complaining voice had held nothing like this before.

Those beasts! He hated them, and he would not have been human had he not
hated them. They were his jailers in very truth, their work was his
deliverance.

The revolt of this village would make him short of rubber; probably it
would bring a reprimand from his superiors.

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.

PART THREE

CHAPTER XIII

THE POOLS OF SILENCE

Next morning Berselius ordered Felix to have the tents taken from the
go-down and enough stores for two days. Tents and stores would be carried
by the "soldiers" of the fort, who were to accompany them on the
expedition.

Adams noticed with surprise the childlike interest Meeus took in the
belongings of Berselius; the green rot-proof tents, the latest invention
of Europe, seemed to appeal to him especially; the Roorkee chairs, the
folding baths, the mosquito nets of the latest pattern, the cooking
utensils of pure aluminum, filled his simple mind with astonishment. His
mind during his sojourn at Fort M'Bassa had, in fact, grown childlike in
this particular; nothing but little things appealed to him.

Whilst the expedition was getting ready Adams strolled about outside the
fort walls. The black "soldiers," who were to accompany them, were seated
in the sun near their hovels, some of them cleaning their rifles, others
smoking; but for their rifles and fez caps they might, with a view of
Carthage in the distance, have been taken for the black legionaries of
Hamilcar, ferocious mercenaries without country or God, fierce as the
music of the leopard-skin drums that led them to battle.

Turning, he walked round the west wall till he came to the wall on the
north, which was higher than the others. Here, against the north wall, was
a sheltered cover like an immense sty, indescribably filthy and
evil-smelling; about thirty rings were fastened to the wall, and from each
ring depended a big rusty chain ending in a collar.

It was the Hostage House of Fort M'Bassa. It was empty now, but nearly
always full, and it stood there like a horrible voiceless witness.

A great d