ate 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.

His fingers became crooked and a dull hunger for money filled his soul.
His success in working the niggers was so great that he was moved to a
more difficult post at higher pay, and then right on to M'Bassa.

He was not naturally a cruel man. In his childhood he had been fond of
animals, but Matabiche, the god-devil of the Congo, changed all that.

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.

Away here in the lonely fort, in the midst of the great M'Bonga rubber
forest that was now speechless as a Sphinx, now roaring at him like a sea
in torment; here in the endless sunlight of the dry seasons and the
endless misery of the rains, Meeus driven in upon himself, had time to
think.

There is no prison so terrible as a limitless prison. Far better for a man
to inhabit a cell in Dartmoor than a post in the desert of the forest. The
walls are companionable things, but there is no companionship in
distance.

Meeus knew what it was to look over the walls of the fort and watch
another sun setting on another day, and another darkness heralding another
night. He knew what it was to watch infinite freedom and to know it for
his captor and jailer. He knew what it was to wake from his noonday siesta
and see the same great awful splash of sunlight striking the same old
space of arid yard, where the empty tomato tin lay by the rotten plantain
cast over by some nigger child. He knew what it was to lie and hear the
flies buzzing and wonder what tune of the devil it was they were trying to
imitate. He knew what it was to think of death with the impotent craving
of a sick child for some impossible toy.

Look into your own life and see all the tiny things that save you from
_ennui_ and devilment, and give you heart to continue the journey from
hour to hour in this world where we live. Your morning paper, the new book
from the library you have just got to read, the pipe you hope to smoke
when you return from work, the very details of your work; a hundred and
one petty things that make up the day