"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.