CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVI THE STONE TABLE Our feelings can hardly be described as we crept closer to the spot from which the scientist's angry protest had gone up through the silence like a thin wire. The loneliness of that day had been appalling. I know that Edith Herndon's quiet face was continually before my mental vision, while Holman's actions convinced me that he was suffering acutely. If we were certain that Leith intended to do no wrong to the party, the fact that he was within speaking distance of the two girls was particularly distressing after the knowledge we had gained in the night. With extreme caution we wormed our way forward, the Professor's piping voice acting as a verbal signpost in helping us to locate the spot where he was engaged in holding the argument. We were close enough to hear his words, and our nerves were on the highest tension as he shrieked a defiance against some person near. We had only one thought as to who that person could be. The Professor was piling charges of treachery upon the head of a listener, and there was only one head on the Isle of Tears that contained enough villainy to make the charges possible! "I will not sign the papers!" cried the scientist. "I want my liberty, sir! You are a scoundrel! Where are my daughters?" Holman, creeping a few inches in front, had drawn his revolver. The blood pounded madly; through my brain. We were within a few yards of Leith, and even as we moved snakily forward, the heavy bass voice of the scoundrel came to our ears. "You stupid old fool!" he growled. "You can demand all day and all night if it does you any good. Do you know who I am?" "I know you are a ruffian!" snapped the Professor. "I know you are a rogue who has no respect for his word and honour. I know you are a coward who insults women!" "Go on," mocked Leith. "I've been a fool!" cried the old man. "I was blinded to everything through my love of science. Now I know that you lied. I know you brought me here to rob me and insult my daughters." The sun had set, and the twilight made it difficult for us to locate the two men. But we were close. When Leith spoke again, his voice sounded so near that I started involuntarily, while Holman, resting upon one hand, parted the branches with the barrel of the revolver which he gripped in the other. "But you will admit when all is over that I have shown you some wonderful things," sneered Leith. The Professor was silent a moment, as if endeavouring to fathom the meaning of the words, and we moved a few inches closer in the little interval. "How?" asked the scientist. Holman's hand that gripped the revolver remained motionless. Through a rift in the leafy curtain I caught a glimpse of a bulk that was within a yard of our hiding place, and I knew that the youngster was waiting for the brute to speak to make certain that he was covering the right man. The silence was nerve-destroying. "Why," said Leith, speaking slowly and distinctly, "you are in the hands of the Wizards of the Centipede. I am their head, and if you are not extremely lucky you will make a sacrifice to—" Something fell upon my head with tremendous force at that moment, but as the blow descended Holman fired, and even as I fought to escape the grip of the strong fingers that twined themselves around my neck, I realized with a great wave of happiness that the bulk in front of me had pitched forward when the shot had shattered the silence. In a wild bedlam of oaths and shouts we fought and struggled. The "tivo" dancers had followed upon our track through the long afternoon, and the time that we had lost in locating Leith had given them an opportunity to come up with us. In the gloom we threshed backward and forward, but our efforts to escape were vain. The one-eyed white man appeared mysteriously out of the shadows to help the huge natives, and in three minutes Holman and I were tied hand and foot and stretched out near the unfortunate Professor, who, with bound limbs, was sitting up in the centre of the grassy clearing where Leith and he had been exchanging personalities. There were no signs of the girls, and I wondered, as my brain recovered from the effects of the blow, what had happened to them. Holman's voice put a question that roused me from my half stupor. "Did I kill him?" cried the young fellow. "Tell me!" The question was answered by a stream of blasphemy that came from Leith himself. The big ruffian had fallen into a bunch of ribbon-grass, but now, with the assistance of One Eye, he got to his feet and staggered toward us. From the actions of his white partner, I surmised that Holman's bullet had struck him in the left shoulder, and the surmise proved true. The attack of the dancers had jerked the youngster's arm, and the wound was twelve inches above the point that Holman had aimed at. With One Eye and the three dancers holding him upon his feet, and the blood dripping from the wound, he kicked us furiously, howling unspeakable imprecations as he drove his heavy boots against our ribs. We had met the real Leith at last. The devilishness that we had sensed behind the lustreless eyes blazed forth in full fury, and to me, familiar as I was with all the weird and wonderful curse phraseology used by the skippers and mates of the island boats, his anathemas impressed me as being the most blood curdling oaths that had ever come to my ears. The man was a devil at that minute. His tremendous strength made the restraining efforts of the other four useless, and we were in danger of being kicked to death if a merciful interruption had not stopped him. The horrified Professor, who was sitting upright during the exhibition of brutality, lifted up his voice in protest, and his shrill denunciations brought a cry out of the surrounding gloom. "Father! father! Where are you, father?" It was Edith Herndon's voice, and the note of agony in the words maddened me. I drove my teeth into Leith's left leg as he stood quiet for a second near my head, and the brute used the sole of his right boot to loosen my grip. There were no gentle ways about the devil. As Edith's cry was repeated, he had administered a farewell kick to Holman and me, and shouted an order in the same strange dialect which the dancer had used in addressing me in the Cavern of the Skulls when the robe of parrot feathers had saved my life. The three natives immediately gripped us by the heels and we were dragged off into the bushes. It seemed to me that Edith Herndon's cry was repeated again and again as the natives dragged me at a jog trot through the undergrowth. There was untold anguish in the cry. It was plain that Leith had taken the unfortunate old Professor some distance from his daughters so that they could not listen to the conversation, and the scientist's high-pitched protests against our maltreatment had caused the terror-stricken girls to think that Leith was ill-using their father. I imagined that the big ruffian had rushed us away from the spot lest the two women would escape from Soma and run to the assistance of their father, but I know that we were thankful that the interruption put an end to the football tactics in which the infuriated devil was indulging. But we had escaped from the frying pan to find ourselves in the flames. The three dancers felt that the Fates had given them a chance to avenge their friend, and they took full advantage of the opportunity. So that each would have a proper share in the burden, they placed us side by side, strapped our ankles together, and then, passing a rope through the straps, the three laid hold of it and set off through the night, towing us behind with an absolute disregard for our feelings. They entered into the fun of the thing. No Norwegian peasant ever towed home a Yule log with a greater exhibition of joy than those savages displayed as they hauled us through the thickets. They had a contempt for open places. They chose the most intricate paths they could find, and if a tough liana gripped Holman or me around the throat, the fiends found great fun in straining upon the rope till the wire-like creepers gave way. We suffered unbearable torture. Hour after hour we were jerked over the ground. Our clothes were stripped from our backs, our faces were torn and bloody from the thorns, and our tormented flesh protested through every nerve against the treatment. Once Holman put a question in a hoarse whisper. "Where are they taking us?" he asked. "God knows," I gasped. "It's my fault, Verslun." "Why?" I groaned. "I missed him! I missed him! I——" His voice died away in a choking sob, and I imagine he swooned away. As we were being towed by the legs, I guessed that Holman was suffering excruciating pain from the limb that he had injured by the fall from the maupei tree, and the lapse into unconsciousness came as a blessed relief. To me the rush through the jungle seemed a superlative nightmare. My mind played tricks with me. I thought that the three black forms, leaping along in front, were a trinity of devils who were ordered to torture me for my stupidity in allowing Edith Herndon and her sister to leave the yacht. Every creeper became a whip wielded by a mocking phantom, and I am forced to confess that I have a vivid recollection of crying to heaven for pardon for my criminal negligence. Every horror that the happenings of the previous forty-eight hours had germinated within my brain sprang into lusty being as my mind trembled upon the abyss of insanity, and Edith Herndon was the person that the legion of horrors threatened. I came to my proper senses to find that our towing trinity had called a halt. Holman was repeating a question over and over again, and I endeavoured to moisten my dry throat so that I could answer. "Where are we?" he groaned. "Where are we? Are you dead, Verslun? Open your eyes and take a look around; my peepers are bunged up." I managed to open my eyes, but I could see nothing but the encompassing jungle. For a few minutes I thought that we were alone. Then I made out the three figures crouched in front of us upon the grass. Their heads were turned away from us, and they were facing the east, where the faint luminous glow of the rising moon was just beginning to appear in the sky. The three were motionless. They were squatting upon their hams, and their attitude seemed uncanny when I compared it with the mad film of action which my mental machinery had recorded during the preceding hours. They had stopped for some purpose, but that purpose I could not determine. "Are they there?" asked Holman. "Yes," I murmured. "What are they doing?" "Sitting in a line staring at the hills." The youngster gave a grunt, turned his head till he managed to wipe the mud and blood from his eyes upon my shoulder, then he peered at the silent three. Their motionless forms fascinated him. It was hard to connect them with the three bounding devils who had brought us on a gallop that was more painful than the bareback ride which the Polish nobleman gave to the intriguing Mazeppa. "What do you make of it?" he whispered. "They're resting perhaps." "Not them! They look as if they're hatching some new villainy." Minute after minute crept by, but the three remained inactive. They took no notice of our whispered conversation. No Hindu Yogis ever sat meditating with the absolute immovability of the three, and as our wounds stiffened under the cold night air, we became foolishly angry at the wait. If we had to meet death, it would please us to get it over as soon as possible. "If I could have one more fling at them." groaned Holman. "By all that's holy, Verslun, I feel that I could fight a million if these ropes were off me." He endeavoured to get his face down to the bandages on my wrists, but we had been strapped in such a manner that it was impossible to reach any of the ropes with our teeth, so we lay quiet and reviewed the legion of tormenting thoughts that marched through our minds. The jungle, like the three natives, seemed to be waiting for a happening. The silence was more horrible than the thunder of an earthquake. It seemed to well out from the silent three, till we longed with a great longing for some terrific and prolonged noise to shiver it and send battalions of echoes to chase it into the hills. The moon peered above the black cliffs, and the surroundings became more distinct. We were on the edge of a clearing, and there was something vaguely familiar about the trees that our cramped position allowed us to see. We felt certain that we had passed this place on our journey from the yacht, and each minute that passed strengthened the conviction. "Seems to me that I've seen that tree before," muttered Holman. "I hold the same impression," I said. "And those rocks," remarked the youngster. "Why, we're going back to The Waif! " The three natives rose together at that moment and gripped the rope. We gave a joint groan of agony as our stiffened limbs were jerked forward, and as we were pulled from the fringe of reed-like grass our exact whereabouts were made known to us. Standing up against the moon, the rim of the orb showing just above the massive top, was the great stone table that Holman and I had climbed two nights before! CHAPTER XVII BENEATH THE CENTIPEDE The natives moved at a slow walk across the clearing, and for this little indulgence we were exceedingly thankful. There was no grass covering upon the bed of coral rock in the middle of which the singular structure stood, and our bleeding bodies could have hardly stood a swift gallop across the prickly surface. As it was we were immensely glad when the trinity halted in front of the edifice. "Say," murmured Holman, "do you remember what the Professor said about this place the other night when he was speaking about sacrificial altars?" I groaned as an intimation that the subject was not a pleasant one, but Holman wanted to make public admission that he had exhibited gross ignorance in ridiculing the Professor's assertions. "I thought he was handing it out too strong, Verslun," he murmured, "but it strikes me now that he had the right dope about this infernal thing. I believe they're going to settle us." I groaned again. Holman's airy manner of discussing our predicament annoyed me. I hated the Professor for making the remarks about sacrificial stones when he drew comparisons between the table and Aztec altars, because I now thought that the very fear planted within my brain would carry a thought suggestion to the three devils who had us prisoners. Under ordinary circumstances I am not deficient in physical courage, but our position in front of the strange monument on the Isle of Tears left me with the valour of a jack-rabbit. The terror generated by the surroundings bit into my system like an acid. "What I'm wondering at," continued Holman, "is about that guy that we saw on the top of the place. How he got away was a mystery." "It was," I replied. I didn't feel disposed to trust myself to make a longer comment at that moment. "Well, they're going to start operations," said the youngster. "We're going to the top, Verslun." It was plain that we were. Two of the natives had shinned up one of the pillars by means of small notches in one corner, and now the other cut the bands that tied us together, promptly attached Holman's feet to the rope his comrades lowered, and signalled that all was ready by clapping his hands. The youngster was quickly jerked upward, and in a few minutes I was beside him on the moss-grown sloping surface of the immense stone. The three dancers were evidently impressed with the importance of the work they had in hand. Their movements on the stone became more dignified and solemn. They moved around us in a manner that would have provoked laughter at any other time, and we watched eagerly for developments. With much care they placed us side by side on the upper part of the stone, but Holman's feet were turned to my head, and as we were placed crosswise upon the inclined surface, my body was a few inches lower than his. That we were to be sacrificed appeared to be a certainty at that moment, but the method by which we were to be sent into eternity puzzled us. Not one of the three had a weapon. The surface of the stone was as bare as it was upon the night that we had investigated it, and we began to think that death by starvation and thirst would probably be our fate. But thoughts of such an ending were soon put aside. Two of the savages slipped from the stone while the other dropped upon his stomach and hid his face. That something was going to happen we felt certain, but we could not discover the slightest clue that would guide our puzzled wits to a solution. We expected death, but we could not guess in what manner the job was to be performed. "Looks as if something is coming, Verslun," cried Holman. "I was a fool to miss him, old man, but I guess—oh, Gee!" The final exclamation was caused by a happening immediately beside us. A section of the moss-grown stone, about eight feet long and eighteen inches in width, started to rise slowly, and when our astonished eyes fell upon it we knew that we had the solution of the strange appearance of the figure upon the table on the night we camped in its shadow. Holman had seen this movable slab rise above the top of the table, but it had returned to its groove before we had climbed the tree, and it had fitted so closely into its moss-grown bed that we had been unable to detect a crevice in the moonlight. We had been on the verge of a discovery, but as we recalled the incident, lying there helpless, we were doubtful if it would have saved us from the fate we expected. The note which Soma had dropped gave full confirmation to all our suspicions concerning Leith, yet we had been unable to hold our own against him. One end of the slab remained stationary after it had risen a few inches from its bed, but the other end, which was nearest us, went up and up, pushed by some screwjack arrangement that lifted it with slow, jerky movements till it was nearly upright. The moonlight fell upon the under surface that was turned toward us, and we understood the manner in which Leith's friends had arranged for us to make our exit from this world. The bottom of the stone slab had been carved into a perfect representation of a centipede, and as the slab remained stationary just before it reached the perpendicular, I began to dive into my mental reticule for the scraps of prayers that had been caught and held through a rather checkered career in places where the efficacy of prayer was looked upon with a cold eye. The prostrate savage rose slowly when the movements of the slab had ceased, and very tenderly he rolled Holman and me over the bed from which the stone had been lifted. He pushed our bodies against the wooden post that, fitting into a sliding groove on the body of the stone centipede, had lifted the thing upright, and to make certain that we would be in the exact centre of the depression when the stone came back to its proper resting place, he strapped us carefully to the support with pieces of ramie fibre, so that we could not move an inch. With faces turned upward we stared at the carved figure above us, and the insecure tenure we had upon life at that moment was impressed upon our minds by the extreme caution which the officiating wizard exercised in keeping his own body clear of the slab lest his brethren, who were evidently operating the clumsy mechanism from some place nearby, should let the stone centipede return to his home without giving him proper warning. At last he finished the business to his satisfaction and stepped backward. My imagination made the thing above me tremble as I looked at it with eyes of fear. The part of my body that spanned the depression became numb, and I breathed with difficulty. Holman broke the silence. "Good-bye, Verslun," he said cheerfully. "It's mighty tough to go out like this, but it's the fortune of war." I endeavoured to answer him, but the words, as if afraid of the horror that loomed above me, refused to come out of my throat. The fiendish manner in which we were to be killed unmanned me. The slab paralyzed thought, and it seemed to me that only the inmost kernel of my being, a very pin-point of the refined essence of life, was throbbing within my body. The officiating wizard stepped around us for a final survey. He glanced keenly at the position of our bodies, and, evidently satisfied that the centipede had every opportunity to make a good job, he flung himself down upon his face and started to murmur softly in the strange dialect which Leith had spoken when addressing the three earlier in the night, and which the dancer had used in the Cavern of Skulls. I remember that I tried during those few minutes to catch a word or two of the queer tongue, and curiously enough, in that moment of extreme peril, I endeavoured to connect it with some of the dialects I had heard during my long stay in the islands. The soft muttering seemed to be a thread connecting us with life itself, and I dreaded the moment it would cease. I do not know how long the chant continued. It rose and fell, a soft rhythmic murmur, and I prayed that it would never end. My ears sucked it in as if it was a life line to which my soul was clinging, and I dimly understood my eagerness to catch the sounds. My ability to do so seemed to be wanted as proof to convince my half-paralyzed body that I was still alive. The low chant ended with a little throaty cry, and I shut my eyes tight to save myself the final moment of agony which the falling of the stone would bring. For an instant there was absolute silence, then some one gripped me by the legs and pulled madly. The ramie fibre held my body to the supporting post of the centipede, and I heard Holman give a muttered order. A knife sawed the cords, a pair of hands gripped my heels and flung me forward, and as I fell clear of the groove the stone horror crashed back into its bed with a jolt that shook the huge table! I opened my eyes to see Kaipi looking at the face of the dancer he had stabbed in the back as the brute was muttering his prayer! "Oh hell!" said the Fijian. "Me thought him Soma. Me made mistake! Me going kill Soma, he kill Toni, Toni all same my brother, work long time with me at Suva!" "Hurry up and cut these ropes," cried Holman. "There are two more of those devils and they'll be back before we get the cramp out of our muscles." Kaipi sprang to obey, but when our bonds were cut away, we found that we could not get to our feet. Legs and arms were completely numbed, and the many abrasions that we had come by during the towing process to which we had been subjected made Kaipi's efforts to restore circulation by rubbing a species of torture that would surely have earned the commendation of Torquemada if it had been brought under his notice. "Narrow squeak, Verslun," remarked Holman, as he endeavoured to get to his knees. "I wonder where those two other devils went to work the machinery." "They must be close," I whispered. "Drag us over to the edge, Kaipi. They'll surely come up to see how the job was done or to see what is delaying their pal." Kaipi helped us over to the edge of the table, and while he was doing so he related briefly how he came to be on hand at the opportune moment. Our little expedition to the stone table had passed the Fijian soon after the trinity had taken us in tow, and Kaipi's eyes had mistaken the biggest of the three natives for Soma. Revenge for Toni's death being the one motive that inspired him, he had followed the procession, watched from the bushes till the other two dancers had left Soma's double with us on the top of the table, and had then climbed quietly up and knifed the officiating wizard while that person was exhorting the stone centipede to make a good job of Holman and me. The matter of our rescue had been an afterthought. Strictly speaking, he deserved no great amount of praise for dragging us out of danger, as he frankly admitted that he was waiting for a good chance to attack the person who resembled Soma, without having any particular worry whether the stone slab would descend before the opportunity arrived. "Never mind, Kaipi," said Holman, peering cautiously over the edge of the table, "I'm satisfied that you were handy at the moment without considering whether you came to help us or for some other purpose." "Toni all the same brother to me," muttered the Fijian, dimly understanding the meaning of the remark; "me kill Soma pretty damn soon." "Quite so," murmured Holman. "We'll give our consent to that operation, but keep quiet for the present till our two friends come back to see how neatly the old centipede fixed us." We remained silent, but not inactive. As we waited for the missing pair we rubbed our limbs carefully, and at the end of ten minutes we began to feel alive. Our revolvers had been lost from our pockets during the mad rush through the night—Leith had been too intent on kicking us to order his guard to search us for arms—and now we had nothing but our bare hands with which to do combat with a pair of dancers. But we thought we could do a lot with bare hands when we glanced at the spot where the stone centipede had crashed back to its bed, A vision of that devilish carving standing above one in the moonlight was enough to stimulate a person to herculean tasks when he understood that failure would bring him again under its ghastly shadow. For about twenty minutes we waited patiently. Kaipi had asserted that the two savages had slipped into the jungle growth after they had left the table, and it was evident that they had gone to some underground passage that connected with one of the pillars of the altar, through which the crude mechanism for lifting the stone slab had been operated. With one eye always to the dramatic, the wizards of the long ago had built the altar so that the common worshippers surrounding the place on days when the centipede was called upon to mash some unfortunate victim could not see how the slab was lifted, and would thus put the uplifting of the thing down to supernatural agency. It was the tribal Houdin who laid the foundation of many a strange belief amongst savage races. "Must be waiting for him to come to them," said Holman. "We'll give them a few minutes longer." It was Kaipi's sharp eyes that made the discovery. The pair came cautiously out of the bushes immediately underneath the tree which Holman and I had climbed to obtain a view of the surface of the table two nights before, and they crossed the clearing with hesitating steps. They evidently expected the officiating wizard to announce in sporting phraseology that the centipede had won the engagement with one swift blow to the body, and when no news was forthcoming they were puzzled. They confabbed in the centre of the clearing, and then hailed the table in the strange tongue. Receiving no answer, they again debated with much vigour, and, finally taking their courage in their hands, they came forward with quickened steps. We crept close to the edge, careful not to peer over while the pair were climbing up. As far as I was aware we had no plans made for their reception. Holman and I had no weapons, neither had the two dancers; Kaipi had the ugly short-bladed knife with which he had dispatched Soma's double. The puffing of the climbing pair came to us. They came near and nearer. A black arm came up over the edge of the table and clawed at the moss-grown stone, but while Holman and I reached forward with the intention of gripping the climber by the throat, Kaipi upset our plans by driving the blade of the knife into the back of the huge paw that was endeavouring to get a grip! A tremendous howl of pain came from the owner of the hand, the pinioned member was torn from beneath the blade, and as we pushed our heads over the edge, the top climber fell backward, swept his companion from the pillar, and the pair struck the coral rock beneath the table with a thud that was suggestive of broken bones. The native with the skewered hand picked himself up and dashed toward the trees, but the other remained at the foot of the pillar, and his position led us to believe that his neck had been broken by the fall. "My knife!" cried Kaipi. "He knocked my knife down!" The Fijian swung himself over the edge, and with monkey-like agility slipped down the pillar. He shouted up to us that he thought that the man on the ground was dead, but having found his precious knife, he proceeded to set all doubts upon the matter at rest. "Soma better dodge that little fire eater," muttered Holman. "I thought him a coward last night, but it looks as if he's a fighter when once he gets started." As we were unable to slip down the stone pillar in the same manner as the natives, we found the piece of rope by which the three dancers had hauled us up to the top, and making it secure upon a stone projection we lowered ourselves to the ground. "Now," said Holman, "we must make a new start, and if we get beat in this round we deserve all that the big fiend who has brought all this trouble about can do to us. Kaipi, you're a friend of mine for all time. Shake hands." The grinning Fijian shook hands with both of us, and we moved toward the trees, heading in the direction of the spot where Leith had kicked us so vigorously a few hours before. CHAPTER XVIII BARBARA'S MESSENGER We had a healthy respect for the deviltry of Leith and his friends as we turned our backs upon the lonely throne of the centipede, but the cry of "Father" which Edith Herndon had uttered was still ringing in our ears, and we were anxious to get within hitting distance of the big, treacherous ruffian. A mental review of the engagements made us feel rather light-hearted as we pushed through the tangle. If there were only six native dancers upon the island at the opening of the conflict in the Cavern of Skulls, we had reduced that number to one, while the bullet in Leith's shoulder would depreciate his fighting ability for some time. Outside the carriers, who, as far as we knew, were neutral in the matter, we had as opponents, Leith, One Eye, Soma, and the dancer whose hand had been punctured by Kaipi, and the knowledge that we were more evenly matched brought us some consolation. But the fact that Edith and Barbara Herndon were in the power of the scoundrel brought thoughts that cast a damper upon the little scrap of joy we derived from reckoning up the casualties of the enemy. The passion which Leith displayed after receiving Holman's bullet made us run forward like madmen each time we recalled the diabolical frenzy that he exhibited. We could not think of a good plan to circumvent the brute. The jungle hampered and maddened us, and although we knew that we had gone about our work in a blundering fashion, the circumstances were such that we could not improve our strategy in the future. We plunged on till nearly midnight, then Holman called a halt. "We must sleep," he said. "One can watch while the other two get some rest." Kaipi, who declared that he was never less inclined for slumber, agreed to take first watch, and Holman and I flung ourselves down upon the grass. We had had no slumber on the previous night, and the incidents in which we had taken part had left us exhausted. It was daybreak before Kaipi awakened us, and the face of the Fijian informed us that something had alarmed him. He was stretched full length on the ground, listening as only a native can listen, and we waited for his report. We had much respect for Kaipi's hearing after checking the signals he made concerning the approaching "tivo" dancer on the previous afternoon. "What is it?" asked Holman. "Some one go by, much hurry," murmured the Fijian. We crouched in the bushes and listened. It was hardly likely that Leith had changed his route, and the only person that we knew to be in our neighbourhood was the dancer. "If we could get hold of him we might use the third degree on him to guide us to the spot that Leith is making for," said Holman. "We'll be outgeneralled completely if he gets into those caverns on the hills. If he has provisions he can snap his fingers at a regiment." I agreed with him on that point. The valley inside the basalt cliffs, and which, as far as we could judge, could only be entered by the slippery pathway in the Vermilion Pit, was about the finest natural hiding place in the world. Without taking the caves into consideration, the luxurious vegetation in the cup between the hills made the finding of a person a matter of extreme luck. It was a marvellous maze that Nature seemed to have constructed especially for the diabolical work in which Leith was engaged. Kaipi's ear was still to the ground, and the anxious look upon his face convinced us that some one was close. "Coming back again," breathed the Islander. "One man, walk slow." Our own ears acquainted us of the approach at that moment. The sound of crackling twigs was quite close, and we waited breathlessly, eying the green curtain through which we expected the unknown to thrust himself. A black head bobbed through the leaves, and Holman planted a fist between the newcomer's eyes before the head could be withdrawn. The morning visitor dropped to the ground, and the three of us promptly fell upon him, the bloodthirsty Kaipi having to be restrained by main force from giving another exhibition of neat knifework. "Who is it?" asked Holman. "Get back, Kaipi, and let me see." We dragged the panting prisoner into the light, but instead of the escaped dancer, we found that we had trapped one of the five carriers, a big Raretongan named Maru, who was possessed of enormous strength. Holman's punch had been no light one, and it was a few seconds before the mists had cleared from the Raretongan's brain; then his big brown eyes lit up with a smile of gladness, and he nodded to Holman. "Me want you," he said. "Quite so," muttered Holman, "but I got you first." Maru smiled the smile of the man who has a card up his sleeve, and he fumbled in the folds of his sulu till he found what he wanted. With a dramatic flourish he drew from the cloth a small emerald ring that belonged to Barbara Herndon, and he smiled childishly as he saw the look of astonishment upon Holman's face as he snatched the trinket. "Why—who—how the devil did you get this?" he asked. "Little missee give me," replied Maru, still convulsed with the humour which his childish mind found in the situation. "She tell me come alonga you." Holman poured out a torrent of questions which the smiling messenger endeavoured to answer to the best of his ability. In pigeon English he informed us that he had deserted Leith's camp about midnight; that the big ruffian had turned abruptly from the direction he was moving in at the time we caught up with him, and that Holman's bullet had caused him serious inconvenience. The two girls and the Professor were in charge of Soma and the one-eyed white man, who, we now learned, was deaf and dumb. It was while One Eye was on guard that Barbara Herndon had been able to bribe the Raretongan to throw the strength of his muscles upon our side of the argument. Holman, with lover-like longing for anything owned by the lady of his choice, attempted to put the emerald ring in his pocket, but Maru objected strongly. The smile fled from his face, and his broken English nearly strangled him in his efforts to pour out enough of it to acquaint Holman of the nature of the agreement which he had entered into with Barbara Herndon. "Me only show you ring, that's all!" he cried. "You look, know little missee send me, ring mine all time. You give back." "You had better give it back to him," I cautioned. "He has got the idea into his head, and it will take a lot of arguing to convince him that Miss Barbara didn't give it to him to keep." "But she didn't!" cried Holman. "Why would she give him a ring? She just gave him a loan of it to let him see that she had sent him to us." "My ring all time," protested Maru. "That my pay fight mighty good for you." "Give it up to him," I advised. "He's only an overgrown child, and he has set his mind on it." "But, Verslun, I know she wouldn't do that!" protested the lover. "Barbara sent me this as——" "Oh, I know," I cried, "but we want fighters now, and Maru is a pretty athletic person." "Me damn good fighter!" cried the Raretongan. "Me plentee good fighter if me get ring." Holman gave up the trinket with a snort of disgust, and a few minutes afterward, when we were tramping along, I made it my business to drop back beside Maru and advise him to keep the ring out of the youngster's sight till we had rescued Miss Barbara. If the native had displayed his reward it was highly probable that the lovesick Holman, with nerves on the raw edge from want of sleep and worry, would have pounced upon the mighty Maru and endeavoured to obtain possession of what he fondly thought was a token of affection from his beloved. But the arrival of the messenger was worth more than the emerald ring to us at that moment. He had more woodcraft than Kaipi, who had spent most of his time upon the ocean, and his information regarding the direction in which Leith was now heading saved us many weary hours of marching. Yams and guavas, with wild passion fruit, made a breakfast and dinner as we clawed our way in pursuit. At midday we judged that we were hot upon the trail, unless Leith had changed his course, but the black cliffs were close to us at that moment, and the recollections of the gloomy caverns made us silent as we pushed through the matted jungle. We could see no trace of the path which Leith would be compelled to cut to enable the two girls to get through, and we heard no sounds. A lone parrakeet startled us with its harsh cry as it rose from a maupei tree, and the bird even seemed to recognize that it had committed a breach in sending its unmusical cry out upon the awful quiet of the place. Kaipi climbed a tall tree in the vain hope of catching sight of Leith's party as it crossed the small cleared spaces in the middle of the impenetrable growth, but nothing except the green plain of bushy tops and parasitical creepers was visible. As we waited beneath the tree the "ticking" of a wood bug sounded like hammer blows in the tremendous quietude, while the bursting of a pod reminded one of the beginning of a Fourth of July celebration. We had lost all trace of Leith, and now, immediately in front, rose the cliffs, and we saw a menace on their dark, forbidding front. The base of the hills presented the same nearly perpendicular formation that we had met when endeavouring to reach the long gallery, and we held a council to decide on what would be the best course to pursue. Maru was confident that Leith was heading for this particular point at the moment that Barbara's bribe caused the Raretongan to desert, and it was reasonable to think that the ruffian had retired to some hiding place to nurse his wound and decide upon the fate of the Professor and his two daughters. From the scraps of conversation which we had overheard before Holman interrupted the argument between Leith and the scientist, we thought it probable that the old man would visit the centipede upon the big table if he did not sign the papers that Leith required, while we shuddered at the probable fate of the two girls unless Providence directed us as to the manner in which we could effect a rescue. "We must divide," said Holman. "I'll take Kaipi and go north, you take Maru and go in the opposite direction. If you find the trail, camp near it and send Maru on the run back to us. I'll do the same if I strike the spoor of the big devil." It was about two o'clock, as nearly as we could judge, when we separated. We agreed to keep as close as possible to the rocky wall so that a messenger from one would have less difficulty in locating the other, and Maru and I found, before we had gone a hundred yards, that the nearer we could get to the cliff the quicker we could get along. The lianas found it difficult to get a grip upon the rocks, and we could worm our way without much trouble. We had travelled about three quarters of a mile when the native dropped upon his knees and I immediately followed his example. The ordinary Polynesian is not to be compared with the Australian black fellow or the American Indian in his knowledge of the forest, but Maru was an exception. His sight and hearing were abnormally keen, and he examined the grass carefully. "One man go by here pretty short time ago," he whispered. "Native?" I asked. "No, him wear shoes." The Raretongan crawled forward on his knees, his face close to the grass. The tracks upon the soft grass showed that the person was moving in the direction we were going, and for about twenty yards we followed cautiously. Leith, the one-eyed white man, and the Professor were the only three men on the Isle of Tears, outside Holman and myself, who would be wearing shoes. It was hard to think that the Professor or Leith would be alone at that moment, so I concluded, as we crawled along in the shadow of the cliff, that the tracks were made by One Eye. Maru suddenly sprang to his feet and stood listening. I listened too. Into the awful silence came a tremendous rumbling that increased each second till I pictured it as a cancer of noise growing with appalling rapidity within the encompassing stillness. "What is it?" I gasped. "Why it's——" I understood at that moment, and I sprang toward the jungle, but the big hand of the Raretongan gripped my shoulder and dragged me close to the cliff beneath an overhanging ledge. "Stay here!" he yelled, raising his voice above the tumult that seemed to be coming out of the heavens. "Keep close much!" The noise was deafening. The black cliff seemed to rock behind us, and as Maru pulled me down on my knees five hundred tons of rock shot from the heights and flattened ten square yards of the packed shrubs immediately in front of us! "Now!" screamed Maru, as the dust swept in under the ledge and nearly choked us; "we get away quick, plenty dust, they can't see!" The dirt and small rocks had rolled back upon us till we stood ankle deep, but the native's advice was good. Hugging the wall of the cliff, we ran back on our tracks till we had passed the area devastated by the landslide; then we sprang into the bushes and peered up at the cliff. High above the cloud of dust that was still rising from the ground, and leaning forward so that he could view the extent of the avalanche, was the one-eyed white man! "Maru," I whispered, "go back and get Holman. I'll wait here till you come." CHAPTER XIX LEITH SCORES The one-eyed man stood for a long time contemplating his handiwork. From his point of observation he watched the pile of rocks and the surrounding bushes, and the absence of movement convinced him that the job had been well done. He commenced to make facial contortions as an outlet for the mirth he was generating inside, and at intervals he managed to produce a peculiar noise that reminded one of the bubbling of a camel. I began to think that One Eye, besides being deaf and dumb, was suffering from a shortage of gray matter inside his ugly-shaped head. He strutted up and down, and narrowly escaped toppling over the ledge through attempting a cake dance as a grand finale to the insane actions prompted by the successful manner in which he had engineered the landslide. The afternoon had lengthened out before Maru returned with Holman and Kaipi, and we hurriedly considered the best course to pursue. One Eye had been with Leith when Maru deserted, so it was obvious that we were not far from the ruffian's hiding place. "If we could catch this lunatic on the cliff?" muttered Holman. "Gee! we could tickle him with Kaipi's old knife blade till he ran us right into the haunt." "He's deaf," I said; "there's a good chance of roping him in if we could scale the cliff." "Me climb!" said Maru. "Him not hear. Me climb all alonga track, drop down, breakem him neck." "No, don't break his neck!" growled Holman. "We want him as a guide. Do you understand? He knows where Leith is hiding, and if we could get hold of him it would be clear sailing." Maru borrowed Kaipi's knife, nodded confidently as we adjured him to use caution, and then slipped back along the track so that he could climb to the level of the one-eyed person's perch before attempting to creep upon him. We sat down to await developments. The witless one was evidently a lookout, and it was advisable to wait and see the success of Maru's expedition before we attempted to move. It was a long wait. Maru didn't intend to take any chances by closing in hurriedly, and it was nearly two hours after his departure before we saw his head rise above a boulder high up over the spot where One Eye was keeping his vigil. It was evidently not the first time that the native had stalked a human being, and his fine tactics, which should have called forth praise, severely tried the small amount of patience that we possessed. Holman cursed softly beneath his breath as Maru sat for ten minutes at a time studying the route before attempting to move from a sheltering rock, and my own nails burrowed into the palms of my hands as I watched. The Raretongan was a genius in his own particular line, and I think he took more than ordinary precautions so that his success would prove to Holman that Barbara Herndon had not overpaid him when she presented him with the emerald ring as a reward for his desertion from Leith. Maru had no idea of the sentimental view of the matter which the youngster took; and he thought that Holman's objections against the bargain were caused by the thought that no services could be rendered that would be half as valuable as the trinket. The unsentimental savage could not imagine that the unstrung lover wanted the ring as a keepsake of the girl who had won his heart on board The Waif . "Caesar's Ghost! Why doesn't he hurry?" cried Holman. "That madman looks as if he's going to change his camping ground!" It looked as if the witless one was really going to move, and Maru had still some fifty yards to cover before he would be directly above the other's head. Our nerves were in such a state that we felt inclined to scream out to the patient stalker. If we could grab the scout we could probably induce him by gentle persuasion to act as guide, but if he escaped us, we pictured ourselves stumbling over precipices and through dark caverns with the same lack of results as had marked our trip to the place of skulls. Maru was decreasing the distance by inches. Slowly, very slowly, with all the serpentlike cunning of the savage, he advanced till he was almost above the spot where the other stood taking a survey of the jungle. But it was a farewell glance for One Eye. If Leith had placed him there to keep watch till he had reached a safe position, the watcher evidently considered that the time was up. He hopped to another ledge with the agility of a goat, and Holman groaned. Maru noticed the retreat, and quickened his movements. Dropping cautiously from ledge to ledge he crept upon the other with the swiftness of a leopard creeping upon its prey. One Eye's deafness left him at the mercy of the shadow in his rear. Swiftly taking cover whenever the white man's head moved to the right or the left, the native decreased the distance, and we rose to our knees. Then Maru sprang. His muscular right arm went round the neck of the white, and we were rushing toward the cliff without waiting to see the outcome of the struggle. The Raretongan's strength was immense, and we knew that the other could not break the strangle hold that had been put upon him. We were more afraid that One Eye would be choked into insensibility before we reached the post. The big native was sitting astride his captive when we gained the ledge, and the prisoner was blinking his one good eye as he stared up at him. We dropped down beside him and took a look at the sun-tanned face. He exhibited no fear, and the weak, watery eye showed no glint of intelligence. It was plain that his brain was slightly deranged. Holman jerked him into a sitting position, and with signs and gestures we endeavoured to explain what we wanted him to do. Neither of us understood the deaf and dumb alphabet, but the alphabet was hardly necessary. With much pantomimic action we described Leith, the Professor, and the two girls, and Kaipi enjoyed himself immensely by waving his knife in front of One Eye's face to signify the fate that awaited him if he did not immediately guide us to the spot. The Fijian was so proud of the blade that he could hardly be prevented from burying an inch of the steel in the prisoner's body. One Eye, although obviously half-witted, saw that Kaipi was only looking for an excuse to send him to a more undesirable place than the Isle of Tears, and he made eager signs that he would act as our guide. Holman relieved him of the revolver and cartridges he had in his pockets, strapped his arms behind him, and with Maru's hand clutching the collar of his coat, we signalled to him to step forward and step lively if he wished to delay his journey to the other world till his soul was in a better condition. The sun was close to the high ridges in the west, and we wished to close with Leith before nightfall. One Eye taxed our climbing powers in the next ten minutes. With the agility of a chamois he scurried along the narrow ledges, and several times Maru was forced to check his speed so that we could keep pace with him. Holman's face showed the joy he felt at receiving another opportunity to retrieve the blunders we had made in our two previous attacks. Now we had reduced the big villain's fighting bodyguard to two persons, Soma and the dancer, and if he had not impressed the carriers, we outnumbered him. But Leith was on his own ground, and we had already discovered that the Isle of Tears made an ideal retreat for an outlaw. The nearly impassable jungle, surrounded by the cliffs that were tunnelled with tremendous caverns, made a hiding place in which a few men could defy an army. One Eye moved along the side of the cliff for about five hundred yards, then turned into a small cañon hardly thirty feet wide, the bottom of which was about twenty yards above the valley from which we had climbed. Our intuition told us that we were near the retreat, and we halted the hurrying guide, and in the shelter of a boulder explained to him with more signs and gestures that we wished to proceed with extreme caution. The end of the gulch that was not more than a stone's throw from the face of the cliff was already dark with the shadows of the hills, and as we suspected that the opening to Leith's refuge was close, we wished to make no unnecessary noise in approaching it. Using the scattered rocks as covering, we advanced slowly, but before we reached the end the sun had disappeared, and the absence of twilight, noticeable in that latitude, compelled us to crawl along in a darkness that made it impossible to discern any object that was more than three feet distant. Holman was on one side of One Eye while Maru guarded him on the other side, and as the bottom of the gorge made it impossible for more than three to move abreast, Kaipi and I crawled in the rear. We were at One Eye's mercy at that moment, but the idiot appeared to be much impressed by the manner in which we had pictured the sure and sudden fate that would fall upon him if we suspected him of treachery. The mystery of the place gripped us as we went forward. High above us the stars looked as if they were floating sequins in a sea of dark blue. But the stars were blotted out suddenly, and I drew Holman's attention to the fact. The youngster got to his feet and groped around in the gloom, while we halted till he made an investigation. It was impossible to see the face of the half-witted guide to gain any information from his gestures. Holman stooped and whispered his finding to us. "We're in a covered passageway," he murmured. "I can just touch the roof by standing on tiptoe. As we're in the place we might as well walk instead of crawling; we'll get to the end quicker." Maru dragged One Eye to his feet, and we pushed on. The air of the place was much sweeter than the atmosphere of the Cavern of Skulls. The floor, instead of being covered with thick dust as we had found it in the former place, was one of clean, smooth rock, and the walls were perfectly dry. I had gripped One Eye's left arm while Holman was making the examination of the passage, and we had not proceeded more than twenty yards when he intimated that he wished to turn to the right. We allowed him to do so, and for fully twenty minutes he followed a zigzag course that left us completely nonplussed as to the way we had come. We could hardly count the number of the turnings. First to the right, then to the left, then back again toward the mouth of the place, he trotted forward with nothing to guide him, yet when we checked him at certain corners to find out if there was an angle in the path, we found that he was right in every instance. "He's counting the number of paces he takes between the turnings," muttered Holman. "No man, unless he had the eyes of a cat, could find his way along this passage. Keep a grip on him or we'll never see daylight again." We guessed that we had walked for over half a mile when the guide stopped abruptly. In the dark we endeavoured to find out what had pulled him up short, but we tried in vain. A prick from Kaipi's knife blade would not make him budge an inch, and we clustered together and racked our brains to find the solution. "P'raps we're up against something," whispered Holman, "Feel if there's anything in front, Verslun." I walked forward a pace and groped in the blackness. My fingers touched solid rock. It hemmed us in on all sides. One Eye had walked us to the end of the passage, and we had come up against a blind wall. I whispered the news to Holman, and he swore softly. Maru's fingers tightened on the collar of the prisoner till his breath came in short gasps. Kaipi moved around to the side of the prisoner, but I pushed him roughly back. The Fijian's desire to use his knife on all occasions was somewhat irritating. "What'll we do?" asked Holman. "Get back," I answered. "He's either fooled us or he's lost his way." Holman gripped One Eye by the neck and shook him roughly. The youngster's temper was up, and it looked as if we had wasted the hours we had spent in capturing the idiot alive, and the time lost in following behind him through the cañon and the crooked passage. And time was precious when we thought of the agony which Edith and Barbara Herndon were suffering. In his temper Holman forgot that the prisoner was deaf, and he shouted a question at him. "What the devil is wrong?" he screamed. "Damn you, will—" Maru interrupted with a cry of astonishment. The wall at the end of the passage appeared to slide away, and, standing directly in front of us, his big frame outlined against a fire of brushwood that blazed behind him, was Leith! Holman gave a yell of rage and sprang forward, and Leith turned and sped into the gloom. In his astonishment at finding himself confronted by the enemy when the stone door had rolled aside, Holman had forgotten that he had a revolver in his possession, and Leith had passed the brushwood fire before I yelled out to the youngster to shoot. Holman fired immediately, and Leith staggered. For a moment we thought that he was down, but he picked himself up and ran on. I snatched a blazing pine limb from the fire as I rushed by, and with the light flickering upon the walls of the place, we sped madly after the flying figure that was barely discernible when the blazing branch flung a splinter of light into the gloom. Holman emptied the revolver, but the pounding of Leith's feet that came back to us proved that he was still running. Maru and Kaipi were hallooing far behind, but Holman and I ran side by side, our minds unable to think of anything but the capture of the human tiger in front. We were gaining on him. We could hear his laboured breathing, and I remembered with a thrill of satisfaction the wound that he had received the night before. It was only a question of time when we would have our fingers on his throat. "Keep it up!" gasped Holman. "We've got him, Verslun! We've got him!" It looked like it. The red glow from the torch enabled us to catch an occasional glimpse of shoes moving up and down at such a rate that the limbs to which they were attached always remained outside the area that was faintly illuminated. The momentary view of the footgear, together with the maddening plop plop it made upon the rock, raised an insane idea within my brain that we were chasing a pair of bewitched shoes that were enticing us into the very heart of the mountain. The scanty diet and the happenings of the two preceding days had left me light-headed. The race was unreal. I had an idea that the shoes would run on forever, and that every yard they covered took me farther away from Edith Herndon. The flame of the pine branch went out, and we were left in utter darkness. But the sound of the flying feet still came back to us. At times we were so near that Holman thrust out his hands as he ran, and cursed softly as the sounds seemed to draw away from him. "I'll have you yet!" he cried. "I'll choke you, you devil!" A chuckle came out of the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man we were pursuing. Holman made the discovery at the same moment. "Soma," he breathed, and he ran faster. From some place that seemed to be leagues in the rear came the shouts of Maru and Kaipi, but their yells died away, and we were convinced that they had given up the chase. The plop plop of the shoes ceased suddenly, and we slackened speed. Our brains suggested that Leith had stopped abruptly on the chance of doubling back before we could pull up, and a sweat of terror broke out upon us. If he doubled successfully he would reach the stone door through which we had got the first glimpse of him. "He's turned!" cried Holman. "We'll get him, Verslun! After the—O God! Look out !" Holman's warning came too late. The rocky floor over which we had been running, dropped away from us. I pitched forward after the youngster into a gulf of darkness, landed on my shoulder upon a mass of volcanic ash, and clutching vainly at the stuff, I rolled at tremendous speed down into the bowels of the earth. From far above us came the sounds of uncontrolled merriment—the high-pitched shrieks of a native rising above the deep bass laughter of Leith.