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.