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Updated: July 4, 2025
He saw nothing extortionate in his dealings, nothing wrong in them. When things were going well, then all was well; but when the natives resisted his charges and taxes, defrauding him of his bonus and lowering him in the eyes of his superiors, then Meeus became terrible. And he was absolute master.
But a rolling white eyeball reappeared in a moment, only to vanish again as Adams, this time, sucked in his cheeks and worked his nose, making, under his sun hat, a picture to delight and terrify the heart of any child. All this was quite unobserved by the rest, and all this time Meeus gravely and slowly was talking to the villagers in a quiet voice.
The villagers, backed by the soldiers and fronted by Meeus, formed a picture which was the whole Congo administration in a nutshell. In a sentence, underscored by the line of blood-red fezzes.
A great bat flitted by so close that the smell of it poisoned the air, and from the forest, far away to the west, came the ripping saw-like cry of a leopard on the prowl. Many fierce things were hunting in the forest that night, but nothing fiercer than Meeus, as he stood in the moonlight, cigarette in mouth, staring across the misty forest in the direction of the Silent Pools.
Then they came back, and under the directions of Adams lifted Meeus and carried him into the bedroom and placed him on the second bed. Adams, with the lamp in his hand, stood for a moment looking at Meeus. His rage had spent itself; he had avenged the people at the Silent Pools. With his naked hands he had inflicted on the criminal before him an injury worse than the injury of fire or sword.
According to the terms of this proclamation, Meeus found that besides his pay he could get a bonus on every kilo of wax and copal he could extract from the natives, and that the cheaper he could get the stuff the more his bonus would be.
It is subject to all sorts of influences, climatic and other, and tends to deteriorate on its journey to the river and the coast of Europe. It was marvellous to see the passion with which this man spoke of this inanimate thing. "And then, ivory," said Meeus.
Silence that had brooded upon Africa before Africa had a name, before Pharaoh was born, before Thebes was built. Meeus led the way into the guest house, which contained only two rooms rooms spacious enough, but bare of everything except the ordinary necessities of life.
He turned back to the camp, walking slowly and seeing nothing of the beauties around him, nothing but the picture of the leopard's face, the paws frantically beating the water, and a more horrible picture still, the water resuming its calmness and its peace. When he reached the camp, he found Berselius and Meeus absent.
Then he came in and shut the door behind him, walked to the table, took Meeus by the coat at the back of the neck, and lifted him up as a man lifts a dog by the scruff. For a moment it seemed as if he were going to kill the wretched man without word or explanation, but he mastered himself with a supreme effort, put him down, took the vacant seat at the table and cried: "Stand before me there."
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