The Pools of Silence Part 4

"Everything," replied the other. "This is the house where my patient lives. Wait for me, for a moment, like a good fellow. I shan't detain you long, and then we can finish our talk, for I have something to tell you."

He darted into the _cafe_ and Adams waited, watching the pa.s.sers-by and somewhat perturbed in mind. Stenhouse's manner impressed him uncomfortably, for, if Captain Berselius had been the devil, the Englishman could not have put more disfavour into his tone. And he (Adams) had made a compact with Captain Berselius.

The Rue du Mont Thabor is a somewhat gloomy little street, and it fitted Adams's mood as he waited, watching the pa.s.sers-by and the small affairs of the little shops.

At the end of five minutes Stenhouse returned.

"Well?" said Adams.

"I have had no luncheon yet," replied Stenhouse. "I have been so rushed.

Come with me to a little place I know in the Rue St. Honore, where I can get a cup of tea and a bun. We will talk then."

"Now," said Stenhouse, when he was seated at a little marble-topped table with the cup of tea and the bun before him. "You say you have engaged yourself to go to the Congo with Captain Berselius."

"Yes. What do you know about him?"

"That's just the difficulty. I can only say this, and it's between ourselves, the man's name is a byword for a brute and a devil."

"That's cheerful," said Adams.

"Mind you," said Stenhouse, "he is in the very best society. I have met him at a reception at the Elysee. He goes everywhere. He belongs to the best clubs; he's a _persona grata_ at more courts than one, and an intimate friend of King Leopold of Belgium. His immense wealth, or part of it, comes from the rubber industry--motor tires and so forth. And he's mad after big game. That's his pleasure--killing. He's a killer. That is the best description of the man. The l.u.s.t of blood is in him, and the astounding thing, to my mind, is that he is not a murderer. He has killed two men in duels, and they say that it is a sight to see him fighting.

Mind you, when I say 'murderer,' I do not mean to imply that he is a man who would murder for money. Give the devil his due. I mean that he is quite beyond reason when aroused, and if you were to hit Captain Berselius in the face he would kill you as certain as I'll get indigestion from that bun I have just swallowed. The last doctor he took with him to Africa died at Ma.r.s.eilles from the hards.h.i.+ps he went through--not at the hands of Berselius, for that would have aroused inquiry, but simply from the hards.h.i.+ps of the expedition; but he gave frightful accounts to the hospital authorities of the way this Berselius had treated the natives. He drove that expedition right away from Libreville, in the French Congo, to G.o.d knows where. He had it under martial law the whole time, clubbing and thras.h.i.+ng the n.i.g.g.e.rs at the least offence, and shooting with his own hand two of them who tried to desert."

"You must remember," said Adams, taking up the cudgels for Berselius and almost surprised himself at so doing, "that an expedition like that, if it is not held together by a firm hand, goes to pieces, and the result is disaster for everyone. And you know what n.i.g.g.e.rs are."

"There you are," laughed Stenhouse. "The man has obsessed you already, and you'll come back, if you go, like Bauchardy, the man who died in the hospital at Ma.r.s.eilles, cursing Berselius, yet so magnetized by the power of the chap that you would be ready to follow him again if he said 'Come,'

and you had the legs to stand on. That is how Bauchardy was."

"The man, undoubtedly, has a great individuality," said Adams. "Pa.s.sing him in the street one might take him for a very ordinary person. Meeting him for the first time, he looks all good nature; that smile----"

"Always," said Stenhouse. "Beware of a man with a perpetual smile on his face."

"Yes, I know that, but this smile of Berselius's is not worn as a cloak.

It seems quite natural to the man, yet somehow bad, as if it came from a profound and natural cynicism directed against all things--including all things good."

"You have put it," said Stenhouse, "in four words."

"But, in spite of everything," said Adams, "I believe the man to have great good qualities: some instinct tells me so."

"My dear sir," said Stenhouse, "did you ever meet a bad man worth twopence at his trade who had not good qualities? The bad man who is half good--so to speak--is a much more dangerous villain than the barrier bully without heart or soul. When h.e.l.l makes a super-excellent devil, the devil puts goodness in just as a baker puts soda in his bread to make it rise. Look at Verlaine."

"Well," said Adams, "I have promised Berselius, and I will have to go.

Besides, there are other considerations."

He was thinking of Maxine, and a smile lit up his face.

"You seem happy enough about it," said Stenhouse, rising to go. "Well, 'he who will to Cupar maun to Cupar.' When do you start?"

"I don't know yet, but I shall hear to-night."

They pa.s.sed out into the Rue St. Honore, where they parted.

"Good luck," said Stenhouse, getting into a _fiacre_.

"Good-bye," replied Adams, waving his hand.

Being in that quarter of the town, and having nothing especial to do, he determined to go to Schaunard's in the Rue de la Paix, and see about his guns.

Schaunard personally superintends his own shop, which is the first gun-shop on the Continent of Europe. Emperors visit him in person and he receives them as an equal, though far superior to them in the science of sport. An old man now, with a long white beard, he remembers the fowling-pieces and rifles which he supplied to the Emperor Maximilian before that unfortunate gentleman started on his fatal expedition in search of a throne. He is a mathematician as well as a maker of guns; his telescopic sights and wind gauges are second to none in the world, and his shop front in the Rue de la Paix exposes no wares--it has just a wire blind, on which are blazoned the arms of Russia, England, and Spain.

But, inside, the place is a joy to a rightly const.i.tuted man. Behind gla.s.s cases the long processions of guns and rifles, smooth, sleek, nut-brown and deadly, are a sight for the eyes of a sportsman.

The duelling pistol is still a factor in Continental life, and the cases containing them at Schaunard's are worth lingering over, for the modern duelling pistol is a thing of beauty, very different from the murderous hair-trigger machines of Count Considine--though just as deadly.

To Schaunard, pottering amongst his wares, appeared Adams.

The swing-door closed, shutting out the sound of the Rue de la Paix, and the old gun-merchant came forward through the silence of his shop to meet his visitor.

Adams explained his business. He had come to buy some rifles for a big-game expedition. Captain Berselius had recommended him.

"Ah! Captain Berselius?" said Schaunard, and an interested look came into his face. "True, he is a customer of mine. As a matter of fact, his guns for his new expedition are already boxed and directed for Ma.r.s.eilles. Ah, yes--you require a complete outfit, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Adams. "I am going with him."

"Going with Captain Berselius as a friend?"

"No, as a doctor."

"True, he generally takes a doctor with him," said Schaunard, running his fingers through his beard. "Have you had much experience amidst big game, and can you make out your own list of requirements, or shall I help you with my advice?"

"I should be very glad of your advice. No, I have not had much experience in big-game shooting. I have shot bears, that's all----"

"Armand!" cried Schaunard, and a pale-faced young man came forward from the back part of the shop.

"Open me this case."

Armand opened a case, and the deft hand of the old man took down a double-barrelled cordite rifle, light-looking and of exquisite workmans.h.i.+p.

"These are the guns we shoot elephants with nowadays," said Schaunard, handling the weapon lovingly. "A child could carry it, and there is nothing living it will not kill." He laughed softly to himself, and then directed Armand to bring forward an elephant gun of the old pattern. In an instant the young man returned, staggering under the weight of the immense rifle, shod with a heel of india-rubber an inch thick.

Adams laughed, took the thing up with one hand, and raised it to his shoulder as though it had been a featherweight.

"Ah!" said he, "here's a gun worth shooting with."

Schaunard looked on with admiration at the giant handling the gigantic gun.

"Oh, for you," said he, "it's all very well. _Ma foi_, but you suit one another, you both are of another day."

"G.o.d bless you," said Adams, "you can pick me up by the bushel in the States. I'm _small_. Say, how much is this thing?"