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Updated: June 4, 2025
Then he chose two of them and motioned them to follow to the guest house. There he brought them into the sleeping room and pointed to the body of Meeus, motioning them to take it up and carry it out.
Meeus looked cold and hard and old, but his eyes were bright and he was seemingly quite himself. "To-morrow I shall start," said Berselius. "Not to-day. I am tired and wish to sleep." He went off to the room where his bed was, and cast himself on it and fell instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.
He had been apprised a month before of the coming of Berselius's expedition, and one might imagine the servility which this man would show to the all-powerful Berselius, whose hunting expeditions were red-carpeted, who was hail-fellow-well-met with Leopold, who, by lifting his finger, could cause Andreas Meeus to be dismissed from his post, and by crooking his finger cause him to be raised to a Commissionership.
Meeus stood. He held on to the table with his left hand and with his right he made pawing movements in the air. The big man seated at the table did not notice. He sat for a few seconds with both hands clasped together, one making a cup for the other, just as a man might sit about to make a speech and carefully considering his opening words. Then he spoke.
Adams nodded, and then went back into the house and into the bedroom, where he found Meeus hanging head downward out of his bed. Rubber would trouble Andreas Meeus no more; his soul had gone to join the great army of souls in the Beyond. It is strange enough to look upon the body of a man you have killed. But Adams had no more pity or compunction in his mind than if Meeus had been a stoat.
Meeus, who had a spice of the tradesman in him, fell into this state of things as easily as a billiard ball falls into a pocket when skilfully directed. The unfortunate man was absolutely a billiard ball in the hands of a professional player; the stroke of the cue had been given in Belgium, he rolled to his appointed post, fell into it, and was damned.
The man before Meeus did much harm; he had no power or control, he was a weak man, and the people frankly laughed at him. Actually rubber came in here one-third rubbish, the people were half their time in revolt, they cut the vines in two districts. I have a report of his saying, 'There is no ivory to be got.
His voice was not an unpleasant voice, altogether, yet there was that in it, as he greeted Berselius, which struck Adams sharply and strangely; for the voice of Andreas Meeus, Chef de Poste at M'Bassa, was the voice of a man who for two years had been condemned to talk the language of the natives.
When half an hour had passed, Meeus rose suddenly to his feet and began to walk about, up and down, in front of the tent, up and down, up and down, as a man walks when he is in distress of mind. The black soldiers also seemed uneasy, and the villagers huddled closer together like sheep. Papeete alone seemed undisturbed.
Meeus brought out cigarettes and gin, but Berselius, safe now at his base of operations, to make a little festival of the occasion sent to the stores, which his porters had deposited in the go-down, for a magnum of champagne.
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