“No, it is not malaria,” replied Adams, following the old man who was leading the way into the office. “I never felt better in my life. It is just the Congo. The place leaves an impression on one’s mind, M. Schaunard, a flavour that is not good.”
He took the armchair which Schaunard kept for visitors. He was only a week back—all he had seen out there was fresh to him and very vivid, but he felt in Schaunard an antagonistic spirit, and he did not care to go deeper into his experiences.
Schaunard took down that grim joke, Ledger D, placed it on the table and opened it, but without turning the leaves.
“And how is Monsieur le Capitaine?” asked he.
“He has been very ill, but he is much better. I am staying with him in the Avenue Malakoff as his medical attendant. We only arrived at Marseilles a week ago.”
“And Madame Berselius, how is she?”
“Madame Berselius is at Trouville.”
“The best place this weather. Ma foi, you must find it warm here even after Africa—well, tell me how you found the gun to answer.”
Adams laughed. “The gun went off—in the hands of a savage. All your beautiful guns, Monsieur Schaunard, are now matchwood and old iron, tents, everything went, smashed to pieces, pounded to pulp by elephants.”
He told of the great herd they had pursued and how in the dark it had charged the camp. He told of how in the night, listening by the camp fire, he had heard the mysterious boom of its coming, and of the marvellous sight he had watched when Berselius, failing in his attempt to waken the Zappo Zap, had fronted the oncoming army of destruction.