The Pools of Silence Part 2

Quincy Adams to the post of physician extraordinary to the expedition, he will get even with the Captain? My friend, remember that hymn the English Salvationists were yelling last Sunday outside the American Presbyterian Church in the Rue de Berry--'Christian, walk carefully, danger is near.'

Not a bad motto for Paris, and I will take it."

He walked into the _Cafe d'Italie_, which, as everyone knows, is next to Mouton's, the pork shop, on the left-hand side of the Boul' Miche, as you go from the Seine; called for a boc, and then plunged into a game of dominoes with an art student in a magenta necktie, whom he had never met before, and whom, after the game, he would, a million to one, never meet again.

That night, when he had blown out his candle, he reviewed Thenard's proposition in the dark. The more he looked at it the more attraction it had for him, and--"Whatever comes of it," said he to himself, "I will go and see this Captain Berselius to-morrow. The animal seems worth the trouble of inspection."

CHAPTER III

CAPTAIN BERSELIUS

Next morning was chill and a white Seine mist wrapped Paris in its folds.

It clung to the trees of the Avenue Champs Elysees, and it half veiled the Avenue Malakoff as Adams's _fiacre_ turned into that thoroughfare and drew up at No. 14, a house with a carriage drive, a porter's lodge, and wrought-iron gates.

The American paid off his cab, rang at the porter's lodge, was instantly admitted, and found himself in an enormous courtyard domed in with gla.s.s.

He noted the orange and aloe trees growing in tubs of porcelain, as the porter led him to the big double gla.s.s doors giving entrance to the house.

"He's got the money," thought Adams, as the gla.s.s swing-door was opened by a flunkey as magnificent as a Lord Mayor's footman, who took the visitor's card and the card of M. Thenard and presented them to a functionary with a large pale face, who was seated at a table close to the door.

This personage, who was as soberly dressed as an archbishop, and had altogether a pontifical air, raised himself to his feet and approached the visitor.

"Has monsieur an appointment----"

"No," said Adams. "I have come to see your master on business. You can take him my card--yes, that one--Dr. Adams, introduced by Dr. Thenard."

The functionary seemed perplexed; the early hour, the size of the visitor, his decided manner, all taken together, were out of routine. Only for a moment he hesitated, then leading the way across the warm and flower-scented hall, he opened a door and said, "Will monsieur take a seat?" Adams entered a big room, half library, half museum; the door closed behind him, and he found himself alone.

The four walls of the room showed a few books, but were mostly covered with arms and trophies of the chase. j.a.panese swords in solid ivory scabbards, swords of the old Samurai so keen that a touch of the edge would divide a suspended hair. Malay krisses, double-handed Chinese execution swords; old pepper-pot revolvers, such as may still be found on the African coast; k.n.o.b-kerries, a.s.segais, steel-spiked b.a.l.l.s swinging from whips of raw hide; weapons wild and savage and primitive as those with which Attila drove before him the hordes of the Huns, and modern weapons of to-day and yesterday; the big elephant gun which has been supplanted by the express rifle; the deadly magazine rifle, the latest products of Schaunard of the Rue de la Paix and Westley Richards of London.

Adams forgot time as he stood examining these things; then he turned his attention to the trophies, mounted by Borchard of Berlin, that prince of taxidermists. Here stood a great ape, six feet and over--_monstrum horrendum_--head flung back, mouth open, shouting aloud to the imagination of the gazer in the language that was spoken ere the earliest man lifted his face to the chill mystery of the stars. In the right fist was clutched the branch of a M'bina tree, ready lifted to dash your brains out--the whole thing a miracle of the taxidermist's art. Here crawled an alligator on a slab of granitic rock; an alligator--that is to say, the despair of the taxidermist--for you can make nothing out of an alligator; alive and not in motion he looks stuffed, stuffed, he looks just the same.

Hartbeest, reedbuck, the maned and huge-eared roan antelope, gazelle, and bush-buck, all were here, skull or mask, dominated by the vast head of the wildebeest, with ponderous sickle-curved horns.

Adams had half completed the tour of the walls when the door of the library opened and Captain Berselius came in. Tall, black-bearded and ferocious looking--that was the description of man Adams was prepared to meet. But Captain Berselius was a little man in a frock-coat, rather worn, and slippers. He had evidently been in _neglige_ and, to meet the visitor, slipped into the frock-coat, or possibly he was careless, taken up with abstractions, dreams, business affairs, plans. He was rather stout, with an oval, egg-shaped face; his beard, spa.r.s.e and pointed and tinged with gray, had originally been light of hue; he had pale blue eyes, and he had a perpetual smile.

It is to be understood by this that Captain Berselius's smile was, so to speak, hung on a hair-trigger; there was always a trace of it on his face round the lips, and in conversation it became accentuated.

At first sight, during your first moments of meeting with Captain Berselius, you would have said, "What a happy-faced and jolly little man!"

Adams, completely taken aback by the apparition before him, bowed.

"I have the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Adams, introduced by Dr. Thenard?"

said Captain Berselius, motioning the visitor to a chair. "Pray take a seat, take a seat--yes----" He took a seat opposite the American, crossed his legs in a comfortable manner, caressed his chin, and whilst chatting on general subjects stared full at the newcomer, as though Adams had been a statue, examining him, without the least insolence, but in that thorough manner with which a purchaser examines the horse he is about to buy or the physician of an insurance company a proposer.

It was now that Adams felt he had to deal with no common man in Captain Berselius.

Never before had he conversed with a person so calmly authoritative, so perfectly at ease, and so commanding. This little commonplace-looking, negligently dressed man, talking easily in his armchair, made the s.p.a.cious Adams feel small and of little account in the world. Captain Berselius filled all the s.p.a.ce. He was _the_ person in that room; Adams, though he had personality enough, was nowhere. And now he noticed that the perpetual smile of the Captain had no relation to mirth or kindliness, it was not worn as a mask, for Captain Berselius had no need for masks; it was a mysterious and unaccountable thing that was there.

"You know M. Thenard intimately?" said Captain Berselius, turning suddenly from some remarks he was making on the United States.

"Oh, no," said Adams. "I have attended his clinics; beyond that----"

"Just so," said the other. "Are you a good shot?"

"Fair, with the rifle."

"You have had to do with big game?"

"I have shot bear."

"These are some of my trophies," said the Captain, rising to his feet. He took his stand before the great ape and contemplated it for a moment. "I shot him near M'Ba.s.sa on the West Coast two years ago. The natives at the village where we were camping said there was a big monkey in a tree near by. They seemed very much frightened, but they led me to the tree. He knew what a gun was; he knew what a man was, too. He knew that his hour of death had arrived, and he came roaring out of the tree to meet me. But when he was on the ground, with the muzzle of my Mannlicher two yards from his head, all his rage vanished. He saw death, and to shut out the sight he put his big hands before his face----"

"And you?"

"I shot him through the heart. This room does not represent all my work.

The billiard room and the hall contain many of my trophies; they are interesting to me, for each has a history. That tiger skin there in front of the fireplace once covered a thing very much alive. He was a full-sized brute, and I met him in a rice field near Benares. I had not even time to raise my gun when he charged. Then I was on my back and he was on top of me. He had overshot the mark a bit--I was not even scratched. I lay looking up at his whiskers; they seemed thick as quills, and I counted them. I was dead to all intents and purposes, so I felt no fear. That was the lesson this gentleman taught me; it is as natural to be dead as to be alive. I have never been afraid of death since. Well, something must have distracted his attention and frightened him, for he lifted himself, pa.s.sed over me like a cloud, and was gone. Well, so much for the tiger. And now for business. Are you prepared to act as medical attendant to my new expedition?"

"Well," said Adams, "I would like a little time to consider----"

"Certainly," said Captain Berselius, taking out his watch. "I will give you five minutes, as a matter of form. Thenard, in a note to me this morning, informs me he has given you all details as to salary."

"Yes, he gave me the details. As you give me so short a time to make my decision about you, I suppose you have already made your decision about me?"

"Absolutely," said Berselius. "Two minutes have pa.s.sed. Why waste the other three? For you have already made up your mind to come."

Adams sat down in a chair for a moment, and in that moment he did a great deal of thinking.

He had never met a man before at all like Berselius. He had never before come across a man with such a tremendous personality. Berselius fascinated yet repelled him. That there was evil in this man he felt, but he felt also that there was good. Much evil and much good. And beyond this he divined an animal ferocity latent--the ferocity of a tiger--a cold and pitiless and utterly divorced from reason ferociousness, the pa.s.sion of a primitive man, who had never known law except the law of the axe wielded by the strongest. And yet there was something in the man that he liked. He knew by Berselius's manner that if he did not take the offer now, he would lose it. He reckoned with lightning swiftness that the expedition would bring him in solid cash enough to start in a small way in the States. He was as poor as Job, as hungry for adventure as a schoolboy, and he only had a moment to decide in.

"How many men are making up your party?" suddenly asked Adams.

"You and I alone," replied Berselius, putting his watch in his pocket to indicate that the time was almost expired.

"I will come," said Adams, and it seemed to him that he said the words against his will.

Captain Berselius went to a writing table, took a sheet of paper and wrote carefully and with consideration for the s.p.a.ce of some five minutes. Then he handed the paper to Adams. "These are the things you want," said he. "I am an old campaigner in the wilds, so you will excuse me for specifying them. Go for your outfit where you will, but for your guns to Schaunard, for he is the best. Order all accounts to be sent in to my secretary, M.

Pinchon. He will settle them. Your salary you can take how you will. If it is useful to you, I can give you a cheque now on the Credit Lyonnais, if you will state the amount."

"Thank you, thank you," said Adams. "I have quite sufficient money for my needs, and, if it is the same to you, I would rather pay for my outfit myself."

"As you please," said Captain Berselius, quite indifferently. "But Schaunard's account and the account for drugs and instruments you will please send to M. Pinchon; they are part of the expedition. And now,"

looking at his watch, "will you do me the pleasure of staying to _dejeuner_?"

Adams bowed.

"I will notify you to-night at your address the exact date we start," said Captain Berselius as he led the way from the room. "It will be within a fortnight. My yacht is lying at Ma.r.s.eilles, and will take us to Matadi, which will be our base. She will be faster than the mail-boats and very much more comfortable."