Alive and
powerful and lustful, great in mind, body, and estate.

* * * * *

Before sunrise next morning the expedition was marshalled in the courtyard
for the start.

A great fire burned in the space just before the house, and by its light
the stores and tents were taken from the go-down. The red light of the
fire lit up the black glistening skins of the porters as they loaded
themselves with the chop boxes and tents and guns; lit up the red fez caps
of the onlooking "soldiers," their glittering white teeth, their white
eyeballs, and the barrels of their rifles.

Beyond and below the fort the forest stretched in the living starlight
like an infinite white sea. The tree-tops were roofed with a faint mist,
no breath of wind disturbed it, and in contrast to the deathly stillness
of all that dead-white world the sky, filled with leaping stars, seemed
alive and vocal.

It was chill up here just before dawn. Hence the fire. Food had been
served out to the porters, and they ate it whilst getting things ready and
loading up. Berselius and his companions were breakfasting in the guest
house and the light of the paraffin lamp lay on the veranda yellow as
topaz in contrast with the red light of the fire in the yard.

Everything was ready for the start. They were waiting now for the sun.

Then, away to the east, as though a vague azure wind had blown up under
the canopy of darkness, the sky, right down to the roof of the forest,
became translucent and filled with distance.

A reef of cloud like a vermilion pencil-line materialized itself, became a
rose-red feather tipped with dazzling gold, and dissolved as if washed
away by the rising sea of light.

A great bustle spread through the courtyard. The remaining stores were
loaded up, and under the direction of Felix, the porters formed in a long
line, their loads on their heads.

As the expedition left the compound it was already day. The edge of the
sun had leaped over the edge of the forest, the world was filled with
light, and the sky was a sparkling blue.

What a scene that was! The limitless sea of snow-white mist rippled over
by the sea of light, the mist billowed and spiralled by the dawn wind,
great palm tops bursting through the haze, glittering effulgent with dew,
birds breaking to the sky in coloured flocks, snow, and light, and the
green of tremendous vegetation, and over all, new-built and beautiful, the
blue, tranq