The sun touched the horizon. Ere one could say “Look!” he was half gone. The blazing arc of his upper limb hung for a moment palpitating, then it dwindled to a point, vanished, and a wave of twilight, like the shadow of a wing, passed over the land.
As Berselius, leaning on the arm of his companion, turned, it was already night.
The camp fire which the porters had lit was crackling, and Berselius, helped by his friend, sat down with his back to the tree and his face toward the fire.
“Are you better?” asked Adams, as he took a seat beside him and proceeded to light a pipe.
“My head,” said Berselius. As he spoke he put his hand to his head as a person puts his hand to his forehead when he is dazed.
“Have you any pain?”
“No, no pain, but there is a mist.”
“You can see all right?”
“Yes, yes, I can see. It is not my sight, but there is a mist—in my head.”
Adams guessed what he meant. The man’s mind had been literally shaken up. He knew, too, that thought and mental excitement were the worst things for him.