TOWARD THE SUNSET
When Berselius, standing on the ridge, had looked long enough at the
country before him, taking in its every detail with delight, they started
again on their march, Berselius leading.
They had no guide. The only plan in Adams's head was to march straight
west toward the sunset for a distance roughly equivalent to the forced
march they had made in pursuit of the herd, and then to strike at right
angles due north and try to strike the wood isthmus of the two great
forests making up the forest of M'Bonga.
But the sunset is a wide mark and only appears at sunset. They had no
compass; the elephant folk had made away with all the instruments of the
expedition. They must inevitably stray from the true direction, striking
into that infernal circle which imprisons all things blind and all things
compassless. Even should they, by a miracle, strike the isthmus of woods,
the forest would take them, confuse them, hand them from tree to tree and
glade to glade, and lose them at last and for ever in one of the million
pockets which a forest holds open for the lost.
The stout heart of the big man had not quailed before this prospect. He
had a fighting chance; that was enough for him. But now at the re-start,
as Berselius stepped forward and took the lead, a hope sprang up in his
breast. A tremendous and joyful idea occurred to him. Was it possible that
Berselius would guide them back?
The memory that the man possessed was so keen, his anxiety to pierce the
veil before him was so overpowering, was it possible that like a hound
hunting by sight instead of smell, he would lead them straight?
Only by following the exact track they had come by, could Berselius pierce
back into that past he craved to see. Only by putting tree to tree and
ridge to ridge, memory to memory, could he collect what he had lost.
Could he do this?
The life of the whole party depended upon the answer to that question.
The track they ought to follow was the track by which the herd had led
them. Adams could not tell whether they were following that track--even
Félix could scarcely have told--for the dew and the wind had made the
faint traces of the elephants quite indiscernible now to civilized eyes;
and Berselius never once looked at the ground under his feet, he was led
entirely by the configuration of the land. That to the eyes of Adams was
hopeless. For the great elephant country is all alike, and one ridge is
the counterpart of another ridge, and one grassy plain of another grassy
plain, and the scattered trees tell you nothing when you are lost, except
that you are lost.
The heat of the day was now strong on the land; the porters sweated under
their loads, and Adams, loaded like them, knew for once in his life what
it was to be a slave and a beast of burden.
Berselius, who carried nothing, did not seem to feel the heat; weak though
he must have been from his injury and the blood-letting. He marched on,
ever on, apparently satisfied and well pleased as horizon lifted, giving
place to new horizon, and plain of waving grass succeeded ridge of broken
ground.
But Adams, as hour followed hour, felt the hope dying out in his breast,
and the remorseless certainty stole upon him that they were out of their
track. This land seemed somehow different from any he had seen before; he
could have sworn that this country around them was not the country through
which they had pursued the herd. His hope had been built on a false
foundation. How could a man whose memory was almost entirely obscured lead
them right? This was not the case of the blind leading the blind, but the
case of the blind leading men with sight.
Berselius was deceiving himself. Hope was leading him, not memory.
And still Berselius led on, assured and triumphant, calling out, "See! do
you remember that tree? We passed it at just this distance when we were
coming." Or, now, "Look at that patch of blue grass. We halted for a
minute here."
Adams, after a while, made no reply. The assurance and delight of
Berselius as these fancied memories came to him shocked the heart. There
was a horrible and sardonic humour in the whole business, a bathos that
insulted the soul.
The dead leading the living, the blind leading the man with sight, lunacy
leading sanity to death.
Yet there was nothing to be done but follow. As well take Berselius's road
as any other. Sunset would tell them whether they were facing the sunset;
but he wished that Berselius would cease.
The situation was bad enough to bear without those triumphant calls.
It was past noon now; the light wind that had been blowing in their faces
had died away; there was the faintest stirring of the air, and on this,
suddenly, to Adams's nostrils came stealing a smell of corruption, such as
he had never experienced before.
It grew stronger as they went.
There was a slight rise in the ground before them just here, and as they
took it the stench became almost insupportable, and Adams was turning
aside to spit when a cry from Berselius, who was a few yards in advance,
brought him forward to his side.
The rise in the ground had hidden from them a dried-up river-bed, and
there before them in the sandy trough, huge amidst the boulders, lay the
body of an elephant.
A crowd of birds busy about the carcass rose clamouring in the air and
flew away.
"Do you remember?" cried Berselius.
"Good God!" said Adams. "Do I remember!"
It was the body of the great beast they had passed when in pursuit of the
herd.
Yes, there was no doubt now that Berselius was guiding them aright. He had
followed the track they had come by without deviating a hundred yards.
The great animal was lying just as they had left it, but the work of the
birds was evident; horribly so, and it was not a sight to linger over.
They descended into the river bed, passed up the other bank, and went on,
Berselius leading and Adams walking by his side.
"Do you know," said Adams, "I was beginning to think you were out of the
track."
Berselius smiled.
Adams, who was glancing at his face, thought that he had never seen an
expression like that on the man's face before. The smile of the lips that
had marked and marred his countenance through life, the smile that was
half a sneer, was not there; this came about the eyes.
"He was in exactly the same position, too," said Adams. "But the birds
will have him down before long. Well, he has served one purpose in his
life; he has shown us we are on the right road, and he has given you back
another bit of memory."
"Poor brute," said Berselius.
These words, coming from the once iron-hearted Berselius, struck Adams
strangely; there was a trace of pity in their tone.