He pointed to the two mattocks which he had placed against the wall. They understood what he meant; the last Chef de Poste had shot himself in the presence of the District Commissioner, and they had dug his grave.
“Here,” said Adams, stopping and pointing to a spot at a convenient distance from the walls.
When the body was buried, Adams stood for a second looking at the mound of earth, wet and flattened down by blows of the spades.
He had no prayers to offer up. Meeus would have to go before his Maker just as he was, and explain things—explain all that business away there at the Silent Pools and other things as well. Prayers over his tomb or flowers on it would not help that explanation one little bit.
Then Adams turned away and the soldiers trooped after him.
He had looked into the office and seen the rifles and ammunition which they had placed there out of the wet. A weak man would have locked the office door and so have deprived the soldiers of their arms, but Adams was not a weak man.
He led his followers to the office, handed them their arms, carefully examining each rifle to see that it was clean and uninjured, drew them up on a line, addressed them in some more unprintable language but in a milder tone, dismissed them with a wave of his hand and returned to the house.
As he left them the wretched creatures all gave a shout—a shout of acclamation.
This was the man for them—very different from the pale-faced Meeus—this was a man they felt who would lead them to more unspeakable butchery than Meeus had ever done. Therefore they shouted, piled their arms in the office and returned to the rebuilding of their huts with verve.
They were not physiognomists, these gentlemen.