The Pools of Silence Part 29

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 G.o.d.

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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.ds--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, ill.u.s.trating the scene from the "Idylls of the King," where Arthur labouring up the pa.s.s "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 gra.s.s. 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 G.o.d 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 x.x.xIII

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 carca.s.s 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.