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Updated: July 4, 2025
Thus, for every kilo of wax or copal screwed out of the natives at a cost of five centimes or less, he received into his pocket a bonus of fifteen centimes, that is to say the bonus to Meeus was three times what the natives got; if by any laxity or sense of justice, the cost of the wax or copal rose to six centimes a kilo, Meeus only got ten centimes bonus, and so on.
"I have no doubt at all that I will be able to bring these people into line. I do not boast. I only ask you to keep your eye on the returns." Next day Van Laer, escorted by the soldiers, left M'Bina to take up the station at Fort M'Bassa left vacant by the death of Chef de Poste Andreas Meeus.
Meeus would have to go before his Maker just as he was, and explain things explain all that business away there at the Silent Pools and other things as well. Prayers over his tomb or flowers on it would not help that explanation one little bit. Then Adams turned away and the soldiers trooped after him.
"Ah!" said Berselius; there was almost a note of relief in his voice. He said nothing more and Adams volunteered no explanation, for the affair was one entirely between Meeus, himself, and God. A few minutes later, Berselius, who seemed deep in thought, raised his head again. "We must get away from here. I am nearly strong enough to go now.
There was not a star in the sky. A dense pall of cloud stretched from horizon to horizon, and the wind, as Meeus stepped from the veranda into the darkness, died away utterly. He stood looking into the dark. He could make out the forest, a blackness humped and crouching in the surrounding blackness. There was not a ray of light from the sky, and now and again came the drum "Boom boom."
The leopards escaped, but the soldiers could not find the white men again. De Wiart listened to this very fishy tale without believing a word of it, except in so far as it related to Meeus. "Where did you lose the white men?" asked de Wiart. The soldiers did not know. One does not know where one loses a thing; if one did, then the thing would not be lost.
Meeus spoke to the people in their own tongue, telling them not to be afraid, and when the tents were erected he and Berselius and Adams, sitting in the shelter of the biggest tent, faced the seven villagers, all drawn up in a row and backed by the eleven soldiers in their red fez caps.
He turned to Berselius, who was sleeping. The delirium had passed, and he was breathing evenly and well. There was hope for him yet hope for his body if not for his mind. The first thing to be done was to bury Meeus. And now came the question, How would the soldiers take the death of the Chef de Poste? They knew nothing of it yet.
"Just so," said De Wiart, agreeing to this very evident axiom, and more than ever convinced that the story was a lie. Meeus was dead and the men had come to report. They had delayed on the road to hold some jamboree of their own, and this lie about the white men was to account for their delay. "Did anyone else come with you as well as the white men?" asked De Wiart.
But in the desert, on the sea, in the spaces of the forest you will see in the dawn a vision divorced from time, a recurring glance of a beauty that is eternal, a ray as if from the bright world toward which the great bird Time is flying, caught and reflected to our eyes by every lift of the wing. The dawn had not brought the truants back from the forest. This point Meeus carefully verified.
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