To be lost in the desert or in a land like the elephant country is bad, but to be lost in the dense parts of the tropical forest is far worse.

You are in a horrible labyrinth, a maze, not of intricate paths but of blinding curtains. I am speaking now of that arrogant jungle, moist and hot, where life is in full ferment, and where the rubber vine grows and thrives; where you go knee-deep in slush and catch at a tree-bole to prevent yourself going farther, cling, sweating at every pore and shivering like a dog, feeling for firmer ground and finding it, only to be led on to another quagmire. The bush pig avoids this place, the leopard shuns it; it is bad in the dry season when the sun gives some light by day, and the moon a gauzy green glimmer by night, but in the rains it is terrific. Night, then, is black as the inside of a trunk, and day is so feeble that your hand, held before your face at arm’s length, is just a shadow. The westward part of the forest of M’Bonga projects a spur of the pestiferous rubber-bearing land into the isthmus of healthy woods. It was just at the tip of this spur that Berselius and his party were entangled and lost.

The two porters were Yandjali men, they knew nothing of these woods, and were utterly useless as guides; they sat now amidst the leaves near the tent eating their food; dark shadows in the glow-worm light, the glistening black skin of a knee or shoulder showing up touched by the glimmer in which leaf and liana, tree trunk and branch, seemed like marine foliage bathed in the watery light of a sea-cave.

Adams had lit a pipe, and he sat beside Berselius at the opening of the tent, smoking. The glare of the match had shown him the face of Berselius for a moment. Berselius, since his first outcry on finding the path gone, had said little, and there was a patient and lost look on his face, sad but most curious to see. Most curious, for it said fully what a hundred little things had been hinting since their start from the scene of the catastrophe—that the old Berselius had vanished and a new Berselius had taken his place. Adams had at first put down the change in his companion to weakness, but the weakness had passed, the man’s great vitality had reasserted itself, and the change was still there.

This was not the man who had engaged him in Paris; this person might have been a mild twin-brother of the redoubtable Captain of the Avenue Malakoff, of Matadi and Yandjali. When memory came fully back, would it bring with it the old Berselius, or would the new Berselius, mild, inoffensive, and kindly, suddenly find himself burdened with the tremendous past of the man he once had been?

Nothing is more true than that the human mind from accident, from grief, or from that mysterious excitement, during which in half an hour a blaspheming costermonger “gets religion” and becomes a saint of God—nothing is more certain than that the human mind can like this, at a flash, turn topsy-turvy; the good coming to the top, the bad going to the bottom. Mechanical pressure on the cortex of the brain can bring this state of things about, even as it can convert a saint of God into a devil incarnate.

Was Berselius under the influence of forced amendment of this sort?

Adams was not even considering the matter, he was lost in gloomy thoughts.

He was smoking slowly, holding his index and middle fingers over the pipe-bowl to prevent the tobacco burning too quickly, for he had only a couple of pipefuls left. He was thinking that to-morrow evening the pouch would be empty, when, from somewhere in the forest near by, there came a sound which brought him to his feet and the two porters up on hands and knees like listening dogs.

It was the sound of a human voice raised in a sort of chant, ghostly and mournful as the sound of the falling dew. As it came, rising and falling, monotonous and rhythmical, the very plain song of desolation, Adams felt his hair lift and his flesh crawl, till one of the porters, springing erect from his crouching position, sent his voice through the trees—

“Ahi ahee!”

The song ceased; and then, a moment later, faint and wavering, and like the voice of a seagull, came the reply—

“Ahi aheee!”

“Man,” said the porter, turning white eyeballs and glinting teeth over his shoulder at Adams.

He called again, and again came the reply.

“Quick,” said Adams, seizing the arm of Berselius, who had risen, “there’s a native here somewhere about; he may guide us out of this infernal place; follow me, and for God’s sake keep close.”

Holding Berselius by the arm, and motioning the other native to follow, he seized the porter by the shoulder and pushed him forward. The man knew what was required and obeyed, advancing, calling, and listening by turns, till, at last, catching the true direction of the sound he went rapidly, Berselius and Adams following close behind. Sometimes they were half up to the knees in boggy patches, fighting their way through leaves that struck them like great wet hands; sometimes the call in the distance seemed farther away, and they held their pace, they held their breath, they clung to each other, listening, till, now, by some trick of the trees, though they had not moved and though there was no wind, the cry came nearer.

“Ahi, ahee!”

Then, at last, a dim red glow shone through the foliage before them and bursting their way through the leaves they broke into an open space where, alone, by a small fire of dry branches and brushwood, sat a native, stark naked, except for a scrap of dingy loincloth, and looking like a black gnome, a faun of this horrible place, and the very concretion of its desolation and death.

He was sitting when they caught their first glimpse of him, with his chin supported on his hand, but the instant he saw the faces of the white men he rose as if to escape, then the porter called out something that reassured him, and he sat down again and shivered.

He was one of the rubber collectors. He had reached this spot the day before, and had built himself a shelter of leaves and branches. He would be here for ten days or a fortnight, and his food, chiefly cassava, lay in a little pile in the shelter, covered over with leaves.

The porter continued speaking to the collector, who, now regaining the use of his limbs, stood up before the white men, hands folded in front of him, and his eyes rolling from Berselius to Adams.

“M’Bassa,” said Adams, touching the porter, pointing to the collector, and then away into the forest in the direction he fancied Fort M’Bassa to be.

The porter understood. He said a few words to the collector, who nodded his head furiously and struck himself on the breast with his open hand.

Then the porter turned again to Adams.

“M’Bassa,” said he, nodding his head, pointing to the collector, and then away into the forest.

That was all, but it meant that they were saved.

Adams gave a great whoop that echoed away through the trees, startling bats and birds in the branches and losing itself without an echo in the depths of the gloom. Then he struck himself a blow on the chest with his fist.

“My God!” said he, “the tent!”

They had only travelled an eighth of a mile or so from the camping place, but they had wandered this way and that before the porter had found the true direction of the call, and the tent, provisions, and everything else were lost as utterly and irrevocably as though they had been dropped in mid-ocean.

To step aside from a thing—even for a hundred yards—in this terrible place was to lose it; even the rubber collectors, from whom the forest holds few secrets have, in these thick places, to blaze a trail by breaking branches, tying lianas and marking tree trunks.

“True,” said Berselius in a weary voice, “we have lost even that.”

“No matter,” said Adams, “we have got a guide. Cheer up, this man will take us to Fort M’Bassa and there you will find the road again.”

“Are you sure?” said Berselius, a touch of hope in his voice.

“Sure? Certain. You’ve forgotten Fort M’Bassa. Well, when you see it, you will remember it, and it will lead you right away home. Cheer up, cheer up; we’ve got a fire and a bit of shelter for you to sleep under, and we’ll start bright and early in the morning, and this black imp of Satan will lead you straight back to your road and your memory—hey! Uncle Joe!”

He patted the collector on the naked shoulder and a faint grin appeared on that individual’s forlorn countenance; never had he come across a white man like this before. Then, bustling about, Adams piled up the fire with more sticks, got Berselius under the shelter of the collector’s wretched hut, sat himself down close to the fire, produced his pipe, and proceeded, in one glorious debauch, to finish the last of his tobacco.

This rubber collector, the last and the humblest creature on earth, had given them fire and shelter; they were also to be beholden to him for food. His wretched cassava cakes and his calabash of water gave them their breakfast next morning, and then they started, the collector leading, walking before them through the dense growth of the trees as assuredly as a man following a well-known road. It was a terrible thing for him to leave his post, but the white men were from M’Bassa and wished to return to M’Bassa, and M’Bassa was the head centre of his work and the terrible Mecca of his fears. White men from there and going to there must be obeyed.

This was the last phase of the great hunt. Berselius had been slowly stripped by the wilderness of everything now but the clothes he stood up in, his companion and two porters. Guns, equipment, tents, stores, the Zappo Zap, and the army of men under that ferocious lieutenant, had all “gone dam.” He was mud to the knees, his clothing was torn, he was mud to the elbows from having tripped last night and fallen in a quagmire, his face was white and drawn and grimy as the face of a London cabrunner, his hair was grayer and dull, but his eyes were bright and he was happy. At M’Bassa he would be put upon the road again—the only road to the thing he craved for as burning Dives craved for water—himself.

But it was ordained that he should find that questionably desirous person before reaching M’Bassa.

They had been on the march for an hour when Adams, fussing like a person who is making his first journey by rail, stopped the guide to make sure he was leading them right.

“M’Bassa?” said Adams.

“M’Bassa,” replied the other, nodding his head. Then with outspread hand he pointed before them and made a semicircular sweep to indicate that he was leading them for some reason by a circuitous route.

He was making, in fact, for open ground that would bring them in the direction of the fort by a longer but much easier road than a direct line through the jungle. He was making also for water, for his scant supply had been exhausted by his guests, and he knew the road he was taking would lead him to broad pools of water. Adams nodded his head to imply that he understood, and the man led on.