keep up a large force of European police to make the blacks work on
European terms, was out of the question. The expense would run away with
half the profits; the troops would die, and, worst of all, other nations
would say, "What are you doing with that huge army of men?" The word
"slavery" had to be eliminated from the proceedings, else the conscience
of Europe would be touched. He foresaw this, and he was lost in admiration
at the native police idea. The stroke of genius that collected all the
Felixes of the Congo basin into an army of darkness, and collected all the
weak and defenceless into a herd of slaves, was a stroke after his own
heart.

Of the greatest murder syndicate the world has ever seen, Berselius became
a member. He was not invited to the bloody banquet--he invited himself.

He had struck the Congo in a hunting expedition; he had seen and observed;
later on, during a second expedition, he had seen the germination of
Leopold's idea. He dropped his gun and came back to Europe.

He was quite big enough to have smashed the whole infernal machinery then
and there. America had not yet, hoodwinked, signed the licence to kill,
which she handed to Leopold on the 22d of April, 1884. Germany had not
been roped in. England and France were still aloof, and Berselius,
arriving at the psychological moment, did not mince matters.

The result was two million pounds to his credit during the next ten
years.

So much for Berselius and his past.

An hour after dawn next day they started. The morning was windless, warm,
and silent, and the sun shining broad on the land cast their shadows
before them as they went, the porters with their loads piled on their
heads, Adams carrying the tent-pole and tent, Berselius leading.

He had recovered from his weakness of the night before. He had almost
recovered his strength, and he felt that newness of being which the
convalescent feels--that feeling of new birth into the old world which
pays one, almost, for the pains of the past sickness.

Never since his boyhood had Berselius felt that keen pleasure in the sun
and the blue sky and the grass under his feet; but it called up no
memories of boyhood, for the mist was still there, hiding boyhood and
manhood and _everything_ up to the skyline.

But the mist did not frighten him now. He had found a means of dispelling
it; the photographic plates were all there unbroken, waiting only to be
collected and put together, and he felt in