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,