The life of the whole party depended upon the answer to that question.

The track they ought to follow was the track by which the herd had led
them. Adams could not tell whether they were following that track--even
Felix could scarcely have told--for the dew and the wind had made the
faint traces of the elephants quite indiscernible now to civilized eyes;
and Berselius never once looked at the ground under his feet, he was led
entirely by the configuration of the land. That to the eyes of Adams was
hopeless. For the great elephant country is all alike, and one ridge is
the counterpart of another ridge, and one grassy plain of another grassy
plain, and the scattered trees tell you nothing when you are lost, except
that you are lost.

The heat of the day was now strong on the land; the porters sweated under
their loads, and Adams, loaded like them, knew for once in his life what
it was to be a slave and a beast of burden.

Berselius, who carried nothing, did not seem to feel the heat; weak though
he must have been from his injury and the blood-letting. He marched on,
ever on, apparently satisfied and well pleased as horizon lifted, giving
place to new horizon, and plain of waving grass succeeded ridge of broken
ground.

But Adams, as hour followed hour, felt the hope dying out in his breast,
and the remorseless certainty stole upon him that they were out of their
track. This land seemed somehow different from any he had seen before; he
could have sworn that this country around them was not the country through
which they had pursued the herd. His hope had been built on a false
foundation. How could a man whose memory was almost entirely obscured lead
them right? This was not the case of the blind leading the blind, but the
case of the blind leading men with sight.

Berselius was deceiving himself. Hope was leading him, not memory.

And still Berselius led on, assured and triumphant, calling out, "See! do
you remember that tree? We passed it at just this distance when we were
coming." Or, now, "Look at that patch of blue grass. We halted for a
minute here."

Adams, after a while, made no reply. The assurance and delight of
Berselius as these fancied memories came to him shocked the heart. There
was a horrible and sardonic humour in the whole business, a bathos that
insulted the soul.

The dead leading the living, the blind leading the man with sight, lunacy
leading sanity to death.

Yet there was nothing to be do