a certainty been smashed to pieces; +still, there was a chance that the trephine had escaped injury. He +remembered 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 been +a 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 the +ground, as if saying, "Have a drink." It was intact. He knocked the head +off 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 been +made of. They looked as though they had been torn up like this for +rib-roller bandages, for they were just of that width. He came across half +a mosquito-net; the other half was sailing away north, streaming from the +tusk of a bull in which it was tangled, and giving him, no doubt, a +sufficiently bizarre appearance under the quiet light of the moon and +stars. + +There were several chop boxes of stores intact; and a cigar box without a +crack in it, and also without a cigar. It looked as though it had been +carefully opened, emptied, and laid down. There was no end to the +surprises of this search: things brayed to pieces as if with a pestle and +mortar, things easily smashable untouched. + +He had been searching for two hours when he found the trephine. It lay +near the brass lock of the amputating case, attached to which there were +some pieces of mahogany from the case itself. + +A trephine is just like a corkscrew, only in place of the screw you have a +cup of steel. This steel cup has a serrated edge: it is, in fact, a small +circular saw. Applying the saw edge to the bone, and working the handle +with half turns of the wrist, you can remove a disc from the outer table +of 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 as +paper and brittle as glass, had been smashed to pieces, presumably; at all +events, it was not there. + +He flung the handle and the shaft away and came back to the tree beneath +which the body of Berselius was lying. Berselius, still senseless, was +breathing deeply and slowly, and Adams, having cut away the hair of the +scalp round the wound with his penknife, went to the pool for water to +bathe the wound; but the pool was trodden up into slush, and hours must +elapse before the mud would settle. He remembered the bottle of brandy, +fetched it, washed the wound with brandy, and with his handkerchief torn +into three pieces bound it up. + +There was nothing more to be done; and he sat down with his back to the +tree to wait for dawn. + +The bitterness of the thing was in his heart, the bitterness of being +there with hands willing and able to help, yet helpless. A surgeon is as +useless without his instruments as the cold, lifeless instruments are +without 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 the +situation. + +Adams, listening to the breathing of the man he could not save, sat +watching the moonlit desert where the grass waved in the wind. Felix, +lying on his belly, had resumed his slumbers, and beside the sleeping +savage lay the thing he worshipped more than his god, the big elephant +rifle, 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 Felix. + +It was full, blazing day, and the Zappo Zap, standing erect just as he had +sprung from sleep, was staring with wrinkled eyes straight out across the +land. Two black figures were approaching. They were the two porters who +had fled westward, and who, with Felix, were all that remained of +Berselius's savage train of followers. The rest were over there---- + +Over there to the west, where vultures and marabouts and kites were +holding a clamorous meeting; over there, where the ground was black with +birds. + +The two wretches approaching the camping place rolled their eyes in +terror, glancing over there. They had run for miles and hidden themselves +in a donga. They had heard the tragedy from afar, the storming and +trumpeting, and the shrieks of men being destroyed, torn to pieces, +trampled to pulp; they had heard the thunder of the vanishing herd, and +they had listened to the awful silence that followed, lying on their +faces, clinging to the breast of their old, cold, cruel Mother Earth. With +day, like homing pigeons, they had returned to the camp. + +"Hi yi!" yelled Felix, and a response came like the cry of a seagull. They +were shivering as dogs shiver when ill or frightened; their teeth were +chattering, and they had a curious gray, dusky look; the very oil of their +skins seemed to have dried up, and old chain scars on their necks and +ankles showed white and leprous-looking in the bright morning sunshine. + +But Adams had no time to attend to them. Having glanced in their +direction, he turned to Berselius, bent over him, and started back in +surprise. + +Berselius's eyes were open; he was breathing regularly and slowly, and he +looked like a man who, just awakened from sleep, was yet too lazy to +move. + +Adams touched him upon the shoulder, and Berselius, raising his right +hand, drew it over his face as if to chase away sleep. Then his head +dropped, 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, his +eyes resting here and there: on the two porters who were sitting, with +knees drawn up, eating some food which Felix had given them; on the broken +camp furniture and the heaps of raffle left by the catastrophe of the +night before; on the skyline where the grass waved against the morning +blue. + +Adams heaved a sigh of relief. The man had only been stunned. None of the +vital 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 now +the sick man was raising his left hand, and, moving about as a person +moves in bed to get a more comfortable position, he raised both knees and +then, turning over on his right side, straightened them out again. Now, by +the movements of a sick person you can tell pretty nearly the condition of +his brain. + +All the movements of this sick man were normal; they indicated great +tiredness, nothing more. The shock and the loss of blood might account for +that. Adams the night before had made a pillow from his own coat for the +stricken 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 with +deep satisfaction. Then he rose to his feet. Some shelter must be +improvised to protect the sleeping man from the sun, but in the raffle +around there did not seem enough tent cloth to make even an umbrella. + +Calling Felix and the two porters to follow him, he started off, searching +amidst the _debris_ here and there, setting the porters to work to collect +the remains of the stores and to bring them back to the tree, hunting in +vain for what he wanted, till Felix, just as they reached the northern +limit of destruction, pointed to where the birds were still busy, +clamorous and gorging. + +"What is it?" asked Adams. + +"Tent," replied Felix. + +To the left of where the birds were, and close to them, lay a mound of +something showing dark amidst the grass. It was a tent, or a large part of +one of the tents; tangled, perhaps, in a tusk, it had been brought here +and cast, just as a storm might have brought and cast it. Even at this +distance 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 exhibit +qualms 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 scattered +about in the grass, looking like great vermin; a few remained waddling +here 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 by +ploughs. Over a hundred square yards lay blistering beneath the sun, red +and blue and black; and the torment of it pierced the silence like a +shout, though not a movement was there, save the movement of the +bald-headed vulture as he waddled, or the flapping of a rag of skin to the +breeze. + +They seized on the tent, the Zappo Zap laughing and with teeth glinting in +the sun. It was the smallest tent, ripped here and there, but otherwise +sound; the mosquito net inside was intact and rolled up like a ball, but +the pole was broken in two. + +As they carried it between them, they had to pass near a man. He was very +dead, that man; a great foot had trodden on his face, and it was flattened +out, looking like a great black flat-fish in which a child, for fun, had +punched holes for eyes and mouth and nose; it was curling up at the edges +under the sun's rays, becoming converted into a cup. + +"B'selius," said Felix, with a laugh, indicating this thing as they passed +it. + +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 back +to urge him forward. From that moment he conceived a hatred for Felix such +as few men have felt, for it was not a hatred against a man, or even a +brute, but a black automatic figure with filed teeth, a thing with the +brain and heart of an alligator, yet fashioned after God's own image. + +A hatred for Felix, and a pity for Berselius. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE LOST GUIDE + + +They improvised a shelter against the tree with the tent cloth over the +sleeping man, and then Adams set Felix to work splicing and mending the +tent pole. The two porters, who had stuffed themselves with food, were +looking better and a shade more human; the glossy look was coming back to +their 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 the +improvised tent, and as they did so he took toll of the stuff. + +He judged that there was enough provisions to take them back along the +road they had come by. The hunt was ended. Even should Berselius recover +fully in a couple of days, Adams determined to insist on a return. But he +did 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 be +busy till all was gone; the cloudless sky, and the shifting shadow of the +tree; these were the best company he had. The blacks were not companions. +The two porters seemed less human than dogs, and Felix poisoned his +sight. + +His dislike for this man had been steadily growing. The thought that +Berselius had risked his life for this creature, and the remembrance of +how he had pointed to the dead man with a grin and said "B'selius," had +brought matters to a head in the mind of Adams, and turned his dislike +into a furious antipathy. He sat now in what little shadow there was, +watching the figure of the Zappo Zap. + +Felix, the tent-pole finished, had slunk off westward, hunting about, or +pretending to hunt for salvage. Little by little the black figure dwindled +till it reached where the birds were discoursing and clamouring, and Adams +felt his blood grow cold as he watched the birds rise like a puff of black +smoke and scatter, some this way, some that; some flying right away, some +settling down near by. + +The black figure, a tiny sketch against the sky, wandered hither and +thither, and then vanished. + +Felix had sat him down. + +Adams rose up and took the elephant rifle, took from the bag a great solid +drawn brass cartridge, loaded the rifle, and sat down again in the shade. + +Berselius was sleeping peacefully. He could hear the even respirations +through the tent cloth. The porters were sleeping in the sun as only +niggers can sleep when they are tired; but Adams was feeling as if he +could never sleep again, as he sat waiting and watching and listening to +the faint whisper, whisper of the grass as the wind bent it gently in its +passage. + +A long time passed, and then the black sketch appeared again outlined on +the sky. It grew in size, and as it grew Adams fingered the triggers of +the gun, and his lips became as dry as sand, so that he had to lick them +and keep on licking them, till his tongue became dry as his lips and his +palate dry as his tongue. + +Then he rose up, rifle in hand, for the Zappo Zap had come to speaking +distance. Adams advanced to meet him. There was a dry, dull glaze about +the creature's lips and chin that told a horrible story, and at the sight +of it the white man halted dead, pointed away to where the birds were +again congregating, cried "Gr-r-r," as a man cries to a dog that has +misbehaved, and flung the rifle to his shoulder. + +Felix broke away and ran. Ran, striking eastward, and bounding as a buck +antelope bounds with a leopard at its heels, whilst the ear-shattering +report of the great rifle rang across the land and a puff of white dust +broke from the ground near the black bounding figure. Adams, cursing +himself for having missed, grounded the gun-butt and stood watching the +dot in the distance till it vanished from sight. + +He had forgotten the fact that Felix was the guide and that without him +the return would be a hazardous one; but had he remembered this, it would +have made no difference. Better to die in the desert twenty times over +than to return escorted by _that_. + +It was now getting toward sundown. The great elephant country in which the +camp lay lost had, during the daytime, three phases. Three spirits +presided over this place; the spirit of morning, of noon, and of evening. +In towns and cities, even in the open country of civilized lands, these +three are clad in language and bound in chains of convention, reduced to +slaves whose task is to call men to rise, to eat, or sleep. But here, in +this vast place, one saw them naked--naked and free as when they caught +the world's first day, like a new-minted coin struck from darkness, and +spun 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 the +country of the noon the country of the evening. + +The morning was loud. I can express it in no other terms. Dawn came like a +blast of trumpets, driving the flocks of the red flamingoes before it, +tremendous, and shattering the night of stars at the first fanfare. A +moment later, and, changing the image, imagination could hear the sea of +light bursting against the far edge of the horizon, even as you watched +the spindrift of it surging up to heaven and the waves of it breaking over +ridge and tree and plain of waving grass. + +Noon was the hour of silence. Under the pyramid of light the land lay +speechless, without a shadow except the shadow of the flying bird, or a +sound except the sigh of the grass, touched and bent by the wind, if it +blew. + +Evening brought with it a new country. There was no dusk here, no beauties +of twilight, but the level light of sunset brought a beauty of its own. +Distance stood over the land, casting trees farther away, and spreading +the 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 the +level light of evening combine to form the quaintest shadows on earth. The +giraffe has for his counterpart a set of shadow legs ten yards long, and +the elephant in his shadow state goes on stilts. A man is followed by a +pair of black compasses, and a squat tent flings to the east the shadow of +a sword. + +Adams was sitting looking at the two porters whom he had set to hunt for +firewood; he was watching their grotesque figures, and more than grotesque +shadows, when a movement of the sick man under the tent-cloth caused him +to turn. + +Berselius had awakened. More than that, he was sitting up, and before +Adams could put up a hand, the tent-cloth was flung back, and the head and +shoulders of the sick man appeared. + +His face was pale, his hair in disorder; but his consciousness had fully +returned. 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, and +then stood looking at the setting sun. + +The glorious day was very near its end. The sun huge and half-shorn of his +beams, was sinking slowly, inevitably; scarce two diameters divided his +lower edge from the horizon that was thirsting for him as the grave +thirsts for man. Thus fades, shorn of its dazzle and splendour, the +intellect so triumphant at noon, the personality, the compelling will; the +man 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 the +sun. The western sky was marked by a thin reef of cloud; dull gold, it +momentarily 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 it +dwindled to a point, vanished, and a wave of twilight, like the shadow of +a wing, passed over the land. + +As Berselius, leaning on the arm of his companion, turned, it was already +night. + +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 face +toward the fire. + +"Are you better?" asked Adams, as he took a seat beside him and proceeded +to light a pipe. + +"My head," said Berselius. As he spoke he put his hand to his head as a +person 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 my +head." + +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 for +him. + +"Don't think about it," said he. "It will pass. You have had a knock on +the head. Just lean back against the tree, for I want to dress the +wound." + +He undid the bandage, fetched some water from the pool, which was now +clear, and set to work. The wound was healthy and seemed much less severe +than it had seemed the night before. The dent in the bone seemed quite +inconsiderable. The inner table of the skull might, after all, be not +injured. One thing was certain: whatever mischief the cortex of the brain +had suffered, the prime centres had escaped. Speech and movement were +perfect and thought was rational. + +"There," said Adams, when he had finished his dressings and taken his +seat, "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--"I +can see last night--I can see us all here by the camp fire, but beyond +that I cannot see, for a great white mist hides everything. And still"--he +burst out--"I seem to know everything hidden by that mist, but I can't +see, 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 camp +fire 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 and +the action. + +The great Berselius afraid! The man who had faced the elephants, the man +who cared not a halfpenny for death, the man who was so far above the +stature of other men, sitting there beside him and holding his hand like a +little child, and saying, "I am afraid!" + +And the voice of Berselius was not the voice of the Berselius of +yesterday. It had lost the decision and commanding tone that made it so +different from the voices of common men. + +"It will pass," said Adams. "It is only a shake-up of the brain. Why, I +have 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 had +slept all day, but sleep had taken him again suddenly, just as it takes a +child, and Adams placed him under the improvised tent with the coat for a +pillow 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 in +London, and you are next found in Brighton, sane to all intents and +purposes, but your memory is gone. A dense fog hides everything you have +ever done, dreamed or spoken. You may have committed crimes in your past +life, 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 his +name--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 use +his own eloquent expression, he had lost the sight of memory. + +If you recall your past, it comes in pictures. You have to ransack a great +photographic gallery. Before you can think, you must see. + +Beyond a certain point Berselius had lost the sight of memory, In other +words, he had lost his past. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +BEYOND THE SKYLINE + + +Adams, wearied to death with the events of the past day and night, slept +by the camp fire the deep dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion. He had +piled the fire with wood, using broken boxes, slow-burning vangueria +brushwood, and the remains of a ruined mimosa tree that lay a hundred +yards from the camp, and he lay by it now as soundly asleep as the two +porters and Berselius. The fire stood guard; crackling and flickering +beneath the stars, it showed a burning spark that made the camping place +determinable many miles away. + +Now the Zappo Zap, when he had fled from Adams, put ten miles of country +behind him, going almost with the swiftness of an antelope, taking low +bush and broken ground in his stride, and halting only when instinct +brought him to a stand, saying, "You are safe." + +He knew the country well, and the thirty miles that separated him from the +eastern forest, where he could obtain food and shelter, were nothing to +him. He could have run nearly the whole distance and reached there in a +few hours' time. + +But time was also nothing to him. He had fed well, and could last two days +without food. It was not his intention to desert the camp yet; for at the +camp, under that tree away to the west, lay a thing that he lusted after +as men lust for drink or love: the desire of his dark soul--the elephant +gun. + +Before Adams drove him away from the camp he had made up his mind to steal +it. Sneak off with it in the night and vanish with it into his own country +away to the northeast, leaving B'selius and his broken camp to fend for +themselves. This determination was still unshaken; the thing held him like +a charm, and he sat down, squatting in the grass with his knees drawn up +to his chin and his eyes fixed westward, waiting for evening. + +An hour before sunset he made for the camp, reaching within a mile of it +as the light left the sky. He watched the camp fire burning, and made for +it. Toward midnight, crawling on his belly, soundless as a snake, he crept +right up beside Adams, seized the gun and the cartridge bag, and with them +in his hands stood erect. + +He had no fear now. He knew he could outrun anyone there. He held the gun +by the barrels. Adams's white face, as he lay with mouth open, snoring and +deep 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 the +attention of the savage been drawn to an object that suddenly appeared +from beneath the folds of the improvised tent. + +It was the hand of Berselius. + +Berselius, moving uneasily in his sleep, had flung out his arm; the +clenched 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 for +Felix, and next moment he was gone, and the moonlight cast his black +shadow as he ran, making northeast, a darkness let loose on life and on +the land. + +Adams awoke at sun-up to find the gun and the cartridge bag gone. The +porters knew nothing. He had picked up enough of their language to +interrogate them, but they could only shake their heads, and he was +debating in his own mind whether he ought to kick them on principle, when +Berselius made his appearance from the tent. + +His strength had come back to him. The dazed look of the day before had +left his face, but the expression of the face was altered. The half smile +which had been such a peculiar feature of his countenance was no longer +there. The level eye that raised to no man and lowered before no man, the +aspect of command and the ease of perfect control and power--where were +they? + +Adams, as he looked at his companion, felt a pang such as we feel when we +see a human being suddenly and terribly mutilated. + +Who has not known a friend who, from an accident in the hunting field, the +shock of a railway collision, or some great grief, has suddenly changed; +of whom people say, "Ah, yes, since the accident he has never been the +same 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-lustre +eye, and bearing in every movement the indecision which marks the inferior +mind. + +Berselius's under-lip did not droop, nor did his manner lack the ordinary +decision of a healthy man; the change in him was slight, but it was +startlingly evident. So high had Nature placed him above other men, that a +crack in the pedestal was noticeable; as to the injury to the statue +itself, the ladder of time would be required before that could be fully +discovered. + +So far from being downcast this morning, Berselius was mildly cheerful. He +washed and had his wound dressed, and then sat down to a miserable +breakfast of cold tinned meat and cassava cakes, with water fetched from +the pool in a cracked calabash. + +He said nothing about the mist in his head, and Adams carefully avoided +touching on the question. + +"Sleep has put him all right," said Adams to himself. "All the same, he's +not 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, I +expect." + +He rose to fetch his pipe when Berselius, who had finished eating and had +also risen to his feet, beckoned him to come close. + +"That is the road we came by?" said Berselius, pointing over the country +toward 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 over +again!" + +"I can remember," said Berselius, "everything that happened as far as my +eye 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 skyline +we saw two birds fighting; two bald-headed vultures----" + +"That is so," said Adams. + +"But beyond the skyline," said Berselius, suddenly becoming excited and +clutching his companion's arm, "I see nothing. I know nothing. All is +mist--all is mist." + +"Yes, yes," said the surgeon. "It's only memory blindness. It will come +back." + +"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 I +remember as I go, then, then, I will be saved. But if I get to that +skyline and if I find that the mist stops me from seeing beyond, then I +pray 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, but +Berselius, in the grip of this awful desire to pierce back beyond that +mist and find himself, would not be soothed. Nothing would satisfy him but +to strike camp and return along the road they had come by. Some instinct +told 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, and +perhaps vanish at last. Some instinct told him this, but reason, who is +ever a doubter, tortured him with doubts. + +The only course was to go back and see. Adams, who doubted if his patient +was physically fit for a march, at last gave in; the man's agony of mind +was more dangerous to him than the exhaustion of physical exercise could +prove. He gave orders to the porters to strike camp, and then turned to +himself, and helped them. They only carried what was barely needful, and +was even less than needful, to take them to Fort M'Bassa, ten days, +journey in Berselius's condition. Four water bottles that had been left +intact they filled with water; they took the tent, and the pole that Felix +had spliced. Cassava cakes and tinned meat and a few pounds of chocolate +made up the provisions. There were no guns to carry, no trophies of the +chase. Of all the army of porters only two were left. Berselius was broken +down, Felix had fled, they had no guide, and the crowning horror of the +thing was that they had struck off in pursuit of the herd at right angles +to the straight path they had taken from the forest, and Adams did not +know in the least the point where they had struck off. The porters were +absolutely no use as guides, and unless God sent a guide from heaven or +chance interposed to lead them in the right way, they were lost; for they +had 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, they +turned their backs on the tree and the pools, and leaving them there to +burn in the sun forever struck straight west in the direction from which +they 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 merciless +thing--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 the +camp as being near the skyline. + +When they reached the ridge, and not before, Berselius halted and stared +over 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 big +view 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 go +on. Now I know it is only the sight of the things I have seen that is +needful to recall the memory of them and of myself in connection with +them." + +Adams said nothing. It struck him with an eerie feeling that this man +beside him was actually walking back into his past. As veil after veil of +distance 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 the +mist by questions. The man seemed entirely obsessed by the curtain of +mist, and by the necessity of piercing it by physical movement, of putting +tree to tree and mile to mile. + +Berselius had not asked questions because, no doubt, he was under the +dominion of a profound instinct, telling him that the past he had lost +could 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 own +misfortune had banished for him, doubtless, all interest in everything +else. + +Adams had said to him nothing of Felix, his horrible deeds or his theft of +the rifle. Felix, though he had vanished from Adams's life completely and +forever, had not vanished from the face of the earth. He was very much +alive and doing, and his deeds and his fate are worth a word, for they +formed a tragedy well fitting the stage of this merciless land. + +The Zappo Zap, having secured the gun and its ammunition, revelling in the +joy of possession and power, went skipping on his road, which lay to the +northeast. 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 a +hound, till dawn. + +Then he rose and pursued his way, still travelling northeast, his +bird-like eyes skimming the land and horizon. He sang as he pursued his +way, and his song fitted his filed teeth to a charm. If a poisoned arrow +could sing or a stabbing spear, it would sing what Felix sang as he went, +his long morning shadow stalking behind him; he as soulless and as +heartless as it. + +What motive of attachment had driven him to follow Verhaeren to Yandjali +from the Bena Pianga country heaven knows, for the man was quite beyond +the human pale. The elephants were far, far above him in power of love and +kindness; one had to descend straight to the alligators to match him, and +even then one found oneself at fault. + +He was not. Those three words alone describe this figure of india-rubber +that could still walk and talk and live and lust, and to whom slaying and +torture were amongst the aesthetics of life. + +An hour before noon, beyond and above a clump of trees, he sighted a +moving object. It was the head of a giraffe. + +It was the very same bull giraffe that had fled with the elephant herd and +then wheeled away south from it. It was wandering devious now, feeding by +itself, and the instant Felix saw the tell-tale head, he dropped flat to +the ground as if he had been shot. The giraffe had not seen him, for the +head, having vanished for a moment, reappeared; it was feeding, plucking +down small branches of leaves, and Felix, lying on his side, opened the +breech of the rifle, drew the empty cartridge case, inserted a cartridge +in each barrel, and closed the breech. Now, unknown to Adams, when he had +fired the gun the day before, there was a plug of clay in the left-hand +barrel about two inches from the muzzle; just an inconsiderable wad of +clay about as thick as a gun wad; the elephant folk had done this when +they had mishandled the gun, and, though the thing could have been removed +with a twig, Puck himself could not have conceived a more mischievous +obstruction. He certainly never would have conceived so devilish a one. + +Adams had, fortunately for himself, fired the right-hand barrel; the +concussion had not broken up the plug, for it was still moist, being clay +from the trodden-up edge of the pool. It was moist still, for the night +dew had found it. + +The Zappo Zap knew nothing of the plug. He knew nothing, either, of the +tricks of these big, old-fashioned elephant guns, for he kept both barrels +full cock, and it is almost three to two that if you fire one of these +rifles with both barrels full cock, both barrels will go off +simultaneously, or nearly so, from the concussion. + +With the gun trailing after him--another foolish trick--the savage crawled +on his belly through the long grass to within firing distance of the tree +clump. + +Then he lay and waited. + +He had not long to wait. + +The giraffe, hungry and feeding, was straying along the edge of the clump +of 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, the +absurd head and little, stumpy, useless horns prying amidst the leaves, +and every now and then slewing round and sweeping the country in search of +danger. + +Felix lay motionless as a log; then, during a moment when the giraffe's +head was hidden in the leaves, he flung himself into position and took +aim. + +A tremendous report rang out, the giraffe fell, squealing, and roaring and +kicking, and Felix, flung on his back, lay stretched out, a cloud of gauzy +blue 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 and +flung 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 now +a cavity. He looked as though he had put on a red velvet domino, and he +sat there in the sun with the last vestige of the blue smoke dissolving +above 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 his +wounded state would have been screaming in agony; to Felix the pain was +sharp, 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 not +tell him anything. + +This sudden black dark was not the darkness which came from shutting one's +eyes; 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 he +could walk through it; then he sprang into the air to see if it was +lighter above, and dived on his hands and knees to see if he could slip +under 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 as +the 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 seemed +to possess some instinct in his feet which told him of broken ground. The +burst gun lay where he had left it in the grass, and the dead giraffe lay +where it had fallen by the trees; the wind blew, and the grass waved, the +sun spread his pyramid of light from horizon to horizon, and in the +sparkle above a black dot hung trembling above the stricken beast at the +edge of the wood. + +The black figure of the man continued its headlong course. It was running +in a circle of many miles, impelled through the nothingness of night by +the dark soul raging in it. + +Hours passed, and _then_ it fell, and lay face to the sky and arms +outspread. You might have thought it dead. But it was a thing almost +indestructible. It lay motionless, but it was alive with hunger. + +During all its gyrations it had been followed and watched closely. It had +not lain for a minute when a vulture dropped like a stone from the sky and +lit on it with wings outspread. + +Next moment the vulture was seized, screeching, torn limb from limb, and +in the act of being devoured! + + * * * * * + +But the sentence of the desert on the blind is death, trap vultures as +cunningly as you will, and devour them as ferociously. The eye is +everything in the battle of the strong against the weak. And so it came +about that two days later a pair of leopards from the woods to the +northeast fought with the figure, which fought with teeth and hands and +feet, whilst the yellow-eyed kites looked on at a battle that would have +turned with horror the heart of Flamininus. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +TOWARD THE SUNSET + + +When Berselius, standing on the ridge, had looked long enough at the +country before him, taking in its every detail with delight, they started +again on their march, Berselius leading. + +They had no guide. The only plan in Adams's head was to march straight +west toward the sunset for a distance roughly equivalent to the forced +march they had made in pursuit of the herd, and then to strike at right +angles due north and try to strike the wood isthmus of the two great +forests making up the forest of M'Bonga. + +But the sunset is a wide mark and only appears at sunset. They had no +compass; the elephant folk had made away with all the instruments of the +expedition. They must inevitably stray from the true direction, striking +into that infernal circle which imprisons all things blind and all things +compassless. Even should they, by a miracle, strike the isthmus of woods, +the forest would take them, confuse them, hand them from tree to tree and +glade to glade, and lose them at last and for ever in one of the million +pockets which a forest holds open for the lost. + +The stout heart of the big man had not quailed before this prospect. He +had 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 his +breast. A tremendous and joyful idea occurred to him. Was it possible that +Berselius would guide them back? + +The memory that the man possessed was so keen, his anxiety to pierce the +veil before him was so overpowering, was it possible that like a hound +hunting by sight instead of smell, he would lead them straight? + +Only by following the exact track they had come by, could Berselius pierce +back into that past he craved to see. Only by putting tree to tree and +ridge 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 led +them. Adams could not tell whether they were following that track--even +Felix could scarcely have told--for the dew and the wind had made the +faint traces of the elephants quite indiscernible now to civilized eyes; +and Berselius never once looked at the ground under his feet, he was led +entirely by the configuration of the land. That to the eyes of Adams was +hopeless. For the great elephant country is all alike, and one ridge is +the counterpart of another ridge, and one grassy plain of another grassy +plain, and the scattered trees tell you nothing when you are lost, except +that you are lost. + +The heat of the day was now strong on the land; the porters sweated under +their loads, and Adams, loaded like them, knew for once in his life what +it was to be a slave and a beast of burden. + +Berselius, who carried nothing, did not seem to feel the heat; weak though +he must have been from his injury and the blood-letting. He marched on, +ever on, apparently satisfied and well pleased as horizon lifted, giving +place to new horizon, and plain of waving grass succeeded ridge of broken +ground. + +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 their +track. This land seemed somehow different from any he had seen before; he +could have sworn that this country around them was not the country through +which they had pursued the herd. His hope had been built on a false +foundation. How could a man whose memory was almost entirely obscured lead +them right? This was not the case of the blind leading the blind, but the +case 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! do +you remember that tree? We passed it at just this distance when we were +coming." Or, now, "Look at that patch of blue grass. We halted for a +minute here." + +Adams, after a while, made no reply. The assurance and delight of +Berselius as these fancied memories came to him shocked the heart. There +was a horrible and sardonic humour in the whole business, a bathos that +insulted the soul. + +The dead leading the living, the blind leading the man with sight, lunacy +leading sanity to death. + +Yet there was nothing to be done but follow. As well take Berselius's road +as 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 faces +had 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 as +he had never experienced before. + +It grew stronger as they went. + +There was a slight rise in the ground before them just here, and as they +took it the stench became almost insupportable, and Adams was turning +aside 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, and +there before them in the sandy trough, huge amidst the boulders, lay the +body of an elephant. + +A crowd of birds busy about the carcass rose clamouring in the air and +flew 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 the +herd. + +Yes, there was no doubt now that Berselius was guiding them aright. He had +followed 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 the +birds 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 the +track." + +Berselius smiled. + +Adams, who was glancing at his face, thought that he had never seen an +expression like that on the man's face before. The smile of the lips that +had marked and marred his countenance through life, the smile that was +half a sneer, was not there; this came about the eyes. + +"He was in exactly the same position, too," said Adams. "But the birds +will have him down before long. Well, he has served one purpose in his +life; he has shown us we are on the right road, and he has given you back +another bit of memory." + +"Poor brute," said Berselius. + +These words, coming from the once iron-hearted Berselius, struck Adams +strangely; 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 this +country is the number of dead trees and the bushes from which one can +always scrape the materials for a fire. + +Adams, with his hunting knife and a small hatchet which was all steel and +so 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 them +did not require cooking. + +The tent was practicable, for the pole, so well had it been spliced, was +as good as new. They set it up, and having eaten their supper, crept under +it, 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, eating +mechanically and falling to sleep immediately on lying down. + +But he was happy. Happy as the man who suddenly finds that he can outwalk +the paralysis threatening him, or the man who finds the fog of blindness +lifting before him, showing him again bit by bit the world he had deemed +forever lost. Whilst this man sleeps in the tent beside his companion and +the waning moon breaks up over the horizon and mixes her light with the +red flicker of the fire, a word about that past of which he was in search +may not be out of place. + +Berselius was of mixed nationality. His father of Swedish descent, his +mother 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 seize +opportunities and to foresee events. + +This art of looking into the future is the key to Aladdin's Palace and to +the Temple of Power. To know what will appreciate in value and what will +depreciate, that is the art of success in life, and that was the art which +made Armand Berselius a millionaire. + +Berselius the younger grew up in an atmosphere of money. His mother died +when he was quite young. He had neither brothers nor sisters; his father, +a chilly-hearted sensualist, had a dislike to the boy; for some obscure +reason, without any foundation in fact, he fancied that he was some other +man's son. + +The basis of an evil mind is distrust. Beware of the man who is always +fearful of being swindled. Who cannot trust, cannot be trusted. + +Berselius treated his son like a brute, and the boy, with great power for +love in his heart, conceived a hatred for the man who misused him that was +hellish in intensity. + +But not a sign of it did he show. That power of will and restraint so +remarkable in the grown-up man was not less remarkable in the boy. He +bound his hate with iron bands and prisoned it, and he did this from +pride. When his father thrashed him for the slightest offence, he showed +not a sign of pain or passion; when the old man committed that last +outrage one can commit against the mind of a child, and sneered at him +before grown-up people, young Berselius neither flushed nor moved an +eyelid. He handed the insult to the beast feeding at his heart, and it +devoured it and grew. + +The spring was poisoned at its source. + +That education of the heart which only love can give was utterly cut off +from the boy and supplanted by the education of hate. + +And the mind tainted thus from the beginning was an extraordinary mind, a +spacious intellect, great for evil or great for good, never little, and +fed by an unfailing flood of energy. + +The elder Berselius, as if bent on the utter damnation of his son, kept +him well supplied with money. He did this from pride. + +The young man took his graduate degree in vice, with higher marks from the +devil than any other young man of his time. He passed through the college +of St. Cyr and into the cavalry, leaving it at the death of his father and +when he had obtained his captaincy. + +He now found himself free, without a profession and with forty million +francs 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 politics +and the other in finance. There are a dozen men like Berselius on the +Continent of Europe. Politicians and financiers under the guise of +Boulevardiers. Men of leisure apparently, but, in reality, men of +intellect, who work their political and financial works quite +unobtrusively and yet have a considerable hand in the making of events. + +Berselius was one of these, varying the monotony of social life with +periodic returns to the wilderness. + +With the foundation of the Congo State by King Leopold, Berselius saw huge +chances of profit. He knew the country, for he had hunted there. He knew +the ivory, the copal, and the palm oil resources of the place, and in the +rubber vines he guessed an untapped source of boundless wealth. He saw the +great difficulty in the way of making this territory a paying concern; +that is to say, he saw the labour question. Europeans would not do the +work; the blacks would not, unless paid, and even then inefficiently. + +To keep up a large force of European police to make the blacks work on +European terms, was out of the question. The expense would run away with +half the profits; the troops would die, and, worst of all, other nations +would say, "What are you doing with that huge army of men?" The word +"slavery" had to be eliminated from the proceedings, else the conscience +of Europe would be touched. He foresaw this, and he was lost in admiration +at the native police idea. The stroke of genius that collected all the +Felixes of the Congo basin into an army of darkness, and collected all the +weak and defenceless into a herd of slaves, was a stroke after his own +heart. + +Of the greatest murder syndicate the world has ever seen, Berselius became +a 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 of +Leopold's idea. He dropped his gun and came back to Europe. + +He was quite big enough to have smashed the whole infernal machinery then +and there. America had not yet, hoodwinked, signed the licence to kill, +which she handed to Leopold on the 22d of April, 1884. Germany had not +been 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 ten +years. + +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 shadows +before them as they went, the porters with their loads piled on their +heads, Adams carrying the tent-pole and tent, Berselius leading. + +He had recovered from his weakness of the night before. He had almost +recovered his strength, and he felt that newness of being which the +convalescent feels--that feeling of new birth into the old world which +pays one, almost, for the pains of the past sickness. + +Never since his boyhood had Berselius felt that keen pleasure in the sun +and the blue sky and the grass under his feet; but it called up no +memories of boyhood, for the mist was still there, hiding boyhood and +manhood and _everything_ up to the skyline. + +But the mist did not frighten him now. He had found a means of dispelling +it; the photographic plates were all there unbroken, waiting only to be +collected and put together, and he felt instinctively that after a time, +when he had collected a certain number, the brain would gain strength, and +all at once the mist would vanish for ever, and he would be himself +again. + +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 the +crucial point--the spot where they had turned at right angles to follow +the elephants. + +Would Berselius remember and turn, or would he get confused and go on in a +straight 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 all +the country to the north. + +"We came from there," he said, indicating the north. "We struck the +elephant spoor just here, and turned due west." + +"How on earth do you know?" asked Adams. "I can't see any indication, and +for the life of me I couldn't tell where we turned or whether we came from +there," indicating the north, "or there," pointing to the south. "How do +you know?" + +"How do I know?" replied Berselius. "Why, this place and everything we +reach and pass is as vivid to me as if I had passed it only two minutes +ago. _It hits me with such vividness that it blinds me._ It is that which +I believe makes the mist. The things I can see are so extraordinarily +vivid that they hide everything else. My brain seems new born--every +memory that comes back to it comes back glorious in strength. If there +were gods, they would see as I see." + +A wind had arisen and it blew from the northwest. Berselius inhaled it +triumphantly. + +Adams stood watching him. This piece-by-piece return of memory, this +rebuilding 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 come +across. + +This thing occurs in civilized life, but then it is far less striking, for +the past comes to a man from a hundred close points--a thousand familiar +things in his house or surroundings call to him when he is brought back to +them; but here in the great, lone elephant land, the only familiar thing +was the track they had followed and the country around it. If Berselius +had been taken off that track and placed a few miles away, he would have +been 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 Berselius +had shot the rhinos. + +Adams, to make sure, walked away to where the great bull had fought the +cow before being laid low by the rifle of the hunter. + +The bones were there, picked clean and bleached, exemplifying the eternal +hunger 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 of +flesh 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 skeletons +to where, against the evening blue, a thin wreath of smoke rose up from +the camp fire which the porters had lighted. + +Far away south, so far away as to be scarcely discernible, a bird was +sailing along, sliding on the wind without a motion of the wings. It +passed from sight and left the sky stainless, and the land lay around +silent with the tremendous silence of evening, and lifeless as the bones +bleaching at his feet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +I AM THE FOREST + + +The day after the next, two hours before noon, they passed an object which +Adams remembered well. + +It was the big tree which Berselius had pointed out to him as having been +tusked by an elephant; and an hour after they had started from the mid-day +rest, the horizon to the north changed and grew dark. + +It was the forest. + +The sky immediately above the dark line, from contrast, was +extraordinarily bright and pale, and, as they marched, the line lifted and +the trees grew. + +"Look!" said Berselius. + +"I see," replied Adams. + +A question was troubling his mind. Would Berselius be able to guide them +amidst the trees? Here in the open he had a hundred tiny indications on +either side of him, but amidst the trees how could he find his way? Was it +possible that memory could lead him through that labyrinth once it grew +dense? + +It will be remembered that it was a two days' march from Fort M'Bassa +through the isthmus of woods to the elephant country. At the edge of the +forest the trees were very thinly set, but for the rest, and a day's march +from 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 slept +as men sleep in the pure air of the woods and the desert. + +Next morning they pursued their journey, Berselius still confident. At +noon, however, he began to exhibit slight signs of agitation and anxiety. +The trees were thickening around them; he still knew the way, but the view +before him was getting shorter and shorter as the trees thickened; that is +to say, the mist was coming closer and closer. He knew nothing of the +dense jungle before them; he only knew that the clear road in front of him +was shortening up rapidly and horribly, and that if it continued to do so +it would inevitably vanish. + +The joy that had filled his heart became transformed to the grief which +the man condemned to blindness feels when he sees the bright world fading +from 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 the +road before him grow. + +All at once the forest--which had been playing, up to this, with Berselius +as a cat plays with a mouse--all at once the forest, like a great green +Sphinx, 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 hit +them insolently in the face, lianas hung across their path like green +ropes placed to bar them out, weeds tangled the foot. + +Berselius, like an animal that finds itself trapped, plunged madly +forward. Adams following closely behind heard him catching back his breath +with a sob. They plunged on for a few yards, and then Berselius stood +still. + +The forest was very silent, and seemed listening. The evening light and +the shade of the leaves cast gloom around them. Adams could hear his own +heart thumping and the breathing of the porters behind him. If Berselius +had lost his way, then they were lost indeed. + +After a moment Berselius spoke, as a man speaks whose every hope in life +is 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 comes +when a man is commanding his voice. + +"Back? Of what use? I cannot go back; I must go forward. But here there is +nothing." + +The unhappy man's voice was terrible to hear. He had marched so +triumphantly all day, drawing nearer at each step to himself, to that self +which memory had hidden from him and which memory was disclosing bit by +bit. And now the march was interrupted as if by a wall set across his +path. + +But Adams was of a type of man to whom despondency may be known, but never +despair. + +They had marched all day; they were lost, it is true, but they were not +far, 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 own +hands 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 green +glow-worm glimmer. One could see the lianas and the trees, the broad +leaves shining with dew, some bright, some sketched in dimly, and all +bathed in gauze green light; and they could hear the drip and patter of +dew on leaf and branch. + +This is a mournful sound--the most mournful of all the sounds that fill +the great forests of the Congo. It is so casual, so tearful. One might +fancy it the sound of the forest weeping to itself in the silence of the +night. + + + + +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 of +blinding curtains. I am speaking now of that arrogant jungle, moist and +hot, where life is in full ferment, and where the rubber vine grows and +thrives; where you go knee-deep in slush and catch at a tree-bole to +prevent yourself going farther, cling, sweating at every pore and +shivering like a dog, feeling for firmer ground and finding it, only to be +led on to another quagmire. The bush pig avoids this place, the leopard +shuns it; it is bad in the dry season when the sun gives some light by +day, and the moon a gauzy green glimmer by night, but in the rains it is +terrific. Night, then, is black as the inside of a trunk, and day is so +feeble that your hand, held before your face at arm's length, is just a +shadow. The westward part of the forest of M'Bonga projects a spur of the +pestiferous rubber-bearing land into the isthmus of healthy woods. It was +just at the tip of this spur that Berselius and his party were entangled +and lost. + +The two porters were Yandjali men, they knew nothing of these woods, and +were utterly useless as guides; they sat now amidst the leaves near the +tent eating their food; dark shadows in the glow-worm light, the +glistening black skin of a knee or shoulder showing up touched by the +glimmer in which leaf and liana, tree trunk and branch, seemed like marine +foliage bathed in the watery light of a sea-cave. + +Adams had lit a pipe, and he sat beside Berselius at the opening of the +tent, smoking. The glare of the match had shown him the face of Berselius +for 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, sad +but most curious to see. Most curious, for it said fully what a hundred +little things had been hinting since their start from the scene of the +catastrophe--that the old Berselius had vanished and a new Berselius had +taken his place. Adams had at first put down the change in his companion +to weakness, but the weakness had passed, the man's great vitality had +reasserted itself, and the change was still there. + +This was not the man who had engaged him in Paris; this person might have +been a mild twin-brother of the redoubtable Captain of the Avenue +Malakoff, of Matadi and Yandjali. When memory came fully back, would it +bring with it the old Berselius, or would the new Berselius, mild, +inoffensive, and kindly, suddenly find himself burdened with the +tremendous 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 a +blaspheming costermonger "gets religion" and becomes a saint of +God--nothing is more certain than that the human mind can like this, at a +flash, turn topsy-turvy; the good coming to the top, the bad going to the +bottom. Mechanical pressure on the cortex of the brain can bring this +state of things about, even as it can convert a saint of God into a devil +incarnate. + +Was Berselius under the influence of forced amendment of this sort? + +Adams was not even considering the matter, he was lost in gloomy +thoughts. + +He was smoking slowly, holding his index and middle fingers over the +pipe-bowl to prevent the tobacco burning too quickly, for he had only a +couple of pipefuls left. He was thinking that to-morrow evening the pouch +would be empty, when, from somewhere in the forest near by, there came a +sound which brought him to his feet and the two porters up on hands and +knees like listening dogs. + +It was the sound of a human voice raised in a sort of chant, ghostly and +mournful as the sound of the falling dew. As it came, rising and falling, +monotonous and rhythmical, the very plain song of desolation, Adams felt +his hair lift and his flesh crawl, till one of the porters, springing +erect from his crouching position, sent his voice through the trees-- + +"Ahi ahee!" + +The song ceased; and then, a moment later, faint and wavering, and like +the voice of a seagull, came the reply-- + +"Ahi aheee!" + +"Man," said the porter, turning white eyeballs and glinting teeth over his +shoulder at Adams. + +He called again, and again came the reply. + +"Quick," said Adams, seizing the arm of Berselius, who had risen, "there's +a 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, he +seized the porter by the shoulder and pushed him forward. The man knew +what 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 to +the knees in boggy patches, fighting their way through leaves that struck +them like great wet hands; sometimes the call in the distance seemed +farther away, and they held their pace, they held their breath, they clung +to each other, listening, till, now, by some trick of the trees, though +they 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 and +bursting 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, stark +naked, except for a scrap of dingy loincloth, and looking like a black +gnome, a faun of this horrible place, and the very concretion of its +desolation and death. + +He was sitting when they caught their first glimpse of him, with his chin +supported on his hand, but the instant he saw the faces of the white men +he rose as if to escape, then the porter called out something that +reassured him, and he sat down again and shivered. + +He was one of the rubber collectors. He had reached this spot the day +before, and had built himself a shelter of leaves and branches. He would +be here for ten days or a fortnight, and his food, chiefly cassava, lay in +a little pile in the shelter, covered over with leaves. + +The porter continued speaking to the collector, who, now regaining the use +of 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, and +then 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 nodded +his 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 then +away into the forest. + +That was all, but it meant that they were saved. + +Adams gave a great whoop that echoed away through the trees, startling +bats and birds in the branches and losing itself without an echo in the +depths of the gloom. Then he struck himself a blow on the chest with his +fist. + +"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 the +true direction of the call, and the tent, provisions, and everything else +were lost as utterly and irrevocably as though they had been dropped in +mid-ocean. + +To step aside from a thing--even for a hundred yards--in this terrible +place was to lose it; even the rubber collectors, from whom the forest +holds few secrets have, in these thick places, to blaze a trail by +breaking 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 will +take 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, you +will remember it, and it will lead you right away home. Cheer up, cheer +up; we've got a fire and a bit of shelter for you to sleep under, and +we'll start bright and early in the morning, and this black imp of Satan +will lead you straight back to your road and your memory--hey! Uncle +Joe!" + +He patted the collector on the naked shoulder and a faint grin appeared on +that individual's forlorn countenance; never had he come across a white +man like this before. Then, bustling about, Adams piled up the fire with +more sticks, got Berselius under the shelter of the collector's wretched +hut, 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, had +given them fire and shelter; they were also to be beholden to him for +food. His wretched cassava cakes and his calabash of water gave them their +breakfast next morning, and then they started, the collector leading, +walking before them through the dense growth of the trees as assuredly as +a man following a well-known road. It was a terrible thing for him to +leave his post, but the white men were from M'Bassa and wished to return +to M'Bassa, and M'Bassa was the head centre of his work and the terrible +Mecca of his fears. White men from there and going to there must be +obeyed. + +This was the last phase of the great hunt. Berselius had been slowly +stripped by the wilderness of everything now but the clothes he stood up +in, his companion and two porters. Guns, equipment, tents, stores, the +Zappo 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 to +the elbows from having tripped last night and fallen in a quagmire, his +face was white and drawn and grimy as the face of a London cabrunner, his +hair was grayer and dull, but his eyes were bright and he was happy. At +M'Bassa he would be put upon the road again--the only road to the thing he +craved for as burning Dives craved for water--himself. + +But it was ordained that he should find that questionably desirous person +before reaching M'Bassa. + +They had been on the march for an hour when Adams, fussing like a person +who is making his first journey by rail, stopped the guide to make sure he +was leading them right. + +"M'Bassa?" said Adams. + +"M'Bassa," replied the other, nodding his head. Then with outspread hand +he pointed before them and made a semicircular sweep to indicate that he +was leading them for some reason by a circuitous route. + +He was making, in fact, for open ground that would bring them in the +direction of the fort by a longer but much easier road than a direct line +through the jungle. He was making also for water, for his scant supply had +been exhausted by his guests, and he knew the road he was taking would +lead him to broad pools of water. Adams nodded his head to imply that he +understood, 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 less +boggy here, and the sunlight showed stronger through the dense roof of +foliage. The cassava cakes were tainted with must, and they had no water, +but the increasing light made them forget everything but the freedom that +was opening before them. + +Adams pointed to the empty calabash which their guide carried, and the +collector nodded and pointed before them, as if to imply that soon they +would 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 euphorbia +and 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 with +leaves, the very smell of which clings to one for ever like the memory of +a fever dream. + +All at once patches of sunlight appeared in front as well as above. They +quickened their pace, the trees drew apart, and, suddenly, with theatrical +effect, a park-like sward of land lay before them leading to a sheet of +blue water reflecting tall feather-palms and waving speargrass, all domed +over with blue, and burning in the bright, bright sunshine. + +"The Silent Pools!" cried Adams. "The very place where I saw the leopard +chasing the antelope! Great Scott!--Hi! hi! hi! you there!--where are you +going?" + +The collector had raced down to the water's edge; he knew the dangers of +the place, for he divided the grass, filled his calabash with water, and +dashed back before anything could seize him. Then, without drinking, he +came 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 his +mind and had a dazed look. + +He had never come so far along the edge of the pools as this, but there +was something in the configuration of the place that stirred his sleeping +memory. + +"What is it?" asked Adams. + +"I don't know," replied Berselius. "I have dreamt--I have seen--I remember +something--somewhere--" + +Adams laughed. + +"I know," said he; "you come along, and in a few minutes you will see +something that will help your memory. Why, man, we camped near here, you +and I and Meeus; when you see the spot you'll find yourself on your road +again. 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, the +collector finished the remains of the water and the last few drops he +flung on the ground, an offering, perhaps, to some god or devil of his +own. Then he led on, skirting the water's edge. The loveliness of the +place had not lessened since Adams had seen it last; even the breeze that +was blowing to-day did not disturb the spirit of sweet and profound peace +which held in a charm this lost garden of the wilderness; the palms bent +as if in sleep, the water dimpled to the breeze and seemed to smile, a +flamingo, with rose-coloured wings, passed and flew before them and +vanished beyond the rocking tops of the trees that still sheltered the +camping place where once Berselius had raised his tent. + +Again, with theatrical effect, as the pools had burst upon them on leaving +the 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 straight +before him. He did not stop, or hesitate, or make any exclamation to +indicate whether he remembered or not. + +"Do you remember?" cried Adams. + +But Berselius did not speak. He was making noises as if strangling, and +suddenly his hands flew up to the neck of his hunting shirt, and tore at +it till he tore it open. + +"Steady, man, steady," cried Adams catching the other's arm. "Hi, you'll +be in a fit if you don't mind--steady, I _say_." + +But Berselius heard nothing, knew nothing but the scene before him, and +Adams, who was running now after the afflicted man, who had broken away +and was making straight for the trees beneath which the village had once +been, 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 chief +demon. + +He had no time to accommodate himself to the situation, no time for +sophistry. He was not equipped with the forty years of steadily growing +callousness that had vanished; the fiend who had inspired him with the +lust for torture had deserted him, and the sight and the knowledge of +himself came as suddenly as a blow in the face. + +Under that m'bina tree two soldiers, one with the haft of a blood-stained +knife between his teeth, had mutilated horribly a living girl. Little +Papeete had been decapitated just where his skull lay now; the shrieks and +wails of the tortured tore the sky above Berselius; but Adams heard +nothing and saw nothing but Berselius raving amidst the remains. + +Bones lay here and bones lay there, clean picked by the vultures and white +bleached by the sun; skulls, jawbones, femurs, broken or whole. The +remains of the miserable huts faced the strewn and miserable bones, and +the trees blew their golden trumpets over all. + +As Adams looked from the man who with shrill cries was running about as a +frantic woman runs about, to the bones on the ground, he guessed the +tragedy of Berselius. But he was to hear it in words spoken with the +torrid 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 lamp +lay upon the veranda and the ground of the yard, forming a parallelogram +of topaz across which were flitting continually great moth shadows big as +birds. + +Andreas Meeus was seated at the white-wood table of the sitting room +before a big blue sheet of paper. He held a pen in his hand, but he was +not writing just at present; he was reading what he had written. + +He was, in fact, making up his three-monthly report for headquarters, and +he found it difficult, because the last three months had brought in little +rubber 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 of +the very best patches of the forest. All these explanations Meeus was now +putting on paper for the edification of the Congo Government. He was +devoting a special paragraph to the revolt of the village by the Silent +Pools, and the punishment he had dealt out to the natives. Not a word was +said 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 shrivelled +at the edges in this extreme heat. On the wall in front of him the Congo +bows and poisoned arrows looked more venomous and deadly than by the light +of day. A scorpion twice the size of a penny was making a circuit of the +walls just below the ceiling; you could hear a faint scratch from it as it +travelled along, a scratch that seemed an echo of Meeus's pen as it +travelled across the paper. + +He held between his lips the everlasting cigarette. + +Sitting thus, meditating, pen in hand, he heard sounds: the sound of the +night wind, the sound of one of the soldiers singing as he cleaned his +rifle--the men always sang over this business, as if to propitiate the gun +god--the scratch of the scorpion and the "creak, creak" of a joist warping +and twisting to the heat. + +But the sound of the wind was the most arresting. It would come over the +forest 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 the +slope and over the forest and away and beyond to the east, where +Kilimanjaro was waiting for it, crowned with snow on his throne beneath +the 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 had +sent 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 a +leisurely manner. + +"Boom--boom." + +A great man-ape haunted this part of the forest of M'Bonga like an evil +spirit. He had wandered here, perhaps from the west coast forests. Driven +away from his species--who knows?--for some crime. The natives of the fort +had caught glimpses of him now and then; he was huge and old and gray, and +now in the darkness of the forest was striking himself on the chest, +standing there in the gloom of the leaves, trampling the plantains under +foot, taller than the tallest man, smiting himself in the pride of his +strength. + +"Boom--boom." + +It is a hair-lifting sound when you know the cause, but it left Meeus +unmoved. His mind was too full of the business of writing his report to +draw images or listen to imagination; all the same, this sinister +drum-beat acted upon his subconscious self and, scarcely knowing why he +did so, he got up from the table and came outside to the fort wall and +looked over away into the dark. + +There was not a star in the sky. A dense pall of cloud stretched from +horizon to horizon, and the wind, as Meeus stepped from the veranda into +the darkness, died away utterly. + +He stood looking into the dark. He could make out the forest, a blackness +humped and crouching in the surrounding blackness. There was not a ray of +light 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 his +hair. 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 been +sitting five minutes when a voice from the blackness outside made him drop +his pen and listen. + +It was a European voice, shouting and raving and laughing, and Meeus, as +he listened, clutched at the table, for the voice was known to him. It was +the 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, followed +by 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 a +bound across the veranda, a huge man framed himself in the doorway and +stood motionless as a statue. + +For the first moment Meeus did not recognize Adams. He was filthy and +tattered, he wore no coat, and his hunting shirt was open at the neck, and +the arms of it rolled up above the elbows. + +Adams, for the space of ten seconds, stood staring at Meeus from under his +pith helmet. The face under the helmet seemed cast from bronze. + +Then he came in and shut the door behind him, walked to the table, took +Meeus by the coat at the back of the neck, and lifted him up as a man +lifts a dog by the scruff. + +For a moment it seemed as if he were going to kill the wretched man +without word or explanation, but he mastered himself with a supreme +effort, 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 right +he made pawing movements in the air. + +The big man seated at the table did not notice. He sat for a few seconds +with both hands clasped together, one making a cup for the other, just as +a man might sit about to make a speech and carefully considering his +opening 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 if +fending 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 say +nothing, 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 risen +at the second question, and at the third time of asking he seized Meeus by +the 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 the +ceiling, followed the fatal word. Adams had swung the man aloft and dashed +him against the wall with such force, that the wattling gave and the +plaster fell in flakes. + +Meeus lay still as death, staring at his executioner with a face +expressionless 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 not +move. "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 he +returned; after him came the two porters bearing Berselius between them. + +Berselius was quiet now; the brain fever that had stricken him had passed +into a muttering stage, and he let himself be carried, passive as a bag of +meal, whilst Adams went before with the lamp leading the way into the +bedroom. Here, on one of the beds, the porters laid their burden down. +Then they came back, and under the directions of Adams lifted Meeus and +carried 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. His +rage had spent itself; he had avenged the people at the Silent Pools. With +his naked hands he had inflicted on the criminal before him an injury +worse than the injury of fire or sword. + +Meeus, frightened now by the pity in the face of the other, horribly +frightened by the unknown thing that had happened to him, making him dead +from 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 shake +the universe. + +Adams, worn out, was seated at the table in the living room smoking some +tobacco he had found in a tin on the shelf, and listening to the rambling +of Berselius, when the thunder-clap came, making the lamp shiver on the +table. + +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 hunting +elephants under a burning sun in a country even vaster than the elephant +country. + +Adams rose up and came to the door; not a drop of rain had fallen yet. He +crossed the yard and stood at the fort wall looking into blackness. It was +solid as ebony, and he could hear the soldiers, whose huts were outside +the 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, and +Silence wrapped herself again in her robe and sat to wait. + +Now, there was a faint stirring of the air, increasing to a breeze, and +far away a sound like the spinning of a top came on the breeze. It was the +rain, miles away, coming over the forest in a solid sheet, the sound of it +increasing 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 in +snow-white billows of spray and mist. + +Never was there so tremendous a sight as this infinite wall and the +Niagara clouds of spray, roaring, living, and lit by the great flash one +second, 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 were +times when it seemed to him that the whole place must be washed away +bodily. Nothing could be heard but the rain, and the sound of such rain is +far more terrifying than the sound of thunder or the rumble of the +earthquake. + +There were times when he said to himself, "This cannot last," yet it +lasted. With the lamp in his hand he went into the sleeping room to see +how Berselius and Meeus were doing. Berselius was still, to judge from the +movements of his lips, delirious, and just the same. Meeus was lying with +his 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 the +lamp. + +Meeus, catching the other's eye, motioned to him to come near. Then he +tried to speak, but the roar outside made it impossible to hear him. Adams +pointed to the roof, as if to say, "Wait till it is over," then he came +back to the sitting room, tore the leopard skin down from the wall, rolled +it 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 and +case-hardened; he did not care much whether the place was washed away or +not--he wanted to sleep, and he slept. + +Meeus, left alone, lay watching the glimmer of the lamp shining through +the cracks of the door, and listening to the thunder of the rain. + +This was the greatest rain he had experienced. He wondered if it would +flood the go-down and get at the rubber stored there; he wondered if the +soldiers had deserted their huts and taken refuge in the office. These +thoughts were of not the slightest interest to him; they just came and +strayed across his mind, which was still half-paralyzed by the great +calamity that had befallen him. + +For the last half-hour an iron hand seemed round his body just on a level +with the diaphragm; this seemed growing tighter, and the tighter it grew +the 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 that +men with broken backs die, but he did not fully realize that he was going +to 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 he +recognized that his breathing was entirely under the control of something +over which _he_ had no control. + +This is the most terrible thing a man can know, for it is a thing that no +man 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 was +not to be seen. The whole world was a vapour, but through which the forest +was dimly visible. The soldiers were in the courtyard; they had just come +out of the office where they had taken refuge during the night. Their huts +had been washed away, but they did not seem to mind a bit; they showed +their 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 the +great army of souls in the Beyond. + +It is strange enough to look upon the body of a man you have killed. But +Adams had no more pity or compunction in his mind than if Meeus had been a +stoat. + +He turned to Berselius, who was sleeping. The delirium had passed, and he +was breathing evenly and well. There was hope for him yet--hope for his +body 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 knew +nothing 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 be +trouble. The Congo had burst upon his view, stripped of shams, in all its +ferocity, just as the great scene of the killing had burst upon Berselius. +All sorts of things--from the Hostage House of Yandjali to the Hostage +House of M'Bassa, from Mass to Papeete's skull--connected themselves up +and made a skeleton, from which he constructed that great and ferocious +monster, the Congo State. The soldiers, with their filed teeth, were part +of the monster, and, such was the depth of fury in his heart, he would +have welcomed a fight, so that he might express with his arms what his +tongue ached to say. + +The original man loomed large in Adams. God had given him a character +benign and just, a heart tempered to mercy and kindliness; all these +qualities had been outraged and were now under arms. They had given a +mandate to the original man to act. The death of Meeus was the first +result. + +He went to the shelf where Meeus had kept his official letters and took +Meeus's Mauser pistol from it. It was in a holster attached to a belt. He +strapped the belt round his waist, drew the pistol from the holster and +examined it. It was loaded, and in an old cigar-box he found a dozen clips +of cartridges. He put three of these in his pocket and with the pistol at +his side came out into the courtyard. + +Huge billows of white cloud filled the sky, broken here and there by a +patch of watery blue. The whole earth was steaming and the forest was +absolutely smoking. One could have sworn it was on fire in a dozen places +when the spirals of mist rose and broke and vanished like the steam clouds +from locomotive chimneys. + +He crossed the courtyard to the go-down, undid the locking bar and found +what he wanted. Half a dozen mattocks stood by the rubber bales--he had +noticed them when the stores had been taken out for the expedition; they +were still in the same place and, taking two of them, he went to the break +in 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, but +he made them line up with a movement of his arm. + +Then he addressed them in a perfectly unprintable speech. It was delivered +in unshod American--a language he had not spoken for years. It took in +each individual of the whole gang, it told them they were dogs and sons of +dogs, killers of men, unmentionable carrion, cayotes, kites, and that he +would have hanged them each and individually with his own hands (and I +believe by some legerdemain of strength he would), but that they were +without hearts, souls or intellect, not responsible creatures, tools of +villains that he, Adams, would expose and get even with yet. + +Furthermore, that if by a look or movement they disobeyed his orders, he +would 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 when +Adams stood silent; some looked at their toes and some at the ground, some +looked this way, some that, but none at the big, ferocious man, with three +weeks' 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 of +Meeus, motioning them to take it up and carry it out. The men rolled their +eyes at the sight of the _Chef de Poste_, but they said no word; one took +the head, the other the feet, and between them they carried the burden, +led by their new commander, through the dwelling room, across the veranda +and then across the yard. + +The rest of the soldiers were in a group near the gate. When they saw the +two men and their burden, they set up a chattering like a flock of +magpies, which, however, instantly ceased at the approach of Adams. + +He pointed to the two mattocks which he had placed against the wall. They +understood what he meant; the last _Chef de Poste_ had shot himself in the +presence of the District Commissioner, and they had dug his grave. + +"Here," said Adams, stopping and pointing to a spot at a convenient +distance from the walls. + +When the body was buried, Adams stood for a second looking at the mound of +earth, wet and flattened down by blows of the spades. + +He had no prayers to offer up. Meeus would have to go before his Maker +just as he was, and explain things--explain all that business away there +at the Silent Pools and other things as well. Prayers over his tomb or +flowers 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 which +they had placed there out of the wet. A weak man would have locked the +office door and so have deprived the soldiers of their arms, but Adams was +not a weak man. + +He led his followers to the office, handed them their arms, carefully +examining each rifle to see that it was clean and uninjured, drew them up +on a line, addressed them in some more unprintable language but in a +milder tone, dismissed them with a wave of his hand and returned to the +house. + +As he left them the wretched creatures all gave a shout--a shout of +acclamation. + +This was the man for them--very different from the pale-faced Meeus--this +was a man they felt who would lead them to more unspeakable butchery than +Meeus had ever done. Therefore they shouted, piled their arms in the +office 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 could +scarcely move his lips. Fortunately there were some goats at the fort, and +Adams 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 a +thunder shower this time, but steadily, mournfully, playing a tattoo on +the zinc roof of the veranda, filling the place with drizzling sounds, +dreary beyond expression. With the rain came gloom so deep that Adams had +to light the paraffin lamp. There were no books, no means of recreation, +nothing to read but the old official letters and the half-written report +which the dead man had left on the table before leaving earth to make his +report elsewhere. Adams having glanced at this, tore it in pieces, then he +sat smoking and thinking and listening to the rain. + +Toward night a thunderstorm livened things up a little, and a howling wind +came 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. He +could hear the waves, the boom and burst of them, the suck-back of the +billows tearing the shrieking shale to their hearts, the profound and +sonorous roar of leagues of coast. Imagination could do anything with that +sound except figure the reality of it or paint the tremendous forest +bending to the wind in billows of foliage a hundred leagues long; the roar +of the cotton-woods, the cry of the palm, the sigh of the withered +euphorbias, the thunderous drumming of the great plantain leaves, all +joining in one tremendous symphony led by the trumpets of the wind, broken +by rainbursts from the rushing clouds overhead, and all in viewless +darkness, black as the darkness of the pit. + +This was a new phase of the forest, which since the day Adams entered it +first, 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 any +ordinary man. Day followed day and week followed week, Berselius gaining +strength so slowly that his companion began to despair at last, fancying +that the main fountain and source of life had been injured, and that the +stream would never flow again but in a trickle, to be stopped at the least +shock or obstruction. + +The man was too weak to talk, he could just say "Yes" and "No" in answer +to 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 different +ways--from the thunderous shower-bath rush of water that threatened to +beat the roof in, to the light spitting shower shone through by the sun. +Sometimes the clouds would divide, roll up in snow-white billows of +appalling height, and over the fuming foliage a rainbow would form, and +flocks of birds, as if released by some wizard, break from the reeking +trees. Adams could hear their cries as he stood at the foot wall watching +them circle in the air, and his heart went out to them, for they were the +only living things in the world around him that spoke in a kindly tongue +or 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 to +whom it bore no promise. + +But the forest was the thing which filled Adams's heart with a craving for +freedom and escape that rose to a passion. + +He had seen it silent in the dry season; he had seen it divided by the +great rain-wall and answering the downpour with snow-white billows of mist +and spray; he had heard it roaring in the dark; it had trapped him, beaten +him with its wet, green hands, sucked him down in its quagmires, shown him +its latent, slow, but unalterable ferocity, its gloom, its devilment. + +The rubber collector who had helped to carry Berselius to the fort had +gone back to his place and task--the forest had sucked him back. This +gnome had explained without speaking what the gloom and the quagmire, and +the rope-like lianas had hinted, what the Silent Pools had shouted, what +the 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 the +leopard, no mercy but the mercy of Death._ + +The forest had become for Adams a living nightmare--his one desire in life +now 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, the +palms bursting above the mist and the great clouds rolling away in +billows, as if to expose fully the wonder of those primeval leagues of +tree-tops sunlit, mist-strewn, where the feathery fingers of the palms +made banners of the wrack and the baobabs held fog-banks in their +foliage. + +At the end of the third week Berselius showed signs of amendment. He could +raise himself now in bed and speak. He said little, but it was evident +that his memory had completely returned, and it was evident that he was +still the changed man. The iron-hearted Berselius, the man of daring and +nerve, was not here, he had been left behind in the elephant country in +the immeasurable south. + +The mist had departed entirely from his mind; his whole past was clear +before him, and with his new mind he could reckon it up and see the bad +and the good. The extraordinary fact was that in reviewing this past he +did not feel terrified--it seemed a dead thing and almost as the past of +some other man. All those acts seemed to Berselius to have been committed +by 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 the +mind of Berselius; "those acts were not my acts, because _now I could not +commit them_," so he would have reasoned had he reasoned on the matter at +all. But he did not. In that wild outburst by the Silent Pools the ego had +screamed aloud, raving against itself, raving against the trick that fate +had played it, by making it the slave of two personalities, and then +torturing it by showing it the acts of the old personality through the +eyes of the new. + +When the brain fever had passed, it awoke untroubled; the junction had +been effected, the new Berselius was It, and all the acts of the old +Berselius were foreign to it and far away. + +It is thus the man who gets religion feels when the great change comes on +his brain. After the brain-storm and the agony of new birth comes the +peace and the feeling that he is "another man." He feels that all his sins +are washed away; in other words, he has lost all sense of responsibility +for the crimes he committed in the old life, he has cast them off like an +old suit of clothes. The old man is dead. Ah, but is he? Can you atone for +your vices by losing your smell and taste for vice, and slip out of your +debt for crime by becoming another man? + +Does the old man ever die? + +The case of Berselius stirs one to ask the question, which is more +especially interesting as it is prompted by a case not unique but almost +typical. + +The interesting point in Berselius's case lay in the question as to +whether his change of mind was initiated by the injury received in the +elephant country or by the shock at the Silent Pools. In other words, was +it due to some mechanical pressure on the brain produced by the accident, +or was it due to "repentance" on seeing suddenly unveiled the hideous +drama 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, and +every day now marked a steady improvement in strength. + +Not a word about the past did he say, not a question did he ask, and what +surprised Adams especially, not a question did he put about Meeus, till +one day in the middle of the fifth week. + +Berselius was seated in one of the arm chairs of the sitting room when he +suddenly 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. He +said nothing more and Adams volunteered no explanation, for the affair was +one entirely between Meeus, himself, and God. + +A few minutes later, Berselius, who seemed deep in thought, raised his +head again. + +"We must get away from here. I am nearly strong enough to go now. It will +be a rough journey in these rains, but it will be a much shorter road than +the road we came by." + +"How so?" + +"We came from Yandjali right through the forest before striking south to +here; we will now make straight for the river, along the rubber road. I +think the post on the river which we will reach is called M'Bina, it is a +hundred miles above Yandjali; we can get a boat from there to +Leopoldsville. I have been thinking it all out this morning." + +"How about a guide?" + +"These soldiers here know the rubber track, for they often escort the +loads." + +"Good," said Adams. "I will have some sort of litter rigged up and we will +carry 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 have +bestowed on me during the past weeks. I owe you a considerable debt, which +I will endeavour to repay, at all events, by following your directions +implicitly. Let the litter be made, and if you will send me in the +corporal of those men, I will talk to him in his own language and explain +what is to be done." + +"Good," said Adams, and he went out and found the corporal and sent him in +to Berselius. + +"Good!" The word was not capacious enough to express what he felt. +Freedom, Light, Humanity, the sight of a civilized face, for these he +ached with a great longing, and they were all there at the end of the +rubber 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, waved +its 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 a +threat. + +"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 week +he was busy. From some spare canvas and bamboos in the go-down he made a +litter strong enough to carry Berselius--he had to do nearly all the work +himself, for the soldiers were utterly useless as workmen. Then stores had +to be arranged and put together in a convenient form for carrying; clothes +had to be mended and patched--even his boots had to be cobbled with +twine--but at last all was ready, and on the day before they started the +weather improved. The sun came out strong and the clouds drew away right +to the horizon, where they lay piled in white banks like ranges of +snow-covered mountains. + +That afternoon, an hour before sunset, Adams announced his intention of +going 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 room +before his companion could ask any more questions and sought out the +corporal. + +He beckoned the savage to follow him, and struck down the slope in the +direction of the Silent Pools. When they reached the forest edge he +pointed before them and said, "Matabayo." + +The man understood and led the way, which was not difficult, for the feet +of the rubber collectors had beaten a permanent path. There was plenty of +light, too, for the moon was already in the sky, only waiting for the sun +to 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 forest +around them glowed green to the light of the moon. + +The Silent Pools and the woods, when they reached them, lay in mist and +moonlight, making a picture unforgettable for ever. + +It recalled to Adams that picture of Dore's, illustrating the scene from +the "Idylls of the King," where Arthur labouring up the pass "all in a +misty moonlight," had trodden on the skeleton of the once king, from whose +head the crown rolled like a rivulet of light down to the tarn--the misty +tarn, where imagination pictured Death waiting to receive it and hide it +in his robe. + +The skeleton of no king lay here, only the poor bones still unburied of +the creatures that a far-off king had murdered. The rain had washed them +about, and Adams had to search and search before he found what he had come +to find. + +At last he saw it. The skull of a child, looking like a white stone amidst +the grass. He wrapped it in leaves torn from the trees near by, and the +grim corporal stood watching him, and wondering, no doubt, for what fetish +business the white man had come to find the thing. + +Then Adams with the dreary bundle under his arm looked around him at the +other remains and swore--swore by the God who had made him, by the mother +who had borne him, and the manhood that lay in him, to rest not nor stay +till he had laid before the face of Europe the skull of Papeete and the +acts of the terrible scoundrel who for long years had systematically +murdered for money. + +Then, followed by the savage, he turned and retook his road. At the wood's +edge he looked back at the silent scene, and it seemed to look at him with +the muteness and sadness of a witness who cannot speak, of a woman who +cannot 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 the +escort. + +Berselius, who was strong enough to walk a little way, began the journey +on foot, but they had not gone five miles on their road when he showed +signs of fatigue, and Adams insisted on him taking to the litter. + +It was the same road by which Felix had led them, but it was very +different travelling; where the ground had been hard underfoot it was now +soft, 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 into +valleys, you could hear the rushing and mourning of waters. Tiny trickles +of water had become rivulets--rivulets streams. + +Away in the elephant country it was the same, the dry river-bed where they +had 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. A +hundred thousand streams from Tanganyika to Yandjali were leaping to form +rivers flowing for one destination, the Congo and the sea. + +On the second day of their journey, an accident happened; one of the +porters, released for a spell from bearing the litter, and loitering +behind, was bitten by a snake. + +He died despite all Adams's attempts to save him, and, leaving his body to +be 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, chattered +together for a few minutes, and then the corporal came to Berselius and +began a harangue, his eyes rolling toward Adams now and then as he +proceeded. + +Berselius listened, spoke a few words, and then turned to Adams. + +"He says you have brought something with you that is unlucky, and that +unless you throw it away, we shall all die." + +"I know what he means," replied Adams; "I have brought a relic from that +village by the Silent Pools. I shall not throw it away. You can tell him +so." + +Berselius spoke to the man who still stood sullenly waiting, and who was +opening his mouth to continue his complaints, when Adams seized him by the +shoulders, turned him round, and with a kick, sent him back to his +companions. + +"You should not have done that," said Berselius; "these people are very +difficult to deal with." + +"Difficult!" said Adams. He stared at the soldiers who were grouped +together, slapped the Mauser pistol at his side, and then pointed to the +tent. + +The men ceased muttering, and came as beaten dogs come at the call of +their 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 sat +by the fire, for which the corporal by some miracle of savagery had found +sufficient dry fuel in the reeking woods around them. + +"Another two days' march," replied Berselius, "I trust that we shall reach +it." + +"Oh, we'll get there," said Adams, "and shall I tell you why? Well, we'll +get there just because of that relic I am carrying. God has given me it to +take to Europe. To take to Europe and show to men that they may see the +devilment of this place, and the work of Satan that is being carried out +here." + +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 barrier +between him and the loathing he would have felt if Berselius had been +still himself. + +The great man had fallen, and was now very low. That vision of him in his +madness by the Silent Pools had placed him forever on a plane above +others. God had dealt with this man very visibly, and the hand of God was +still upon him. + +Next day they resumed their journey. The soldiers were cheerful and seemed +to have forgotten all about their grievance, but Berselius felt more +uneasy than ever. He knew these people, and that nothing could move them +to mirth and joy that was not allied to devilment, or treachery, or +death. + +But he said nothing, for speech was useless. + +Next morning when they woke they found the soldiers gone; they had taken +the porter with them, and as much of the provisions as they could steal +without 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 our +road. Did you notice whether we were in the track for the last mile or so +of our journey yesterday?" + +"No," replied Adams, "I just followed on. Good God! if it is so we are +lost." + +Now, the rubber road was just a track so faint, that without keeping his +eyes on the ground where years of travel had left just a slight indication +of the way, a European would infallibly lose it. Savages, who have eyes in +their feet, hold it all right, and go along with their burdens even in the +dark. + +Adams searched, but he could find no track. + +"We must leave all these things behind us," said Berselius, pointing to +the tent and litter. "I am strong enough to walk; we must strike through +the 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 know +in 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 without +disturbing 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 God +has not lost us." + +"Let it be so," replied Berselius. + +Adams collected what provisions he could carry, tied the skull to his belt +with a piece of rope taken from the tent, and led the way amidst the +trees. + +Two days later, at noon, still lost, unutterably weary, they saw through +the 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 of +paths. + +They had not wandered in a circle. They had travelled in segments of +circles, 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 and +gray 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 his +hands just as a draper holds a piece of cloth, then he ripped it up with a +rending 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, even +though 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 leaves +overhead. + +The sun was shining overhead; the sun they would never see again. It was +the 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 it +passing free and happily in the leaves overhead. + +Berselius cast himself down by a huge tree and leaned his head against the +bark. Adams stood for a moment with his hand upon the tree-bole. He knew +that when he had cast himself down he would never rise again. It was the +full 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 a +steamboat! + +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 even +raise his head. + +Adams seized his companion in his arms and came facing the direction of +the breeze. He walked like a man in his sleep, threading the maze of the +trees on, on, on, till before him the day broke in one tremendous splash +of light, and the humble frame-roof of M'Bina seemed to him the roofs of +some great city, beyond which the river flowed in sheets of burnished +gold. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE SUBSTITUTE + + +District Commissioner De Wiart, chief at M'Bina, was a big man with a +blond beard and a good-natured face. He worked the post at M'Bina with the +assistance of a subordinate named Van Laer. + +De Wiart was a man eminently fitted for his post. He had a genius for +organization and overseeing. He would not have been worth a centime away +up-country, for his heart was far too good to allow him to personally +supervise the working of the niggers, but at M'Bina he was worth a good +deal to the Government that employed him. + +This man who would not hurt a fly--this man who would have made an +excellent father of a family--was terrible to his subordinates when he +took a pen in his hand. He knew the mechanism of every _Chef de Poste_ in +his district, and the sort of letter that would rouse him up, stimulate +him 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 a +famished hound held back by a leash. He was tall and thin. He had been a +schoolmaster dismissed from his school for a grave offence; he had been a +billiard-marker; he had walked the streets of Brussels in a frock-coat and +tall hat, a "guide" on the lookout for young foreigners who wished to +enjoy 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 murderous +cruelty, an expression of negation and coldness combined with mind such as +one finds nowhere in the animal kingdom, save that branch of it which +prides itself on its likeness to God. His thumbs were cruelly shaped and +enormous. A man may disguise his soul, he may disguise his mind, he may +disguise his face, but he cannot disguise his thumbs unless he wears +gloves. + +No one wears gloves on the Congo, so Van Laer's thumbs were openly +displayed. + +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 wanted +to be doing. He could make money up there in the forest at the heart of +things; 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 the +great tusks of green ivory in their jackets of matting, when he saw the +bales of copal leafed round with aromatic unknown leaves, and speaking +fervently of the wealth of the tropics and the riches of the primeval +forests, when he saw the tons of rubber and remembered that this stuff, +which in the baskets of the native collectors looks like fried potato +chips, in Europe becomes, by the alchemy of trade, minted gold, a great +hunger filled his hungry soul. + +At M'Bina great riches were eternally flowing in and flowing out. Wealth +in its original wrappings piled itself on the wharf in romantical packets +and bales, piled itself on board steamers, floated away down the golden +river, and was replaced by more wealth flowing in from the inexhaustible +forests. + +The sight of all this filled Van Laer with an actual physical hunger. He +could have eaten that stuff that was wealth itself. He could have devoured +those tusks. He was Gargantua as far as his appetite was concerned, and +for the rest he was only Van Laer driving a quill in the office of De +Wiart. + +He did not know that he was here on probation; that the good-natured and +seemingly lazy de Wiart was studying him and finding him satisfactory, +that very soon his desires would be fulfilled, and that he would be let +loose like a beast on the land of his longing, a living whip, an animated +thumb-screw, a knife with a brain in its haft. + +When the soldiers had lost Berselius and Adams, they struck at once for +M'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 a +big white man toward M'Bina. One night three leopards had prowled round +the camp and the soldiers had gone in pursuit of them. + +The leopards escaped, but the soldiers could not find the white men +again. + +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; if +one did, then the thing would not be lost. + +"Just so," said De Wiart, agreeing to this very evident axiom, and more +than ever convinced that the story was a lie. Meeus was dead and the men +had come to report. They had delayed on the road to hold some jamboree of +their own, and this lie about the white men was to account for their +delay. + +"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 and +lit by the sun which had broken through the clouds, looked like a moving +flood of gold. One might have fancied that all the wealth of the elephant +country, all the teeming riches of the forest, flowing by a thousand +streams and disdaining to wait for the alchemy of trade, had joined in one +Pactolian flood flowing toward Leopoldsville and the sea. + +De Wiart was not thinking this. He dismissed the soldiers and told them to +hold 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 will +go there and take command. You will start to-morrow." + +Van Laer flushed. + +"It is a difficult post," said De Wiart, "wild country, and the natives +are the laziest to be found in the whole of the state. The man before +Meeus did much harm; he had no power or control, he was a weak man, and +the people frankly laughed at him. Actually rubber came in here one-third +rubbish, the people were half their time in revolt, they cut the vines in +two districts. I have a report of his saying, 'There is no ivory to be +got. The herds are very scarce, and the people say they cannot make +elephants.' Fancy writing nigger talk like that in a report. I replied in +the same tone. I said, 'Tell the people they must make them: and make them +in 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. Once +a man does that he is lost, for they lose all respect for him. They are +just like children, these people; once let children get in the habit of +making excuses and you lose control. + +"Meeus was a stronger man, but he left much to be desired. He had too much +whalebone in his composition, not enough steel, but he was improving. + +"You will find yourself at first in a difficult position. It always is so +when a _Chef de Poste_ dies suddenly and even a few days elapse before he +is replaced. The people get out of hand, thinking the white man is gone +for ever. However, you will find yourself all right in a week or so, if +you are firm." + +"Thank you," said Van Laer. "I have no doubt at all that I will be able to +bring these people into line. I do not boast. I only ask you to keep your +eye on the returns." + +Next day Van Laer, escorted by the soldiers, left M'Bina to take up the +station 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 the +sentinels on duty saw, coming toward him in the blazing sunshine, a great +man who stumbled and seemed half-blinded by the sunlight, and who was +bearing in his arms another man who seemed dead. + +Both were filthy, ragged, torn and bleeding. The man erect had, tied to +his waistbelt by a piece of liana, a skull. + +Fit emblem of the forest he had passed through and the land that lay +behind it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +PARIS + + +One hot day in June Schaunard was seated in the little office just behind +his shop. He was examining an improved telescopic sight which had just +been put upon the market by an opponent, criticizing it as one poet +criticizes the poem of another poet--that is to say, ferociously. + +To him, thus meditating, from the Rue de la Paix suddenly came a gush of +sound which as suddenly ceased. + +The shop door had opened and closed again, and Schaunard leaving his +office came out to see who the visitor might be. + +He found himself face to face with Adams. He knew him by his size, but he +would scarcely have recognized him by his face, so brown, so thin and so +different in expression was it from the face of the man with whom he had +parted 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 a +pleasant surprise. I had entered it amidst my bad debts. Come in, +monsieur, come into my office, it is cooler there, and we can talk. The +gun, ah, yes. I had entered that transaction in Ledger D. Come in, come +in. There, take that armchair, I keep it for visitors. Well, and how did +the expedition go off?" + +"Badly," said Adams. "We are only back a week. You remember what you said +to me when we parted? You said, 'Don't go.' I wish I had taken your +advice." + +"Why, since you are back sound and whole, it seems to me you have not done +so 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 to +one and cruel, they matched the eternal little laugh which was ever +springing to his lips--the laugh of the eternal mocker. + +Schaunard made observations as well as telescopic sights and +wind-gauges--he had been making observation for sixty years--he took +almost as much interest in individual human beings as in rifles, and much +more interest in Humanity than in God. + +He was afflicted with the malady of the nineteenth and twentieth +centuries--he did not believe in God, only instead of hiding his disease +under a cloak of mechanical religion, or temporizing with it, he frankly +declared himself to be what he was, an atheist. + +This fact did not interfere with his trade--a godly gunmaker gets no more +custom than an atheistical one; besides, Schaunard did not obtrude his +religious opinions after the fashion of his class, he was a good deal of a +gentleman, and he was accustomed to converse familiarly with emperors and +kings. + +"No, it is not malaria," replied Adams, following the old man who was +leading the way into the office. "I never felt better in my life. It is +just 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 week +back--all he had seen out there was fresh to him and very vivid, but he +felt in Schaunard an antagonistic spirit, and he did not care to go deeper +into his experiences. + +Schaunard took down that grim joke, Ledger D, placed it on the table and +opened 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 the +Avenue Malakoff as his medical attendant. We only arrived at Marseilles a +week 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 even +after Africa--well, tell me how you found the gun to answer." + +Adams laughed. "The gun went off--in the hands of a savage. All your +beautiful 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 had +charged 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 marvellous +sight he had watched when Berselius, failing in his attempt to waken the +Zappo 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 an +affection for this man almost brotherly, and Schaunard's remark hit him +and made him wince. For Schaunard employed the present tense. + +"Yes," said Adams at last, "it was very grand." Then he went on to tell of +Berselius's accident, but he said nothing of his brain injury, for a +physician does not speak of his patient's condition to strangers, except +in the vaguest and most general terms. + +"And how did you like the Belgians?" asked the old man, when Adams had +finished. + +"The Belgians!" Adams, suddenly taken off his guard, exploded; he had said +nothing 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 mournful +country--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, for +he 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 is +already exposed. Expose Leopold, King of the Belgians! Say at once that +you are going to expose the sun. He doesn't care. He exposes himself. His +public 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 have +seen, and that's all the difference." + +"How so?" + +"In this way, monsieur; let us suppose that you have just seen a child run +over in the Rue de la Paix. You come in here and tell me of it; the horror +of it is in your mind, but you cannot convey that horror to me, simply +because I have not seen what you have seen. Still, you can convey a part +of 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 have +never seen, dwelling in a province I have never heard of. You come to seek +sympathy for this people amongst the French public? Well, I tell you +frankly you are like a man searching in a dark room for a black hat that +is not there." + +"Nevertheless I shall search." + +"As monsieur wills, only don't knock yourself against the chairs and +tables. Ah, monsieur, monsieur, you are young and a medical man. Remain +so, 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 is +speaking to you. The man you would expose, as you term it, is a king to +begin with; to go on with, he is far and away the cleverest king in +Christendom. That man has brains enough to run what you in America call a +department store. Every little detail of his estate out there, even to the +cap guns and rifles of the troops, he looks after himself; that's why it +pays. It is a bad-smelling business, but it doesn't poison the nose of +Europe, because it is so far away. Still, smells are brought over in +samples by missionaries and men like you, and people say 'Faugh!' Do you +think he did not take that into his consideration when he planned the +affair and laid down the factory? If you think so, you would be vastly +mistaken. He has agents everywhere--I have met them, apologists +everywhere--in the Press, in Society, in the Church. The Roman Catholic +Church is entirely his; he is triple-ringed with politicians, priests, +publicists, and financiers, all holding their noses to keep out the stench +and 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 Elysee, my trade has brought me everywhere, +and if you could see with my eyes, you would see the great, smooth plain +of 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 hunting +expedition, it seems to me, a more dangerous one, too, than the last, for +there is no forest where one loses oneself more fatally than the forest of +social 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 his +joke, and Adams walked off down the Rue de la Paix. + +Paris was wearing her summer dress; it was the end of the season, and the +streets were thronged with foreigners--the Moor from Morocco, in his white +burnous, elbowed the Slav from Moscow; the Eiffel Tower had become a +veritable Tower of Babel; the theatres were packed, the _cafes_ crowded. +Austrian, Russian, English, and American gold was pouring into the +city--pouring in ceaselessly from the four corners of the world and by +every great express disgorging at the Gare du Nord, the Gare de l'Est, and +the Gare de Lyons. + +To Adams, fresh from the wilderness and the forest, fresh from those +great, silent, sunlit plains of the elephant country and the tremendous +cavern of the jungle, the city around him and the sights affected him with +vividness and force. + +Here, in the centre of the greatest civilization that the world has ever +seen, he stood fresh from that primeval land. + +He had seen civilization with her mask off, her hair in disorder, her foot +on the body of a naked slave and the haft of a blood-stained knife between +her 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 mind +and was replaced by the vision of Maxine Berselius. Opposites in the world +of thought often awaken images one of the other, just because of the fact +that they are opposites. + +Maxine was not at Trouville. She had met them at the railway station on +the day of their arrival. + +_La Joconde_ had been cabled for from Leopoldsville, and the great yacht +had brought them to Marseilles. Nothing had been cabled as to Berselius's +accident 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 had +done 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 the +library. He was seated in a big armchair, and M. Pinchon, his secretary, a +man dry-looking as an account-book, bald, and wearing spectacles, was just +leaving the room with some shorthand notes of business letters to be +typed. + +Berselius was much changed; his hair was quite gray, his eyes, once so +calm, forceful, and intrinsically brilliant, had lost their lustre, his +face 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 recovering +from the hardships of the forest and on the voyage home, though weak +enough, he had been serene, mild, amiable and rather listless, but during +the last few days something was visibly troubling him. + +He had "gone off," to use an expressive phrase sometimes employed by +physicians. + +A strange thing had happened to Berselius. Ever since the recovery of his +memory his new self had contemplated the past from the heights of new +birth, calmly conscious of the fact that this past belonged to a man who +was dead. The more he examined this past the more he loathed the man to +whom it had belonged, but the difference between that man and himself was +so profound that he felt, rightly, that he was not _He_. + +Three mornings ago Berselius, who rarely dreamt, had awakened from a long +night of hunting in Dreamland. In Dreamland he had cast off his new +personality and became his old self, and then, in his hunting shirt and +with a cordite rifle in his hand, accompanied by the Zappo Zap, he had +tracked elephant herds across illimitable plains. + +He had awakened to his new self again with the full recognition in his +mind that only a few moments ago he had been thinking with that other +man's brain, acting under his passions, living his life. + +The Berselius of Dreamland had not the remotest connection with, or +knowledge of, the Berselius of real life. Yet the Berselius of real life +was very intimately connected with the Berselius of Dreamland, knew all +his actions, knew all his sensations, and remembered them to the minutest +detail. + +The next night he did not dream at all--not so on the third night, when +the scene of horror by the Silent Pools was reenacted, himself in the +original _role_. The incidents were not quite the same, for scenes from +real life are scarcely ever reproduced on the stage of Dreamland in their +entirety; but they were ghastly enough in all conscience, and Berselius, +awake and wiping the sweat from his brow, saw them clearly before him and +remembered the callousness with which he had watched them but a few +moments ago. + +No man can command his dreams; the dreaming man lives in a world beyond +law, and it came as a shock to Berselius that his old self should be alive +in him like this, powerful, active, and beyond rebuke. + +Physically, he was a wreck of his old self, but that was nothing to the +fact which was now borne in on him--the fact that this new mentality was +but a thin shell covering the old, as the thin shell of earth, with its +flowers and pleasant landscapes, covers the burning hell which is the +earth's core. + +The thing was perfectly natural. A great and vivid personality, and forty +years of exuberant and self-willed life had at a stroke been checked and +changed. The crust of his mind had cooled; tempestuous passions had passed +from the surface, giving place to kindlier emotions, but the furnace was +there beneath the flower garden just as it is in the case of the earth. + +Captain Berselius was still alive, though suppressed and living in +secrecy. 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 was +condemned to sleep by day. + +So far from having been touched by death, Captain Berselius was now secure +from death or change; a thing not to be reasoned with or altered--beyond +human control--yet vividly alive as the fabled monster that inhabits the +cellars of Glamis Castle. + +Between the dual personalities of the man complete fission had taken +place, a terrible accident of the sort condemning the cast-off personality +to 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 would +mend, 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 command +sleep. Do you feel yourself able to talk for a bit?" + +"Oh, yes, I feel physically well. Sit down, you will find some cigars in +that 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 had +gone through so much together. On their return, when Berselius had desired +Adams to remain as his medical attendant, he had delegated M. Pinchon as +intermediary 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 of +employer and employed was reduced to vanishing point and the position +rendered more equal. + +"You know," said Adams, "I have always been glad to do anything I can for +you, and I always shall be, but since I have come back to Paris I have +been filled with unrest. You complain of sleeplessness--well, that is my +disease." + +"Yes?" + +"It's that place over there; it has got into my blood. I declare to God +that I am the last man in the world to sentimentalize, but that horror is +killing me, and I must act--I must do something--even if I have to go into +the middle of the Place de la Concorde and shout it aloud. I shall shout +it aloud. I'm not made so that I can stand seeing a thing like that in +silence." + +Berselius sat with his eyes fixed on the carpet; he seemed abstracted and +scarcely listening. He knew perfectly well that Adams was acquainted with +the affair at the Silent Pools, but the subject had never been mentioned +between them, nor was it now. + +"That missionary I met on the return home at Leopoldsville," went on +Adams, "he was a Baptist, a man, not a religion-machine. He gave me +details from years of experience that turned my heart in me. With my own +eyes I saw enough----" + +Berselius held up his hand. + +"Let us not speak of what we know," said he. "The thing is there--has been +there 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 like +knowing that a murder is slowly being committed in the next house and that +one has no power to interfere. When I look at the streets full of people +amusing themselves; when I see the _cafes_ crammed, and the rich driving +in their carriages; the churches filled with worshippers worshipping a God +who 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 have +seen, I could worship _that_!" + +He stopped, and pointed to the great gorilla shot years ago in German West +Africa by Berselius. "That was a being at least sincere. Whatever +brutalities he committed in his life, he did not talk sentiment and +religion and humanitarianism as he pulled his victims to pieces, and he +did not pull his victims to pieces for the sake of gold. He was an honest +devil, 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'd +guillotine the ruffian that invented it. I cannot do that, but I can at +least protest." + +Berselius, who had helped to make the machine, and who knew better than +most men its strength, shook his head sadly. + +"Do what you will," said he. "If you need money my funds are at your +disposal, but you cannot destroy the past." + +Adams, who knew nothing of Berselius's dream-obsession, could not +understand the full meaning of these words. + +But he had received permission to act, and the promise of that financial +support without which individual action would be of no avail. + +He determined to act; he determined to spare neither Berselius's money nor +his own time. + +But the determination of man is limited by circumstance, and circumstance +was at that moment preparing and rehearsing the last act of the drama of +Berselius. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +BERSELIUS BEHOLDS HIS OTHER SELF + + +On the morning after Berselius's conversation with Adams, Berselius left +the Avenue Malakoff, taking his way to the Avenue des Champs Elysees on +foot. + +The change in the man was apparent even in his walk. In the old days he +was rapid in his movements, erect of head, keen of eye. The weight of +fifteen years seemed to have suddenly fallen on his shoulders, bowing them +and slowing his step. He was in reality carrying the most terrible burden +that a man can carry--himself. + +A self that was dead, yet with which he had to live. A past which broke +continually up through his dreams. + +He was filled with profound unrest, irritation and revolt; everything +connected with that other one, even the money he had made and the house he +had built for himself and the pursuits he had followed, increased this +irritation and revolt. He had already formed plans for taking a new house +in Paris, but to-day, as he walked along the streets, he recognized that +Paris itself was a house, every corner of which belonged to that other +one's past. + +In the Avenue Champs Elysees, he hailed a _fiacre_ and drove to the house +of his lawyer, M. Cambon, which was situated in the Rue d'Artiles. + +Cambon had practically retired from his business, which was carried on now +by his son. But for a few old and powerful clients, such as Berselius, he +still acted personally. + +He was at home, and Berselius was shown into a drawing room, furnished +heavily 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 up +in a frock-coat, the buttonhole of which was adorned with the red rosette +of the Legion of Honour. + +Cambon had known Berselius for years. The two men were friends, and even +more, for Cambon was the depository of Berselius's most confidential +affairs. + +"Well," said the lawyer, "you have returned. I saw a notice of your return +in the _Echo de Paris_, and indeed, this very day I had promised myself +the 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, without +referring, however, to his accident; and the fat and placid Cambon +listened, pleased as a child with the tale. He had never seen an elephant +except 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, and +the tale had all the attraction that the strong has for the weak and the +ferocious for the mild. + +But even as he listened, sitting there in his armchair, he was examining +his visitor with minute attention, trying to discover some clue to the +meaning 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 important +was the shifting of his money from the securities in which they were +placed. + +Cambon, who was a large holder of rubber industries, grew pale beneath his +natural pallor when he discovered that Berselius was about to place his +entire fortune elsewhere. + +Instantly he put two and two together. Berselius's quick return, his +changed appearance, the fact that suddenly and at one sweep he was selling +his stock. All these pointed to one fact--disaster. + +The elephant story was all a lie, so resolved Cambon, and, no sooner had +he bowed his visitor out, than he rushed to the telephone, rang up his +broker, 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 selling +of his rubber industry shares had been prompted by no feeling of +compunction; it was an act entirely dictated by the profound irritation he +felt against the other one who had made his fortune out of those same +rubber industries. + +He wished to break every bond between himself and the infernal entity that +dominated him by night. Surely it was enough to be that other one at +night, without being perpetually haunted by that other one's traces by +day. + +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 up +beside his carriage, was seated a young and pretty woman. It was Sophia +Melmotte, a flame from his past life, burning now for a space in the life +of a Russian prince. + +"_Ma foi_," said Sophia, as her carriage pushed up till it was quite level +with Berselius. "So you are back from--where was it you went to? And how +are the tigers? Why, heavens, how you are changed! How gloomy you look. +One would think you had swallowed a hearse and had not digested the +trappings----" + +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's +tone that made the simple words an insult. Before she could reply, +however, the block in the traffic ceased, and as the carriage drove on +Berselius bowed again to her coldly, and as though she were a stranger +with 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 before +luncheon, he met Colonel Tirard, the very man who had presided at the +banquet given to him on the day of his leaving for Africa. This man, who +had been his friend, this man, in whose society he had always felt +pleasure, was now obnoxious to him. And after a while the weird fact was +borne 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 new +rifle for the army, which filled Tirard's conversation, would have been an +interesting subject to the old Berselius; it was absolutely distasteful to +the 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 useless +to 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 have +to re-create a world of interests for himself out of new media. He was +living in a world where all the fruit and foliage and crops had been +blighted 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 a +single seed. + +Yet he did not give in all at once. Like a person persisting in some +disagreeable medicine, hoping to become accustomed to it, he continued his +conversation with Tirard. + +After luncheon, he sat down to a game of ecarte in the card-room with an +old acquaintance, but after half an hour's play he left the table on the +plea 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 she +would say, "Look and deny me if you dare." + +Toward Berselius was approaching a victoria drawn by two magnificent +horses, 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 the +languid 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 man +whom all thinking men abhor, a cold hand seemed laid upon his heart, as +though in that person he beheld the dead self that haunted his dreams by +night, as though he saw in the flesh Berselius, the murderer, who, by +consent, had murdered the people of the Silent Pools; the murderer, by +consent, who had crushed millions of wretched creatures to death for the +sake of gold; the villain of Europe, who had spent that gold in nameless +debauchery; the man whose crimes ought to have been expiated on the +scaffold, and whose life ought to have been cut short by the executioner +of justice, many, many years ago. + +It was thus at one stroke that Berselius saw his other self, the self that +haunted 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 on +his. + +When he reached home, in the hall, just as he was handing his hat to a +servant, Maxine appeared at the door of the library. Her beauty, +innocence, and sweetness formed a strange vision contrasted with that +other vision he had seen near the Madeleine. Was it possible that God's +world could hold two such creatures, and that God's air should give them +breath? For a week or ten days after this, Berselius remained in his own +suite of apartments without leaving the house. + +It was as if the sight of Leopold, so triumphantly alive, had shown him +fully his own change and his weakness had demonstrated to him clearly that +he 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, came +back suddenly from Trouville. + +She knew of her husband's return, but she knew nothing of the injury or of +the alteration that had come in him until Maxine, who met her at the +station, hinted at the fact. Berselius was standing at the window of his +private sitting room when Madame Berselius was announced. + +He turned to greet her; even as he turned she perceived the change. This +was 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 shrunk +like a slave. Intuition told her that the change was not the change +wrought by sickness--Berselius was not ill, he was gone, leaving another +man in his place. They conversed for some time on indifferent matters, and +then Madame Berselius took her departure for her own apartments. + +But she left the room of Berselius a changed woman, just as he had +returned to it a changed man. + +The slave in her had found her freedom. Utterly without the capacity for +love and without honour, without conscience and with a vague superstition +to serve for religion, Madame Berselius had, up to this, been held in her +place 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 even +in the minor affairs of life everything had to be surrendered at his +word. + +And now she hated him. + +She had never hated him before, she had admired him; indeed, as far as her +power of admiration went, his strength had appealed to her as only +strength can appeal to a woman of her type; but now that his strength was +gone hatred of him rose up in her heart, petty yet powerful, a dwarf +passion that had been slumbering for years. + +When the engine seizes the engineer in its wheels, when the slave gets +power over his master, cruel things happen, and they were to happen in the +case of Berselius. + +Madame's rooms were so far away from the rooms of her husband that they +might have been living in different houses. There was none of the intimacy +of married life between this couple; they met formally at meal times, and +it was at _dejeuner_ on the morning after her return that she showed +openly before Adams, Maxine, and the servants her contempt for the man who +had once held her in subjection. Without a rude word, simply by her +manner, her tone, and her indifference to him, she humbled to the dust the +stricken man and proclaimed the full measure of his disaster. + +As day followed day the dominance of the woman and the subjection of the +man became more marked. Madame would, if the spirit took her, countermand +her husband's orders; once, with absolute rudeness, she, at table and +before the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was a guest, turned to +ridicule a remark which Berselius had let escape. The flush that came to +his cheek told Maxine that her father's sensibilities were not dead--he +was dominated. + +Nothing could be stranger than this reduction of a man from greatness to +insignificance. The old Berselius dying, bound in chains, would have +mastered this woman with one glance of his eye. The new Berselius, free, +wealthy, and with all his material powers at command, was yet her +creature, an object of pity to his daughter and of derision to his +servants. + +Eight days after her return Madame Berselius, now free and her own +mistress, left Paris for Vaux on a short visit to some friends, little +dreaming 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 a +broad 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 had +been revealed to him. + +It was all there in his mind like a tremendous dramatic poem: the great +sunlit spaces of the elephant country watched over by the vultures, the +eternal and illimitable forests old as Memnon, young as Spring, unwithered +and unbroken by the suns and rains and storms of the ages; the river +flooding to the sea, and the people to whom this place belonged, and the +story of their misery and despair. + +When he contrasted what he had written with what was in his mind, he +recognized the hopelessness of his attempt. He had not the power to put on +paper 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 an +AEschylus. + +Sitting thus before the picture he could not reproduce, there rose before +his mind another picture he had seen that day. It was a large photograph +of the Laocoon. He had seen it in Brentano's window, and, now, with the +eye of memory, he was looking at it again. + +That wonderful work of art washed up to us by the ages, that epic in +marble, expressed all that words refused to say: the father and the +children in the toils of Fate; the hand upholding for a moment the +crushing coil of the serpent, the face raised to a sky devoid of God or +pity; the agony, the sweat and the cruelty, all were there; and as Adams +gazed, the python-like lianas of the forest became alive in his mind, the +snake-like rubber vine twined in coils, circling about and crushing a +nation and its children, remote from help and from God, as Laocoon and his +sons. + +Ages have passed since the sculptor of that marble laid down his chisel +and gazed at his completed work. Little dreamt he that thousands of years +later it would stand as a parable, representing civilization in the form +of the python which he had carved with such loathing yet such loving +care. + +Adams, in the grasp of this startling thought, was recalled from reverie +by 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 to +avoid another when both are dwelling in the same house. + +The pride of manhood warned him against this woman who was rich and the +daughter of the man from whom he received a salary. + +Maxine knew nothing of the pride of manhood; she only knew that he avoided +her. + +She was dressed entirely in white with a row of pearls for her only +ornament. She had just returned from some social function, and Adams as he +rose 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 back +to 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 physician +looks 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 is +another man." + +"When we were hunting out there," said Adams, "Captain Berselius had an +accident. In trying to rescue a servant he was caught by an elephant and +flung some distance; he hurt his head, and when he recovered consciousness +his memory was quite gone. It slowly returned----" He paused, for it was +impossible to give details, then he went on--"I noticed, myself, as the +memory was returning, that he seemed changed; when he had fully recovered +his memory, the fact was obvious. He was, as you say, quite different--in +fact, 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 had +never loved him in the true sense of the word, but she had respected him +and felt a pride in his strength and dominance. + +The man who had returned from Africa seemed to her an inferior being; the +wreck, in fact, of the man she had always known. + +"And this happened to him," said she, "when he was trying to save a +servant's life?" + +"Ah," said Adams, "if you could have seen it, you would have called it +something even higher than that--it was a sublime act." + +He told her the details, even as he had told them to Schaunard, but with +additions. + +"I myself was paralyzed--I could only cling to the tree and watch. The +fury of that storm of beasts coming down on one was like a wind--I can put +it no other way--like a wind that stripped one's mind of everything but +just the power of sight. I can imagine now the last day, when the sun +shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood. It was as bad as +that--well, _he_ did not lose his mind or nerve, he found time to think of +the man who was lying drugged with hemp, and he found courage enough in +his heart to attempt to save him. He was fond of the man, for the man was +a great hunter though an absolute savage, without heart or soul. + +"Without heart or soul----" Adams paused. There was something about Maxine +Berselius that made her different from the ordinary woman one meets in +life--some inheritance from her father, perhaps, who knows? But through +the sweetness of her nature which spoke in voice and expression, through +her loveliness and her womanliness, there shone a light from within. Like +the gleam from the lamp that lives in an opal, this mind-brightness of +Maxine's pierced the clouds of her beauty capriciously, now half-veiled, +now shining forth. It was the light of that flame which men call +originality. 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 the +light of other people's lamps. + +The Hostage House of Yandjali would have told Maxine infinitely more than +it told Adams. She would have read in Meeus's face a story that he never +deciphered; she would have seen in the people of the Silent Pools a whole +nation in chains, when he with his other-people-begotten ideas of niggers +and labour only saw a few recalcitrant blacks. It wanted skulls and bones +to bring him to a sense of the sorrow around him; the sight of these +people would have told Maxine of their tears. + +This instinct for the truth of things made her a reader of people. Adams +had interested her at first sight, because she found him difficult to +read. She had never met a man like him before; he belonged to a different +race. The man in him appealed powerfully to the woman in her; they were +physical affinities. She had told him this in a hundred ways half +unconsciously and without speech before they parted at Marseilles, but the +mind in him had not appealed to the mind in her. She did not know his +mind, its stature or its bent, and until that knowledge came to her she +could not love him. + +As he stood with his back to the fireplace after that pronouncement on the +spiritual and moral condition of the Zappo Zap, his thoughts strayed for a +moment with a waft of the wing right across the world to the camping place +by the great tree. Out there now, under the stars, the tree and the pool +were lying just as he had seen them last. Away to the east the burst +elephant gun was resting just where it had been dropped; the bones of the +giraffe, clean-picked and white, were lying just where the gun had laid +them; and the bones of the man who had held the gun were lying just where +the leopards had left him. + +Adams knew nothing of this triangle drawn by death; he still fancied the +Zappo Zap alive and deadly. Stirred into speech by that thought he went +on: + +"A cannibal--a creature worse than a tiger--that was the being for whom +your 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. Slave +drivers is the real name, but the Government that employs them does not +use the word slave--oh, no, everyone would be shocked--_scoundrels_!" + +He spoke the word with suddenly flashing eyes, uplifted head, and a face +as stern the face of Themis. He seemed for a moment fronting some +invisible 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 me +open my eyes, but the thing was not shown to me really till I saw the +bones of murdered people--people whom I had seen walking about +alive--lying there a few weeks later, just skeletons; a little child I had +talked 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 more +than what was expressed by that abrupt stoppage of speech and turning +away. + +The girl scarcely breathed till the man turned from the mantelpiece and +faced her again. There was no trace of emotion on his face, but the trace +of a struggle with it. Maxine's eyes were filled with tears. + +"I am sorry," said he, "that I should have dragged this subject before you +at 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 the +carpet with her eyes, her chin resting on her hand, and the light from +above made a halo of the burnished red-gold hair that was her crowning +charm. + +Then she said, speaking slowly, "I am not sorry. Surely if such things +are, they ought to be known. Why should I turn away my face from +suffering? I have never done so in Paris, and I have seen much of the +misery of Paris, for I have gone amongst it as much as a girl can, but +what you tell me is beyond what I have ever heard of, or read of, or +dreamed. 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 like +Thomas; 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. He +took from it the skull he had brought with him through everything to +civilization. + +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 and +showed her by the _foramen magnum_ the hacks in the bone caused by the +knife. + +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 and +repellent it looked. One would never have imagined the black face, the +grin, 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. I +am not afraid of it--poor, poor creature. Tell me all you know--tell me +the worst. I am not a young lady for the moment, please, just a person +listening." + +He took his seat in an armchair opposite to her, and resting his elbows on +his knees, talking just as if he were talking to a man, found the words he +could not find when, pen in hand, half an hour ago, he had tried to +express himself in writing. + +He told of the Hostage House at Yandjali, and the wretched creatures +penned like animals eating their miserable food; he told of M'Bassa and +the Hostage House there, with its iron rings and chains; he told how all +over that vast country these places were dotted, not by the hundred but by +the thousand; he told of the misery of the men who were driven into the +dismal forests, slaves of masters worse than tigers, and of a task that +would never end as long as rubber grew and Christ was a name in Europe and +not a power; he told the awful fact that murder there was used every day +as an agricultural implement, that people were operated upon, and suffered +amputation of limbs, not because of disease; and that their sex and +age--those two last appeals of Nature to brutality--had no voice; he told +the 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 the +crimes against Nature, the crimes against men, against women, and against +children, that even if the Congo State were swept away to-morrow, will +leave Belgium's name in the world's history more detestable than the names +of the unspeakable cities sunk in the Dead Sea. + +Maxine listened, entranced, swayed between the terror of the tale and the +power of the man who was telling it. + +Ah! if he could have spoken to Europe as he spoke to her; if he could have +made Europe see as he made her see, what a whirlwind of indignation would +have arisen; but he could not. + +It was the magnet of her sympathy that marshalled the facts, clad them in +burning language, and led them forth in battalions that stormed her mind +and made her believe what seemed unbelievable. Without that sympathy, his +words would have been cold and lifeless statements bearing little +conviction. + +When he had finished, she did that which a woman never does unless moved +by the very highest excitement. She rose up and paced the floor thrice. +Without speaking, she walked the length of the room, then she turned to +Adams. + +"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 thing +on paper--trying to put down what I have seen with my own eyes, and heard +with 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 were +killed, so many were tortured, conveys nothing of the reality. The thing +is too big for me. God made it, I suppose; but I wish to God I had never +seen 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 was +listening, but she was thinking as well. + +"You cannot do everything yourself," said she, at last. "You must get +others to help, and in this I can, perhaps, assist you. Will you go +to-morrow and see Monsieur Pugin? I do not know him personally, but I know +a friend of his. I will send him a note early to-morrow morning, and the +servant can bring back the letter of introduction. You could call upon him +to-morrow afternoon." + +"Who is Monsieur Pugin?" + +This question, showing such a boundless ignorance of every-day French life +and literature, rather shocked Maxine. She explained that Ary Pugin, the +author of "Absolution" and twenty other works equally beautiful, was above +all other men fitted to bring home to France the story of this great sin. +"Absolution," that masterpiece, had shown France her cruelty in the +expulsion of the religious orders. France had read it weeping, drying her +tears with one hand and continuing the expulsion of the religious orders +with the other. + +That, however, was not Pugin's fault; he had done his best. It was not his +fault that logic and sentiment are so largely constituent of the French +nature, making between them that paradox, the French mind. + +"I will go and see him," said Adams, when the girl had explained what +Pugin was, what Pugin did, and what Pugin had written. "A man like that +could do more with a stroke of his pen, than I with weary years of +blundering attempts to write. I can never thank you enough for listening +to me. It is strange, but half the weight of the thing seems to have +passed from my mind." + +"To mine," she replied. Then, with charming _naivete_, she held out both +hands to him. + +"Good night." + +As he held the door open, and as she passed out, he realized that, during +the last few months, his faith in the goodness of God--the old simple +faith of his childhood--had been all but stolen by ferocious and fiendish +hands from his mind, and that just now, in some miraculous way, it had +been 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 light +in her sitting room, and sat down at once to write to the friend who was a +friend of Pugin's. + +This friend was Sabatier. + +She had studied art under him, and between artist and pupil lay that +mysterious bond which unites craftsmen. For Maxine was great in knowledge +and power, and above all in that instinct without which an artist is at +best an animated brush, a pencil under the dominion of mechanical force. + +As she wrote, she little dreamed that the sympathy burning in her heart +and moving to eloquence her pen, was a thing born not from the sufferings +of an afflicted people, but of the love of a man. A child of her mind +begotten by the man she had just left, and whom, that night, she had +learned to love. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +PUGIN + + +Pugin lived in the Boulevard Haussmann. He had begun life quite low down +in the Parisian world on the quays as apprentice to Manasis, a jew +book-dealer, who has been dead twenty-five years, whose money has been +dispersed, whose name has been forgotten, of whom nothing remains on earth +but the few hours a day of time filched from him by Pugin. + +Pugin had a hard and bitter fight for twenty years before he obtained +recognition. The garret and starvation act had been unduly prolonged in +the case of this genius, and it seemed a mystery where and how in the +ruined city which is at the heart of every city, in that _cour des +Miracles_ where the Bohemians camp, he had found, like a crystal vase, his +exquisite style, preserved it unbroken by mischance or shock of fate, and +carried 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, and +to-day as he sat reading in the cool recesses of his library, and +listening to the sound of the Paris he loved floating in with the warm +June air through the open window, he felt at peace with all the world and +in a mood to do justice to his bitterest enemy. + +The striped sun-blinds filtered the blaze outside, letting pass only a +diffused and honey-coloured twilight; a great bowl of roses filled the +room with the simple and deep poetry of summer, the story of the hedges +and the fields, of orchards shot through with the voices of birds, of +cattle knee-deep in cool water where the dragon-flies keep up their +eternal dance to the flute-like ripple of the river amidst the reeds. + +Pugin, his book upon his knees, was enjoying these pictures of summer +woven by perfume, when a servant entered and handed him Adams's card and +the letter of introduction written by Sabatier. + +He ordered the visitor to be shown in. Adams, when he entered, found +himself before a small man with a big head; an ugly little man, with a +look of kindness and a very gracious and charming manner. + +To Pugin Adams seemed a giant. A giant bronzed by unknown suns, talking +French indifferently well, and with a foreign accent. An interesting +person, indeed, but a being quite beyond his range of knowledge. + +Pugin, in physical matters, was timid as a rabbit. He had never travelled +farther than Trouville or Ostend, and when he indicated a chair, and when +these two sat down to talk to each other, the mastiff-man felt +instinctively the presence of the rabbit-man, and was at a loss how to +begin. + +Not for long, though. Bluffly, and with little grace enough, but with +earnestness and a cunning one would never have suspected, he told of +Maxine's great admiration for the author's work, and how she had suggested +the 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 the +mastiff-man had so cunningly placed before his nose. + +Then honestly and plainly and well, Adams told his tale, and the rabbit +held up its hands in horror at the black doings disclosed to it. But it +was horror divorced from sentiment. Pugin felt almost as great a revulsion +toward 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 poetical +setting of forest, plain, and sky. The outlandish names revolted him; he +could not see Yandjali and its heat-stricken palms or M'Bassa burning in +the sun. + +But he listened politely and it was this that chilled the heart of the +story-teller who instinctively felt that though he had shocked his hearer, +he had not aroused that high spirit of revolt against injustice which +converts a man into a living trumpet, a living axe, or a living sword. + +Pugin would have been a great force could his sentiment have been +awakened; 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 to +do?" + +"I thought you might help," said Adams. + +"I? With all the power possible and goodwill. It is evident to me that +should you wish for success in this matter, you should found a society." + +"Yes?" + +"There is nothing done in a public way without cooeperation. You must found +a society; you may use my name. I will even let you put it on the +committee list. I will also subscribe." + +Now Pugin was on the committee lists of half a dozen charitable and +humanitarian concerns. His secretary had them all down in a book; but +Pugin himself, lost in his art and the work of his life, had forgotten +their 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 not +lend his pen--simply because he could not. To every literary man there are +dead subjects; this question was dead to the author of "Absolution"--as +uninspiring as cold mutton. + +"Thanks," said Adams, and rose to take his leave. His rough-hewn mind +understood with marvellous perspicuity Pugin's position. + +"And one moment," cried the little man, after he had bidden his visitor +good-bye and the latter was leaving the room. "One moment; why did I not +think of it before? You might go and see Ferminard." + +He ran to a desk in the corner of the room, took a visiting card and +scribbled Ferminard's address upon it, explaining as he wrote that +Ferminard was the deputy for ---- in Provence; a Socialist it is true, but +a terrible man when roused; that the very name of injustice was sufficient +to bring this lion from his den. + +"Tell him Pugin said so," cried he, following his visitor this time out on +the landing and patting him on the shoulder in a fatherly manner, "and you +will find him in the Rue Auber, No. 14; it is all on the card; and convey +my kind regards to Mademoiselle ----, that charming lady to whose +appreciation of my poor work I owe the pleasure of your visit." + +"Nice little man," said Adams to himself as he walked down the Boulevard +Haussmann. + +He found Ferminard at home, in an apartment smelling of garlic and the +south. Ferminard, a tall, black-bearded creature, with a glittering eye; a +brigand from the Rhone Valley who had flung himself into the politics of +his country as a torpedo flings itself into the sea, greeted Adams with +effusion, when he read Pugin's card; gave him cigarettes, and shut the +open window in honour of his guest. + +He worked himself into a state of indignation over Adams's story; as a +matter of fact he knew the whole thing well; but he was too polite to +discount his visitor's grievance, besides it gave him an opportunity to +declaim--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 he +listened to Ferminard thundering against all that over there, speaking as +though he were addressing the Chambre, and as though he had known Africa +intimately from his childhood, he noticed gradually and with alarm that +the topic was changing; just a moment ago it was Africa and its luckless +niggers; the Provencal imagination picturing them in glowing colours, and +the Provencal tongue rolling off their disabilities and woes. One would +have fancied from the fervour of the man that is was Ferminard who had +just 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 and +all on to the floor whilst he grasps for a new toy--so Ferminard let +Africa tumble whilst he grasped for Socialism, found it and swung it like +a rattle, and Socialism went the way of Africa as he seized at last that +darling toy--himself. The speech, in its relationship to the subject in +point, was the intellectual counterpart of the cry of those mechanical +pigs 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 the +figure collapses, weakening in voice to the buzzing of a fly. + +Ferminard was, in fact, a great child with a good heart, a Provencal +imagination, a power of oratory, a quickness in seizing upon little things +and making them seem great, coupled with a rather obscure understanding as +to the relative value of mountains and mole-hills. A noise maker of a +first-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 holy +cause, that you come to some knowledge of the general man's weakness and +want of holiness--your own included. Adams, during the fortnight that +followed his visit to Pugin, had this fact borne in on him. All the +thinking minds of the centre of civilization were so busy thinking +thoughts of their own making, that it was impossible to attract their +attention for more than a moment; from Bostoc the dramatist to Bastiche +the anarchist, each individual was turning his own crank diligently, and +not to be disturbed, even by Papeete's skull. + +With such a thing in one's hand, picked up like some horrible talisman +which, if not buried, will eventually cast its spell upon human thought +and the future of the world; with such a thing in one's hand, surely the +Church would present itself to the mind as a court of appeal. + +But as the Roman Catholic Church had actually put its broad back against +the door of the torture chamber, and was, in fact, holding it tight shut +whilst Papeete's head was being hacked from his body, it would scarcely be +logical to bring out the victim's skull hoping for redress. Other +denominations being of such little power in France, Adams determined to +leave the attempt to rouse them till he reached England, whither he +determined to go as soon as Berselius's health would permit him. + +One evening, a fortnight after his visit to Pugin, on his return to the +Avenue 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 acute +neuralgia of the right side of the head, and this had been followed almost +immediately by twitching and numbness of the left arm. Thenard had been +summoned 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 make +arrangements 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 from +bad to worse, and keeping the fact to himself. + +Sulphonal, trional, morphia, each tried in turn had no power to prevent +him 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 some +mysterious hand, would reveal a dream or part of one. + +There was nothing in these dreams to terrify him when he was dreaming +them; in them, he was just the old brave Berselius that nothing could +terrify, 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 in +every scrap and vestige of them he recognized the mind of that other +personality. + +After the first few days, his intellect, so severe and logical, began to +lose its severity and logic, and to take up sides with his heart and to +cry aloud against the injustice of this persecution. + +Why should he be haunted like this? He felt no trace of remorse now for +the past; the sense of injustice swallowed all that. Every day seemed to +drive that past further off, and to increase the sense of detachment from +that other man and his works; yet every night a hand, like the hand of +some 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 a +physical manner and Thenard was called in. + +Thenard found his patient in bed. His mind was quite clear, but the pupils +of his eyes were unequal; there was numbness in the left arm and want of +grip in the hand. He had been prepared for the change evident in +Berselius's face and manner, for Maxine had told him in a few words of the +accident and loss of memory, and as he took his seat by the bedside he was +about to put some questions relative to the injury, when Berselius +forestalled him. + +Berselius knew something about medicine. He guessed the truth about his +own case, and he gave a succinct account of the accident and the loss of +memory 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 TThenard, who knew his patient, and that plain +speaking would be best. + +"Some pressure?" + +"So I imagine." + +"Oh, don't be afraid of speaking out. I don't mind the worst. Will an +operation remove that pressure?" + +"If, as I imagine, there is some pressure from the inner table of the +skull on the brain, it will." + +"Well, now," said Berselius, "I want you to listen to me attentively; ever +since that accident, or, at least, since I regained memory, I have felt +that I am not the same man. Only in sleep do I become myself again--do you +understand me? I have quite different aims and objects; my feelings about +things are quite different; my past before the accident is ruled off from +my present--that is, when I am awake. + +"When I dream I become my old self again--is that not strange?" + +"No," said Thenard, "every man is double. We have numerous cases where, +from accident or other circumstances, a man's personality changes; one +side of his nature is suppressed. There is one strange point about your +case, though, and that is the waking up of the suppressed personality so +vividly 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, and +vivid, and powerful, that even though it is suppressed it must speak. And +it speaks in dreams." + +"So!--perhaps you are right. Now tell me, if you operate and remove the +pressure, may I become myself again?" + +"You may." + +"Even after all this time?" + +"The mind," said Thenard, "has nothing to do with time. At the Battle of +the Nile, a sea captain, one of those iron-headed Englishmen, was struck +on his iron head with fragment of shell. He lost his memory. Eight months +after he was trephined; he awoke from the operation completing the order +he 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 self +which 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 Thenard, rising and +re-examining the slight dent of his patient's skull. + +"Why?" + +"Well, to see if things may be cleared up a bit, and the necessity for +operation be removed." + +"Operate." + +"You know, in every operation, however slight, there is an element of +danger to life." + +"Life! what do I care? I insist on your operating. Not another night shall +pass----" + +"As you will," said Thenard. + +"And now," said Berselius, "make your preparations, and send me my +secretary." + + * * * * * + +At twelve o'clock that night, Maxine was seated in the library, with a +book which she had been vainly trying to read face downward on the floor +beside her. + +Thenard, his assistant surgeon, and two nurses, had arrived shortly after +ten. Operating table, instruments, everything necessary had been brought, +set up, and fixed by Thenard's own man. + +Adams had no part in the proceedings except as a looker-on. No man could +assist Thenard in an operation who was not broken to the job, for, when +operating Thenard became quite a different person to the every-day Thenard +of lecture room and hospital ward. + +That harsh voice which we noticed in him in the first pages of this book +when on entering the lecture room of the Beaujon he could not find his +coloured chalks, came out during an operation, and he would curse his +assistant to the face for the slightest fault or fancied fault, and he +would speak to the nurses as no Frenchman ever spoke to Frenchwoman unless +with deliberate intent to insult. When the last stitch was in, all this +changed; nurses and assistant forgot what had been said, and in the ease +of released tension, worshipped more than ever the cadaverous genius who +was now unwinding from his head and mouth the antiseptic gauze in which he +always veiled them when operating. + +The clock on the mantel pointed to a few minutes past the hour, when the +door 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." He +rolled an armchair for her to sit down, and then he told her as much as +she could understand. + +Thenard had found a slight depression of the inner table of the skull, and +some congestion and thickening of the dura mater. It all dated from the +accident. There would, without doubt, have been severe inflammation of the +brain, 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. Thenard +had 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 anaesthetic." + +The girl was silent for a moment, then she asked where Thenard was. + +"He has left. He has to operate again to-night on a case which has just +called for him by telephone. He asked me to tell you that everything +possible has been done. He will call in the morning, and he has left +everything till then in my hands." + +"I shall not go to bed," said Maxine. "I could not sleep, and should my +father want to see me, I shall be ready." + +"Yes," said Adams, "perhaps it will be better so. I will go up and stay +with him, and I will call you if it is necessary." + +He left the room, and Maxine took up the book she had dropped, but she +could not read. Her eyes, travelling about the room, rested here and there +on the trophies and the guns and the wild implements of destruction +collected by the hunter, who was now lying upstairs, like a child dandled +on the dark knees of death. + +The books on philosophy, natural history, oceanography, and history, in +their narrow cases contrasted strangely with the weapons of destruction +and the relics of the wild. The room was like a mirror of the mind of +Berselius, that strange mind in which the savage dwelt with the civilized +man, and the man of valour by the side of the philosopher. + +But the strangest contrast in the room was effected by Maxine herself--the +creation of Berselius--his child, blossoming like a beautiful and fragile +flower, 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 the +anaesthetic, had asked for her. + +Thenard had fixed upon the white marble bathroom adjoining Berselius's +sleeping chamber as his operating theatre, and after the operation the +weakness of the patient was so great, and the night so hot, they +determined to make up a bed for him there, as it was the coolest room in +the house. + +It was a beautiful room. Walls, pillars, floor and ceiling, of pure white +Carrara 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 a +design of sea serpents and seaweed. There were no basins or lavatory +arrangements, nothing at all to break the pure and simple charm of this +ideal bathing-place whose open French window showed, beyond a balcony of +marble, 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 the +door; his eyes were fixed on the waving tree tops. He turned his head +slightly 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 was +visible 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 will +dominating the body, and the half-helpless hands lying on the coverlet +presented 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 the +hand near her, and she smothered whatever emotion she felt, for she knew +the man who had returned. + +"Your mother?" said Berselius, who had just sufficient voice to convey +interrogation as well as words. + +"She has not returned yet; we telegraphed for her, she will be here +to-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 it +the chirruping and bickering of sparrows; a day of splendour and great +heat 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 of +misery, so full of tears. + +Suddenly Berselius turned his head, and his eyes found Adams with a not +unkindly gaze in them. + +"Well, doctor," he said, in a voice stronger than the voice with which he +had 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 on +the 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 did +not 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 before +man 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 the +coverlet, and Berselius, who was just dozing off, started awake again. + +"Ah!" said he, as though he had forgotten something, then he raised the +little 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, yet +every now and then his eyelids would lift, and his eyes, unveiled by +drowsiness, would fix themselves on some point in the room with the intent +gaze of a person who is listening; so in the forest, or on the plain, or +by the cane brake had he often listened at night, motionless, gun in hand +and deadly, for the tiger or the water buck. + +Half an hour passed and then from the adjoining room came a footstep, the +door opened gently, and Madame Berselius entered. She was dressed just as +she had traveled from Vaux. She had only just arrived, to find death in +the house, and as she looked at the figure on the bed she fancied she +beheld it indeed. + +Closing the door gently she approached the bed. No, it was not death but +sleep. He was breathing evenly and rhythmically, sleeping, apparently, as +peacefully as a child. + +She was about to turn away when, like a bather who has ventured into some +peaceful tropic rock pool wherein lurks an octopus, she found herself +seized and held. Berselius's eyes were open, he was not asleep. His gaze +was fixed on hers, and he held her with his eyes as the cat holds the bird +or the python the man. + +He had been waiting for her with the patience and the artfulness of the +hunter, 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 dying +tiger? + +As Berselius gazed at the woman, she, with all her will urging her body to +retreat, approached him. Then, her knees touching the bed, she fell on her +knees 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, as +though his anger had turned to disgust, as though disdaining to waste a +word on her, he struck her full in the face with the back of his right +hand, a blow that caused her to cry out and sent her groveling on the +marble floor, where a moment after the nurse on duty, attracted by the +cry, found her. + +Berselius was dead, but the mocking smile on his lips remained, almost +justified by the words of the nurse imploring the woman on the floor to +calm herself and restrain her grief. + +Whatever his life may have been, his death affected Adams strangely. The +magnetism of the man's character had taken a strong hold upon him, +fascinating him with the fascination that strength alone can exercise. And +the man he regretted was not the ambiguous being, the amended Berselius, +so obviously a failure, but the real Berselius who had returned to meet +death. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +AMIDST THE LILIES + + +One day in March, nine months later, at Champrosay, in the garden of a +little cottage near the Paris road, Maxine Berselius stood directing the +movements of an old man in a blue blouse--Father Champardy by name, and a +gardener by profession. + +On the death of her father, Maxine had come to an arrangement with her +mother, eminently suited to the minds and tastes of both women. + +Maxine absolutely refused to touch any part of the colossal fortune left +by her father. She knew how it had been come by, and as she had a small +fortune of her own, a very small fortune of some ten thousand francs a +year settled on her by an uncle at her birth, she determined to live on +it, and go her own way in life. + +Art was to her far preferable to society, and in a little cottage with one +woman for a servant, ten thousand francs a year were affluence. + +Madame Berselius, who had no scruple in using money obtained in any way +whatsoever, fell in with her daughter's views after a few formal +objections. + +Gillette had furnished the cottage as only a French firm can furnish a +cottage, and the garden, which had gone to decay, Maxine had furnished +herself with the help of Father Champardy. + +Adams, after the death of Berselius, had lingered on in Paris to settle up +his affairs, going back to the Rue Dijon and taking up his old life +precisely at the point where he had broken it off. + +But he was richer by three things. Two days after Berselius's death, news +came to him from America of the death of an uncle whom he had never seen +and the fact that he had inherited his property. It was not very much as +money goes in America, but it was real estate in New York City and would +bring in some seven or eight hundred pounds a year. He was richer by the +experience 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 burning +question that lay at his heart. He had put his hand to the plough, and he +was not the man to turn aside till the end of the furrow was reached. He +would have time to go to America, in any event, to look after his +property. He decided to stay some months in England; to attack the British +Lion in its stronghold; to explain the infamies of the Congo, and then +cross 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 to +Maxine, saying little enough about the progress of his work, and +frequently using the cryptic statement, "I will tell you everything when I +come back." + +And "He will be back to-day," murmured Maxine, as she stood in the little +garden watching the old man at his work. + +The newness and the freshness of spring were in the air, snow that had +fallen three days ago was nearly gone, just a trace of it lay on the black +earth of the flower beds; white crocuses, blue crocuses, snow-drops, those +first trumpeters of spring, blew valiantly in the little garden, the air +was sharp and clear, and the sky above blue and sparkling. Great masses of +white cloud filled the horizon, sun-stricken, fair, and snow-bright, solid +as mountains, and like far-off mountains filled with the fascination and +the 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 rapturous +thrush in the trees across the way, children's voices came from the Paris +road 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 clicked +its latch, and a big man was coming up the path. + +There was only Father Champardy to see; and as his back was turned, he saw +nothing and as he was deaf, he heard nothing. The old man, bent and warped +by 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 poem +of the sparrow. + +"And now tell me all," said Maxine, as they sat in the chintz-hung sitting +room before a bright fire of logs. They had finished their private +affairs. The day was two hours older, and a sunbeam that had pointed at +them through the diamond-paned window had travelled away and vanished. The +day was darker outside, and it was as though spring had lost her sportive +mood and then withdrawn, not wishing to hear the tale that Adams had to +tell. + +In Adams's hand Papeete's skull had been a talisman of terrible and +magical power, for with it he had touched men, and the men touched had +disclosed their worth and their worthlessness. It had been a lamp which +showed 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 yourself +with holy water or wash yourself with soap, you will never wash away the +evil being that you have constructed by long years of evil-doing and +evil-thinking. + +His pilgrimage in search of mercy and redress for a miserable people had +emphasized the fact. + +The great crime of the Congo stood gigantic, like a shadowy engine for the +murdering of souls. + +"Destroy that," said the devil triumphantly. "You cannot, for it is past +destruction; it has passed into the world of the ideal. No man's hand may +touch it; it is beyond the reach like the real self of your friend +Berselius. Sweep the Congo State away to-morrow; this will remain. A thing +soul-destroying till the end of time. It began small in the brain of one +ruinous man, God whom I hate! look at it now. + +"It has slain ten million men and it will slay ten million more, that is +nothing; it has ruined body and soul, the stokers who fed it and the +engineers who worked it, that is nothing; it has tangled in its wheels and +debased the consciences of five nations, that is nothing. It is +eternal--that is everything. + +"Since I was flung out of heaven, I have made many things, but this is my +masterpiece. If I and all my works were swept away, leaving only this +thing, it would be enough. In the fiftieth century it will still have its +clutch on man, yea, and to the very end of time." + +Cause and effect, my friend, in those two words you have the genius of +this machine which will exist forever in the world of consequence, a world +beyond divine or human appeal. + +In England, Adams had found himself confronted with the dull lethargy of +the people, and the indifference of the Established Church. The two great +divisions of Christ's Church were at the moment at death grapples over the +question of Education. Only amongst the Noncomformists could be found any +real response to the question which was, and is, the test question which +will disclose, according to its answer, whether Christianity is a living +voice from on high, or an echo from the Pagan past; and a debased echo at +that. Debased, for if Adams could have stood in the Agora of Athens and +told his tale of horror and truth, could Demosthenes have taken up the +story; could Leopold the Barbarian have been a king in those days, and +have done in those days, under the mandate of a deluded Greece, what he +has done under the mandate of a deluded England; what a living spirit +would have run through Athens like a torch, how the phalanxes would have +formed, and the beaked ships at Piraeus torn themselves from their +moorings, to bring to Athens in chains the ruffian who had murdered and +tortured in her name! + +To complete the situation and give it a touch of hopelessness, he found +that others had striven well, yet almost vainly in the field. Men working +for truth and justice as other men work for gold, had attacked the public +with solid battalions of facts, tabulated infamies; there had been +meetings, discussions, words, _palabres_, as they say in the south; but +the murderer had calmly gone on with his work, and England had put out no +hand to stay him. + +But it was not till he reached America, that Adams found himself fighting +the machine itself. + +One great man with a living voice he found--Mark Twain--and one great +paper, at least. These had raised their voices calling for Justice--with +what result? + +Two side facts the skull of Papeete showed to the searcher, as a lamp +shows up other things than the things searched for. The deadness of the +English Church to the spiritual, and the corruption of his own +countrymen. + +When he had finished, it was dark outside. The firelight lit up the little +room. Glancing through the diamond-paned window at that happy interior, +one would never have guessed that the man by the fire had been telling the +girl by his side not a love story, but the story of the world's greatest +crime. + +Maxine, whose hand was resting on the hand of her companion, said nothing +for a moment after he had ceased speaking. Then, in a half-whisper, and +leaning her forehead on his hand, "Poor things," sighed Maxine. + +So attuned were her thoughts to the thoughts of her companion, that she +voiced the very words that were in his mind, as gazing beyond his own +happiness and a thousand miles of sea and forest, he saw again the +moonlight on the mist of the Silent Pools, and the bleached and miserable +bones. + +THE END + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Pools of Silence, by H. de Vere Stacpoole + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POOLS OF SILENCE *** + +***** This file should be named 26889.txt or 26889.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/8/8/26889/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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