THE VISION OF THE POOLS
Somewhere about noon they halted for a rest and some food. It was less
boggy here, and the sunlight showed stronger through the dense roof of
foliage. The cassava cakes were tainted with must, and they had no water,
but the increasing light made them forget everything but the freedom that
was opening before them.
Adams pointed to the empty calabash which their guide carried, and the
collector nodded and pointed before them, as if to imply that soon they
would come to water and that all would be well.
Now, as they resumed their way, the trees altered and drew farther apart,
the ground was solid under foot, and through the foliage of the euphorbia
and raphia palm came stray glimmers of sunshine, bits of blue sky, birds,
voices, and the whisper of a breeze.
"This is better," said Berselius.
Adams flung up his head and expanded his nostrils.
"Better, my God!" said he; "this is heaven!"
It was heaven, indeed, after that hell of gloom; that bog roofed in with
leaves, the very smell of which clings to one for ever like the memory of
a fever dream.
All at once patches of sunlight appeared in front as well as above. They
quickened their pace, the trees drew apart, and, suddenly, with theatrical
effect, a park-like sward of land lay before them leading to a sheet of
blue water reflecting tall feather-palms and waving speargrass, all domed
over with blue, and burning in the bright, bright sunshine.
"The Silent Pools!" cried Adams. "The very place where I saw the leopard
chasing the antelope! Great Scott!--Hi! hi! hi! you there!--where are you
going?"
The collector had raced down to the water's edge; he knew the dangers of
the place, for he divided the grass, filled his calabash with water, and
dashed back before anything could seize him. Then, without drinking, he
came running with the calabash to the white men.
Adams handed the calabash first to his companion.
Berselius drank and then wiped his forehead; he seemed disturbed in his
mind and had a dazed look.
He had never come so far along the edge of the pools as this, but there
was something in the configuration of the place that stirred his sleeping
memory.
"What is it?" asked Adams.
"I don't know," replied Berselius. "I have dreamt--I have seen--I remember
something--somewhere--"
Adams laughed.
"I know," said he; "you come along, and in a few minutes you will see
something that will help your memory. Why, man, we camped near here, you
and I and Meeus; when you see the spot you'll find yourself on your road
again. Come, let's make a start."
The collector was standing with the half-full calabash in his hands.
He had not dared to drink. Adams nodded to him, motioning him to do so,
but he handed it first to the porter. Then, when the porter had drunk, the
collector finished the remains of the water and the last few drops he
flung on the ground, an offering, perhaps, to some god or devil of his
own. Then he led on, skirting the water's edge. The loveliness of the
place had not lessened since Adams had seen it last; even the breeze that
was blowing to-day did not disturb the spirit of sweet and profound peace
which held in a charm this lost garden of the wilderness; the palms bent
as if in sleep, the water dimpled to the breeze and seemed to smile, a
flamingo, with rose-coloured wings, passed and flew before them and
vanished beyond the rocking tops of the trees that still sheltered the
camping place where once Berselius had raised his tent.
Again, with theatrical effect, as the pools had burst upon them on leaving
the forest, the camping place unveiled itself.
"Now," said Adams in triumph, "do you remember that?"
Berselius did not reply. He was walking along with his eyes fixed straight
before him. He did not stop, or hesitate, or make any exclamation to
indicate whether he remembered or not.
"Do you remember?" cried Adams.
But Berselius did not speak. He was making noises as if strangling, and
suddenly his hands flew up to the neck of his hunting shirt, and tore at
it till he tore it open.
"Steady, man, steady," cried Adams catching the other's arm. "Hi, you'll
be in a fit if you don't mind--steady, I _say_."
But Berselius heard nothing, knew nothing but the scene before him, and
Adams, who was running now after the afflicted man, who had broken away
and was making straight for the trees beneath which the village had once
been, heard and knew nothing of what lay before and around Berselius.
Berselius had stepped out of the forest an innocent man, and behold!
memory had suddenly fronted him with a hell in which he was the chief
demon.
He had no time to accommodate himself to the situation, no time for
sophistry. He was not equipped with the forty years of steadily growing
callousness that had vanished; the fiend who had inspired him with the
lust for torture had deserted him, and the sight and the knowledge of
himself came as suddenly as a blow in the face.
Under that m'bina tree two soldiers, one with the haft of a blood-stained
knife between his teeth, had mutilated horribly a living girl. Little
Papeete had been decapitated just where his skull lay now; the shrieks and
wails of the tortured tore the sky above Berselius; but Adams heard
nothing and saw nothing but Berselius raving amidst the remains.
Bones lay here and bones lay there, clean picked by the vultures and white
bleached by the sun; skulls, jawbones, femurs, broken or whole. The
remains of the miserable huts faced the strewn and miserable bones, and
the trees blew their golden trumpets over all.
As Adams looked from the man who with shrill cries was running about as a
frantic woman runs about, to the bones on the ground, he guessed the
tragedy of Berselius. But he was to hear it in words spoken with the
torrid eloquence of madness.
PART FOUR