One cannot write of unnamable things, unprintable deeds. The screams lasted till noon.
At one o’clock the punitive expedition had departed, leaving the Silent Pools to their silence. The houses of the village had been destroyed and trampled out. The sward lay covered with shapeless remains, and scarcely had the last of the expedition departed, staggering and half drunk with the delirium of their deeds, than from the blue above, like a stone, dropped a vulture.
A vulture drops like a stone, with wings closed till it reaches within a few yards of the ground; then it spreads its wings and, with wide-opened talons, lights on its prey.
Then, a marabout with fore-slanting legs and domed-out wings, came sailing silently down to the feast, and another vulture, and yet another.
CHAPTER XVI
DUE SOUTH
When Berselius and Meeus returned to Fort M’Bassa Adams, who met them, came to the conclusion that Berselius had been drinking. The man’s face looked stiff and bloated, just as a man’s face looks after a terrible debauch. Meeus looked cold and hard and old, but his eyes were bright and he was seemingly quite himself.
“To-morrow I shall start,” said Berselius. “Not to-day. I am tired and wish to sleep.” He went off to the room where his bed was, and cast himself on it and fell instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.