of an ordinary man, breaking the
monotony and breaking the prospect before him into short views.

Meeus had none of these. Without literature or love, without a woman to
help him through, without a child to care for or a dog to care for him,
there at Fort M'Bassa in the glaring sunshine he faced his fate and became
what he was.

CHAPTER XII

NIGHT AT THE FORT

The night was hot and close and the paraffin lamp in the guest house mixed
its smell with the tobacco smoke and with a faint, faint musky odour that
came from the night outside. Every now and then a puff of hot wind blew
through the open doorway, hot and damp as though a great panther were
breathing into the room.

The nights in the forest were chill, but up here at Fort M'Bassa they were
stewing in a heat wave.

Adams, with his coat off, pipe in mouth, was leaning back in a basket
chair with his feet on a sugar box. Berselius, in another easy chair, was
smoking a cigar, and Meeus, sitting with his elbows on the table, was
talking of trade and its troubles. There is an evil spirit in rubber that
gives a lot of trouble to those who deal with it. The getting of it is bad
enough, but the tricks of the thing itself are worse. 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. "When I came here first, hundred-pound
tusks were common; when you reach that district, M. le Capitaine, you will
see for yourself, no doubt, that the elephants have decreased. What comes
in now, even, is not of the same quality. Scrivelloes (small tusks),
defective tusks, for which one gets almost nothing as a bonus. And with
the decrease of the elephant comes the increased subterfuge of the
natives. 'What are we to do?' they say. 'We cannot make elephants.' This
is the worst six months for ivory I have had, and then, on top of
this--for troubles always come together--I have this bother I told you of
with these people down there by the Silent Pools."

A village ten miles to the east had, during the last few weeks, suspended
rubber payments, gone arrear in taxes, the villagers running off into the
forest and hiding from their hateful work.

"What caused the trouble?" asked Berselius.

"God knows," replied Meeus. "It may blow over--it may have blown over by
this, for I