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 instinctively that after a time, when he had collected a certain number, the brain would gain strength, and all at once the mist would vanish for ever, and he would be himself again.
Three hours after the start they passed a broken-down tree.
Adams recognized it at once as the tree they had passed on the hunt, shortly after turning from their path to follow the herd of elephants.
Berselius was still leading them straight, and soon they would come to the crucial point—the spot where they had turned at right angles to follow the elephants.
Would Berselius remember and turn, or would he get confused and go on in a straight line?