ake a start."

The collector was standing with the half-full calabash in his hands.

He had not dared to drink. Adams nodded to him, motioning him to do so,
but he handed it first to the porter. Then, when the porter had drunk, the
collector finished the remains of the water and the last few drops he
flung on the ground, an offering, perhaps, to some god or devil of his
own. Then he led on, skirting the water's edge. The loveliness of the
place had not lessened since Adams had seen it last; even the breeze that
was blowing to-day did not disturb the spirit of sweet and profound peace
which held in a charm this lost garden of the wilderness; the palms bent
as if in sleep, the water dimpled to the breeze and seemed to smile, a
flamingo, with rose-coloured wings, passed and flew before them and
vanished beyond the rocking tops of the trees that still sheltered the
camping place where once Berselius had raised his tent.

Again, with theatrical effect, as the pools had burst upon them on leaving
the forest, the camping place unveiled itself.

"Now," said Adams in triumph, "do you remember that?"

Berselius did not reply. He was walking along with his eyes fixed straight
before him. He did not stop, or hesitate, or make any exclamation to
indicate whether he remembered or not.

"Do you remember?" cried Adams.

But Berselius did not speak. He was making noises as if strangling, and
suddenly his hands flew up to the neck of his hunting shirt, and tore at
it till he tore it open.

"Steady, man, steady," cried Adams catching the other's arm. "Hi, you'll
be in a fit if you don't mind--steady, I _say_."

But Berselius heard nothing, knew nothing but the scene before him, and
Adams, who was running now after the afflicted man, who had broken away
and was making straight for the trees beneath which the village had once
been, heard and knew nothing of what lay before and around Berselius.

Berselius had stepped out of the forest an innocent man, and behold!
memory had suddenly fronted him with a hell in which he was the chief
demon.

He had no time to accommodate himself to the situation, no time for
sophistry. He was not equipped with the forty years of steadily growing
callousness that had vanished; the fiend who had inspired him with the
lust for torture had deserted him, and the sight and the knowledge of
himself came as suddenly as a blow in the face.

Under that m'bina tree two soldiers, one with the haft of a blood