There were times when he said to himself, “This cannot last,” yet it lasted. With the lamp in his hand he went into the sleeping room to see how Berselius and Meeus were doing. Berselius was still, to judge from the movements of his lips, delirious, and just the same. Meeus was lying with his hands on his breast. He might have been asleep, only for his eyes, wide open and bright, and following every movement of the man with the lamp.
Meeus, catching the other’s eye, motioned to him to come near. Then he tried to speak, but the roar outside made it impossible to hear him. Adams pointed to the roof, as if to say, “Wait till it is over,” then he came back to the sitting room, tore the leopard skin down from the wall, rolled it up for a pillow, and lay down with his head on it.
He had been through so much of late that he had grown callous and case-hardened; he did not care much whether the place was washed away or not—he wanted to sleep, and he slept.
Meeus, left alone, lay watching the glimmer of the lamp shining through the cracks of the door, and listening to the thunder of the rain.
This was the greatest rain he had experienced. He wondered if it would flood the go-down and get at the rubber stored there; he wondered if the soldiers had deserted their huts and taken refuge in the office. These thoughts were of not the slightest interest to him; they just came and strayed across his mind, which was still half-paralyzed by the great calamity that had befallen him.
For the last half-hour an iron hand seemed round his body just on a level with the diaphragm; this seemed growing tighter, and the tighter it grew the more difficult it was to breathe. The fracture had been very high up, but he knew nothing of this; he knew that his back was broken, and that men with broken backs die, but he did not fully realize that he was going to die till—all at once—his breathing stopped dead of its own accord, and then of its own accord went on rapidly and shallowly. Then he recognized that his breathing was entirely under the control of something over which he had no control.
This is the most terrible thing a man can know, for it is a thing that no man ever knows till he is in the hands of death.
It was daylight when Adams awoke, and the rain had ceased.
He went to the door and opened it. It was after sunrise, but the sun was not to be seen. The whole world was a vapour, but through which the forest was dimly visible. The soldiers were in the courtyard; they had just come out of the office where they had taken refuge during the night. Their huts had been washed away, but they did not seem to mind a bit; they showed their teeth in a grin, and shouted something when they saw the white man, and pointed to the rainswept yard and the sky.