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."
"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."
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.