CHAPTER XXII
THE LOST GUIDE
They improvised a shelter against the tree with the tent cloth over the sleeping man, and then Adams set Félix to work splicing and mending the tent pole. The two porters, who had stuffed themselves with food, were looking better and a shade more human; the glossy look was coming back to their skins and the fright was leaving their faces. He set them to work, piling the recovered stores in the bit of shade cast by the tree and the improvised tent, and as they did so he took toll of the stuff.
He judged that there was enough provisions to take them back along the road they had come by. The hunt was ended. Even should Berselius recover fully in a couple of days, Adams determined to insist on a return. But he did not expect any resistance.
It was a long, long, wearisome day. The great far-stretching land, voiceless except just over there where birds were still busy and would be busy till all was gone; the cloudless sky, and the shifting shadow of the tree; these were the best company he had. The blacks were not companions. The two porters seemed less human than dogs, and Félix poisoned his sight.
His dislike for this man had been steadily growing. The thought that Berselius had risked his life for this creature, and the remembrance of how he had pointed to the dead man with a grin and said “B’selius,” had brought matters to a head in the mind of Adams, and turned his dislike into a furious antipathy. He sat now in what little shadow there was, watching the figure of the Zappo Zap.
Félix, the tent-pole finished, had slunk off westward, hunting about, or pretending to hunt for salvage. Little by little the black figure dwindled till it reached where the birds were discoursing and clamouring, and Adams felt his blood grow cold as he watched the birds rise like a puff of black smoke and scatter, some this way, some that; some flying right away, some settling down near by.
The black figure, a tiny sketch against the sky, wandered hither and thither, and then vanished.
Félix had sat him down.
Adams rose up and took the elephant rifle, took from the bag a great solid drawn brass cartridge, loaded the rifle, and sat down again in the shade.