Adams, to make sure, walked away to where the great bull had fought the cow before being laid low by the rifle of the hunter.
The bones were there, picked clean and bleached, exemplifying the eternal hunger of the desert, which is one of the most horrible facts in life. These two great brutes had been left nearly whole a few days ago; tons of flesh had vanished like snow in sunshine, mist in morning.
But Adams, as he gazed at the colossal bones, was not thinking of that; the marvel of their return filled his mind as he looked from the skeletons to where, against the evening blue, a thin wreath of smoke rose up from the camp fire which the porters had lighted.
Far away south, so far away as to be scarcely discernible, a bird was sailing along, sliding on the wind without a motion of the wings. It passed from sight and left the sky stainless, and the land lay around silent with the tremendous silence of evening, and lifeless as the bones bleaching at his feet.
CHAPTER XXVII
I AM THE FOREST
The day after the next, two hours before noon, they passed an object which Adams remembered well.
It was the big tree which Berselius had pointed out to him as having been tusked by an elephant; and an hour after they had started from the mid-day rest, the horizon to the north changed and grew dark.