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Updated: June 1, 2025
He had nothing to do with the affair, so filling and lighting another pipe, and leaving all his belongings to be brought on by Berselius, he turned with Félix and, saying good-bye to his companions, started. They had nearly reached the edge of the forest when shouts from behind caused Adams to turn his head. The soldiers were shouting to Papeete to come back.
Meeus, who had been silent since his death sentence had been read to him, cried out at the thunder, but Berselius did not heed he was hunting elephants under a burning sun in a country even vaster than the elephant country. Adams rose up and came to the door; not a drop of rain had fallen yet. He crossed the yard and stood at the fort wall looking into blackness.
Mark Laurin and Paschasius Berselius, who came every day, did much to make me well with their delightful company. My dear Beatus, who would have believed that this meagre delicate body of mine, weakened now by age also, could have succeeded, after all the troubles of travel and all my studious exertions, in standing up to all these physical ills as well?
On the day of departure Berselius was entertained at déjeuner by the Cerele Militaire. He brought Adams with him as a guest. Nearly all the sporting members of the great club were present to speed the man who after Schillings was reckoned on the Continent the most adventurous big-game hunter in the world.
Next day they resumed their journey. The soldiers were cheerful and seemed to have forgotten all about their grievance, but Berselius felt more uneasy than ever. He knew these people, and that nothing could move them to mirth and joy that was not allied to devilment, or treachery, or death. But he said nothing, for speech was useless.
As they marched, making due south, Berselius in that cold manner which never left him, and which made comradeship with the man impossible and reduced companionship to the thinnest bond, talked to Adams about the game they were after, telling in a few graphic sentences and not without feeling the wonderful story of the moving herds, to whom distance is nothing, to whom mountains are nothing, to whom the thickest jungle is nothing.
Berselius awoke from sleep at noon, but he was so weak that he could scarcely move his lips. Fortunately there were some goats at the fort, and Adams fed him with goats' milk from a spoon, just as one feeds an infant.
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 elephant story was all a lie, so resolved Cambon, and, no sooner had he bowed his visitor out, than he rushed to the telephone, rang up his broker, and ordered him to sell out his rubber stock at any price. Berselius, when he left the lawyer's house, drove to his club.
Next morning, two hours after daybreak, Félix, who was scouting just ahead of the column, came running back with news he had struck elephant spoor. Every tooth in his head told the tale. Not only spoor, but the spoor of a vast herd cutting right across the line of march. Berselius came forward to examine, and Adams came with him.
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