Then Adams with the dreary bundle under his arm looked around him at the other remains and swore—swore by the God who had made him, by the mother who had borne him, and the manhood that lay in him, to rest not nor stay till he had laid before the face of Europe the skull of Papeete and the acts of the terrible scoundrel who for long years had systematically murdered for money.
Then, followed by the savage, he turned and retook his road. At the wood’s edge he looked back at the silent scene, and it seemed to look at him with the muteness and sadness of a witness who cannot speak, of a woman who cannot tell her sorrow.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE RIVER OF GOLD
Next morning they started.
The corporal, three of the soldiers, and the two porters made up the escort.
Berselius, who was strong enough to walk a little way, began the journey on foot, but they had not gone five miles on their road when he showed signs of fatigue, and Adams insisted on him taking to the litter.
It was the same road by which Félix had led them, but it was very different travelling; where the ground had been hard underfoot it was now soft, and where it had been elastic it was now boggy; it was more gloomy, and the forest was filled with watery voices; where it dipped down into valleys, you could hear the rushing and mourning of waters. Tiny trickles of water had become rivulets—rivulets streams.