in dingy white drill, and
he had a cigarette between his lips.

He looked like a man who had never in his life smiled, yet his face was
not an unpleasant face altogether, though there was much in it to give the
observer pause.

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. It had curious inflections, hesitancies, and a dulness that
expressed the condition of a brain condemned for two years to think the
thoughts of the natives in their own language.

Just as the voice of a violin expresses the condition of the violin, so
does the voice of a man express the condition of his mind. And that is the
fact that will strike you most if you travel in the wilds of the Congo
State and talk to the men of your own colour who are condemned to live
amongst the people.

One might have compared Meeus's voice to the voice of a violin--a violin
that had been attacked by some strange fungoid growth that had filled its
interior and dulled the sounding board.

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.

Yet he showed no servility at all. He had left servility behind him, just
as he had left pride, just as he had left ambition, patriotism, country,
and that divine something which blossoms into love of wife and child.

When he had shaken hands with Berselius and Adams, he led the way into the
fort, or rather into the enclosure surrounded by the ruinous mud walls, an
enclosure of about a hundred yards square.

On the right of the quadrangle stood the go-down, where the rubber and a
small quantity of ivory was stored.

In the centre stood the misnamed guest house, a large mud and wattle
building, with a veranda gone to decay.

The blinding sun shone on it all, showing up with its fierce light the
true and appalling desolation of the place. There was not one thing in the
enclosure upon which the eye could rest with than