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.
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.