"I was," I replied. "I fired my revolver half a dozen times when we got off the trail and couldn't find our way back to it. I thought on account of the way that the path wound in and out that your party might be near the spot where we were bushed."

He made no further comment and I breathed a sigh of relief. Unless Newmarch sent a second messenger to make sure that the news of my desertion would reach Leith, I felt that I was safe.



CHAPTER VII

THE PIT

We were under way early on the morning after I joined the party. Leith had the camp astir by daybreak, and after a hasty breakfast we trailed off behind Soma and the carriers, heading directly toward the basalt towers that rose up in the middle of the island.

I for one was not sorry that we were making an early start. All through the night I lay awake expecting another member of the crew to rush into camp with a message from Newmarch to Leith, and when we started on the trail, I took particular care to lag behind the procession for the first few hours so that I would be in a position to intercept any diligent runner from The Waif. I took the first opportunity of telling Holman of the manner in which the bilious Englishman had hastened my departure with the Winchester, and the youngster's face wore a perplexed expression.

"That precious captain is Leith's partner in villainy," he cried, "but our hands are tied. The Professor is simply crazy with delight over the things that the brute is going to guide him to, and all our suspicions don't amount to much when you put them together. You see we've got nothing definite to go on at present. All we can do is to watch and wait, and be ready to act when the moment comes. Soma and his five mates are Leith's pets, you can bet your life on that, but we have one ally in your friend Kaipi."

The path of the preceding day was smooth compared to the ground we climbed over that morning. There was no trail as far as we could see. Soma, who was in the lead, found his way by occasional marks that could only be visible to the eye of a native. Barbara Herndon remarked on one occasion that there was danger of our getting lost, but Leith grinned at the remark.

"Soma has been here more than once," he replied. "What he doesn't know about this place isn't worth knowing."

The path continued to ascend, but the thick tropical growth did not lessen during the tramp of the morning. Leith walked with the Professor, who appeared to be in a state of joy bordering upon hysteria, while Holman and I in the rear tried to assist the two girls over the roughest sections of the road. I thought as we scrambled through impenetrable scrub and crawled over rocky piles that it was the strangest expedition that had ever set forth. If Leith was the wicked devil that we suspected him to be, four persons were risking their lives to gratify the whim of a half-crazy scientist who was dying for notoriety. He would not be turned aside from his pursuit of the specimens which Leith had told him of; his daughters would not desert him, and their resolve had brought Holman and myself. We were blind automatons that the fame-seeking archaeologist was dragging at his heels. He did not consider the sufferings of the two girls; least of all did he think that Holman or myself was doing anything to safeguard his life or property. He was blind to everything but the natural curiosities around him, and he made frequent entries in the notebook that was to be his crutch to Olympus.

Leith did not allow me to remain long in the rear. He called me up to the front, and very politely asked me to help in hustling along the carriers who were inclined to dawdle as the way grew rougher, and, although I would much rather have had the task of helping the two girls, I had to accept the position without demur. Leith was in charge, and Holman and I were only intruders who had on standing, and whose food was paid for by the Professor.

We halted at midday in an ugly-looking spot far up the shoulder of the mountain that we were climbing, and through a break in the trees we caught a glimpse of the Pacific. The ocean seemed directly beneath us, and yet, as Edith Herndon expressed it, we seemed to be a thousand leagues away from it.



"This horrible silence makes me long for the clean sound of the waves," she whispered, as I rolled a stone over to make her a seat. "This stillness stops one from speaking. Do you know that Barbara and I haven't spoken a word during the last hour? We simply hadn't the courage to make the effort."

Under the watchful eye of Leith I endeavoured to cheer her up, while inwardly I cursed the prattling old Professor who chattered of the honours he expected as the rewards of his discoveries. The affair was enough to bring tears to the eyes of a man with a heart of stone.

"I'm just thinking we should have stopped this business before it got this far," muttered Holman, as he reached closer to get a light for his cigarette.

"What should we have done?" I asked.

"I don't know," he growled. "We should have done something though. Pity we didn't lose Leith overboard with your friend Toni."

"What's wrong now? Has anything happened?"

"No, nothing has happened," he replied. "I wish something would. This silence is beginning to put my nerves on edge, but I'm afraid to yell out for fear that I might wake something that has been dead for centuries. Does it strike you that way?"

"Very much."

"Well, it's the same with the girls," muttered Holman. "The stillness of the place has brought their ordinary conversational tone down to a whisper."

Leith lurched across and interrupted our conversation. "Get the boys going, Mr. Verslun," he said. "We want to cross the Vermilion Pit while the light is good, and it is hard going from here on."

We started forward up the boulder-strewn slope, and with each step the difficulties of the ascent became greater. I took an axe and helped Soma chop a path which would make it easier for the two sisters, but no matter what amount of trouble we took, they found it a difficult matter to follow. Once, goaded into fury by Leith's attempts to hurry the girls when Holman was assisting them over a particularly rough stretch, I turned upon the old scientist who was puffing along with the natives in the lead.

The half-insane ancient heard my outburst to the end, staring at me through the thick lenses of his glasses as if I was some new kind of a bug whose appearance he wished to implant firmly within his mind.

"Science calls for sacrifices," he squeaked. "If my daughters are heroines who wish to share my hardships in the pursuit of information that will be of great benefit to the world, I fail to see what it has to do with you, sir!"

"But they have no interest in your silly discoveries," I cried. "They are doing this infernal tramp to look after you. Do you hear?"

"Confound you, sir!" he screamed. "Mind your own business and don't interfere with mine!"

I choked down my wrath as Leith came crashing through from the rear, and the old egoist, flushed and ruffled, dropped back to meet him, evidently convinced of my insanity through my inability to appreciate his efforts to prove that the skulls of long-dead Polynesians possessed peculiar formations they were foreign to the islanders of the present day.

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when we began to draw near the Vermilion Pit which Leith had mentioned when he had urged haste at the midday luncheon. The surroundings became more strange and mysterious with each step we took. The basalt peaks that we had noticed from the deck of The Waif were now quite close to us, and they seemed to move in upon us from both sides. The trees and lianas became less numerous, and the black rocks came toward us in a sinister manner that conjured up thoughts of a dead something toward which the encircling ridges were guiding us like the arms of a corral. The place was fear-inspiring. It had the unearthly appearance that made the imaginative minds of the ancients people the silent woods with devils and dryads. The soft moaning of the Pacific was barred out by the leafy barriers, and we walked in a silence that was tremendous. The ticking of our watches sounded to our strained ears like the blows of a hammer, and once, when the Professor sneezed mightily, Miss Barbara gave a scream of fear before she realized what had caused the noise.

The ascent became still more difficult. The natives puffed under their loads, and Holman rushed angrily to the front and demanded a halt on behalf of the girls struggling in the rear. During the few minutes that Leith grudgingly allowed them in which to recover their breath, the youngster hurried up to the spot where I was busy fixing the loads of the natives, and in a nervous whisper he asked my opinion of the route.

"Where the dickens are we going?" he cried.

"This is the most eerie-looking patch of country that I have ever seen in my life."

"Leith said that we had to reach the Vermilion Pit before the sun went down," I replied. "I guess it is somewhere at the end of this staircase that we are trying to climb."

"Oh, Gee!" cried the boy. "Say, this game has got those two girls scared to death. There's something wrong with the place, Verslun. My skin feels it. The island looks as if it has been left too long by itself, and I'm beginning to think that all those rocks and trees are watching us and wondering what we want here."

That was how it felt to me from the moment I had left The Waif, and I had tried vainly to overcome the feeling. The island seemed to resent the appearance of human beings. It possessed a personality through being too long by itself. It had wrapped itself round a dead past, and we were filled with the awe which suddenly strikes the unimaginative globe trotter who wanders into the cool recesses of a Hindu temple. And I was of the same opinion as Holman regarding the trees and rocks. Traders in the lonely spots of the Pacific have gone insane through becoming convinced that the mountains and the trees were watching their movements, and the trees and rocks upon the Isle of Tears struck me as possessing a watchfulness that smacked of the supernatural. I thought of the story which the sailor told in the cafe chantant at Papeete just then, and I was inclined to give it more credence than I had at the moment he narrated it.

But I tried to rally Holman so that he would cheer up Edith Herndon and her sister.

"You're like an old woman," I growled. "Go back to the girls and make them laugh over some funny stories instead of getting nightmares about the scenery. Why, this place reminds me of a real pretty bit of scenery near my home town in Maine."

Of course I lied when I said that. You couldn't find any scenery like that outside the tropics. That place was queer; there wasn't the slightest doubt about that. I recalled as I stumbled along how a trader at Metalanim in the Caroline Islands had swam out to our schooner when we were down there the previous year, and how the poor devil had told old Hergoff, the captain, that a chatak tree at the back of his hut had begun to make faces at him, and I began to understand the complaint that had gripped that trader as I climbed along by the side of the puffing islanders. He had been jammed up too close against a personality. When a place has been too long by itself, as Holman had remarked, it cultivates a strength that tries the nerves of an explorer, more especially if it is situated near the equator. Places like Papua, the Caroline Islands, parts of Borneo, and the Never Never country in inland Australia seem to possess a fist that attempts to push you off when you endeavour to bring the atmosphere of civilization into a silence that has been unbroken for centuries.

Holman went back to the sisters, and we moved slowly forward. The basalt rocks came closer, showing plainly through the breaks in the lianas that grew less thickly on the higher slopes. The creepers fell away slowly, as if they had done the work they were required to do, and before we realized it we were walking between two natural walls of rock about eighteen feet high, above which the sky looked like a strip of blue paper that rested upon the marvellously even tops of the barriers.

The Professor was gurgling joyfully as we tramped through that miniature canon. He was bumping up against new wonders at every footstep, and he stumbled continuously as he endeavoured to jot down his impressions in the fat notebook. The Professor felt nothing mysterious about the place. He had the bullet-proof skin of your cold analyst who yearns eternally for facts.

"Wonderful geological formation!" he chattered. "My friend Professor Hanlaw of Oakland would enjoy a glimpse of this spot. A geologist could spend a lifetime here."

Leith's sallow face was disturbed by a grin as he listened to the old science-crazed ancient disbursing information regarding the formation of the rock. It troubled me little at that moment whether feldspar and augite were the two largest components, and I knew that Holman and the two girls were not interested. We knew that the place was ugly and sinister, but feldspar and augite didn't give it that look.

The height of the walls increased as we advanced. We were in a narrow roadway scarcely more than twelve feet across, while on each side rose the nearly perpendicular rocks that blocked our view of the country immediately beyond. The ground beneath our feet was covered with small bits of lava from the crevices of which the moist flabby leaves of the nupu plant stuck up like fat green fingers.

As we stared ahead we noted that the road seemed to dip suddenly as if the highest point of the island was reached at that spot, and the prospects of a walk upon a down grade were cheering after the stiff climbs. As we neared the place, Soma, who was walking about ten paces in front of the carriers, slackened speed, and the islanders dropped back till Leith and the Professor led the procession.

Leith halted and beckoned to the two girls and Holman, who were some distance in the rear. "Hurry up!" he cried. "You'll get the sight of your lives in a few moments."

"What is it?" gurgled the Professor.

Leith grinned as the scientist dipped his lead pencil into his open mouth so that he would be able to dab down first impressions the moment he turned his thick lenses upon the wonders.

"You'll see in a moment," replied the big brute, as he walked slowly forward, and just as he spoke, we did see.

A ridge of bright vermilion came up suddenly about one hundred feet from the point where the road seemed to dip, and we walked forward wondering what lay between the spot where the track ended and the bright barrier of rock that appeared to rise higher as we approached the end of the trail. We seemed to sense the approach of something that chilled and yet attracted. The place possessed a devilish fascination. It seemed to repel with its very uncanniness, and yet I was aware that I was imitating Holman in thrusting forward my head in an endeavour to see what filled the space that was hidden from our eyes.

The desire was soon satisfied. Fifteen paces brought us to a point that left the strange curiosity naked to our eyes. The vermilion walls, thirty yards in front of us, formed part of the sides of an enormous circular crater, and we stood spellbound as we pulled up within a few feet of the ledge and looked into the fearsome depths beneath.

"Ladies and gentlemen," drawled Leith, looking around at us with the air of a cheap showman springing a novelty upon a gaping mob, "you are on the edge of the Vermilion Pit, the greatest wonder between Penang and the Paumotus."



CHAPTER VIII

THE LEDGE OF DEATH

I suppose that Leith was not far wrong when he gave that place the credit of being the most wonderful spot in Polynesia. None of us felt inclined to contradict him as we stood near the lip of the crater and gazed into it. The thing appalled us. It looked as if some fiend had bored it between those barriers of black rock as a trap for man and beast. The entire inner walls, probably from the action of intense heat upon a peculiar kind of rock, were of a bright vermilion near the top, gradually changing into darker shades as the eye followed them deeper and deeper till the outline was lost in the depths of the mighty cauldron. The inky clouds, which seemed to heave like black masses of cotton wool far down in the abyss, left the imagination to perform acrobatic feats as it attempted to picture the possible depths that lay below. The thing was weird, terrible, fear-inspiring. It looked like a mighty crucible in which infernal things might have been manufactured in the days when the world was taking shape.

The rays of the westering sun beat upon the sides directly opposite our point of observation, and the colours seemed to leap from the rock. It glowed in a manner that was indescribable. Sudden flashes came from it as if the vermilion mass was studded with blazing carbuncles, but the fascinating beauty of the part that was exposed to the rays was in violent contrast to the cold depths where the mind pictured a body falling through leagues of space.

For about five minutes no one spoke. The awful suddenness with which the thing had appeared in our path throttled conversation. An inner self connected the pit with the singular feeling of depression which had gripped us the moment we landed upon the island, and we stood breathless, wondering stupidly how we had sensed the vermilion-lined horror into which the path led.

It was the Professor who broke the silence. The momentary awe which he experienced when the strange freak of nature sprang up before his eyes was dispelled by the vanity which prompted him to air his knowledge concerning the cause of the vivid colours which seemed to radiate from the walls. He prattled upon the effect of heat upon minerals till he made us dizzy, and Holman broke in upon his chatter with a question that he fired point blank at Leith.

"But what did we climb up here for?" asked the youngster. "Did we come for the view alone?"

Leith grinned as he surveyed the questioner. "No, we didn't come for the view," he answered. "It happens to be on the way to our destination."

Holman looked around at the basalt walls that hemmed us in on both sides, and then glanced at the pit in front.

"But we can go no farther," he said.

Leith's smile spread across his ugly flat face. "You are too young to know everything," he sneered.

The youngster's eyes opened as he looked again at the circular pit with its brilliantly tinted sides. The answer perplexed him, and he waited anxiously for an explanation.

"But how can we?" he asked.

Leith stood for a moment before replying, then he moved closer to the edge of the crater and pointed down.

"The road is directly beneath you," he remarked. "If you come closer to the edge you can see it." Holman glanced at me in amazement, and moved by the one impulse we stepped toward the ledge. The rim of the vast pit, at the point where Leith was standing, was composed of porphyry of a dark-green shade, and as we neared the edge we noticed that this had been worn to that peculiar velvety smoothness that one notices on the pillars of Indian temples, where the sweaty hands of millions of worshippers have helped in the polishing process through unnumbered centuries.

Leith noticed that our glances were directed upon the peculiar polished portion of the rim, and his grin broadened.

"You won't be the first to go over on to the track below," he drawled. "If I had a dollar for every man who slipped over here since the world began I wouldn't bother with specimens for American and European museums. See, the ledge is directly beneath, and it leads away to the right."

We stretched out our necks and looked, and I tried to thrust back the exclamation that came to my lips. Directly beneath the polished part of the rim, and about four feet below it, was a ledge barely three feet wide, and this narrow path wound away to the right and disappeared through a cavernous opening in the brightly tinted walls of the crater. The ledge was bare and unprotected, polished to the same velvety smoothness as the spot on the rim near which we stood, and when one looked at it and then let his eyes glance over the infernal depths that were immediately beneath, the brain reeled with thoughts of the danger to which a climber would be exposed while making his way along it to the cavern in the wall.

Holman took a great breath of air and turned savagely upon Leith.

"What sort of a fool game are you up to?" he cried. "What do you mean?"

Leith's lower jaw came forward menacingly. "You had better hold your tongue!" he roared. "If you don't I'll—I'll——"

He stopped and glared at the young fellow, a murderous expression creeping over his sallow face. The half-voiced objection to the route had stirred all the sleeping devil in him, and the big stubby fingers crooked as if certain they would be called upon to grip Holman's throat.

"You'll do what?" asked the youngster coolly.

"I'll bundle you back to the yacht!" screamed the giant. "You've been allowed to come on this trip through the good nature of Professor Herndon, but you mustn't think you have any voice in the direction of affairs."

Holman did not reply. The dangers of the path over which it was evident that Leith intended to take us dazed him, and he looked at me as if asking confirmation of his opinions.

"But the young ladies?" I inquired, looking at Leith. "Do you expect them to go down on to that path?"

"I don't expect the young ladies to do anything against their inclinations," he answered blandly. "They have come with the expedition through no urging from me. Regarding the ledge, there is absolutely no danger, and it is the only path by which we can reach the interior of the island. Soma, go over the rim and show them."

Edith and Barbara Herndon, with their father, moved up closer to the edge as the grinning Kanaka stepped forward to obey Leith's order. He walked quickly to the polished porphyry slab, moved cautiously to the extreme rim, then, turning his back on the crater, he dropped upon his hands and knees and lowered himself down till only his grinning face appeared above the top.

We crept closer and watched him walk along the ledge toward the cavern, apparently unaffected by thoughts of the death which a slip of his foot would bring upon him. Returning to the spot beneath the polished slipping-off place he put his muscular hands into two clefts in the slab above and drew himself up on to the solid earth.

"No danger," he cried. "All boys go over here before they could call themselves men. That long, long time ago."

The Professor grabbed his notebook as he heard the explanation, and he immediately proceeded to deluge the Kanaka with questions.

"What was that?" he squeaked. "You say all the boys had to climb over there?"

"That's so," grinned Soma. "This place make 'em test. Young boy go over this quick he make plenty good fighting man. Feller go over slow he no good."

The Professor's pencil moved quicker than the pen of a court stenographer. The Kanaka's remark had brought him much copy, and the dangers of the path were forgotten as he jotted down the information.

"And they went over here?" he cried, his eyes wide open as he gazed at the edge of the crater.

"Right over here," grinned Soma. "See rock mighty slippery here. All boys' hands and feet do that. Polish it mighty fine."

"But surely this test is not carried on at the present time?" cried the scientist. "When was this wonderful custom in force?"

"About the time that Christopher Columbus was paddling to America," replied Leith. "There are no natives on the Isle of Tears now. Soma is speaking of a time when these islands were inhabited."

The Professor gurgled like a drowning mule. "This is a most interesting morsel of information," he murmured. "Hand me my camera, Barbara; I wish to take a snapshot of the place."

The delay irritated Leith, but he kept his temper in check while the Professor fussed and focussed to get a good view of the spot.

"The old fool should be in a padded cell," growled Holman. "He's so busy digesting that tale that he's not thinking of the dangers of this path. I'm going to speak to him aside."

"I hope you have better luck than I had," I whispered. "I bullied him as we were climbing the slope, and I believe he complained of me to Leith. He sees a mental picture of himself with bay leaves on his brow, and he wouldn't consider the nerves of twenty daughters."

I was right in my prophecy. When Holman approached the old maniac he ruffled up like an angry porcupine, and he screeched out his opinion concerning people who would not mind their own business.

"You're the second person who has kindly informed me what I should do," he exclaimed. "And who are you, sir? You have no standing with this expedition! This is a scientific exploration party, but it seems to me that a number of busy-bodies have pushed their way into it. I shall ask Mr. Leith if he cannot stop this interference!"

Leith listened till the Professor had finished speaking, then he turned savagely upon Holman. "I've given you one chance," he roared, "and you don't seem to profit by it. Now I'm not going to speak again! If I have to tell you to keep your finger out of this pie on another occasion, you'll go back to the yacht, and you'll go back without provisions, do you understand?"

The youngster was not lacking in courage, and he stood up boldly as the bully screamed out his threats.

"I won't go back," he said quietly. "At least I won't go back alone."

Leith's big fingers crooked ominously as he glared at Holman, but Edith Herndon prevented the conflict that was imminent.

"Mr. Holman is only concerned about our safety," she cried, stepping in front of the youngster. "He thinks that the path is dangerous for women, and it is on that account he protests."

Leith recovered his temper with an effort. "It is not dangerous," he drawled. "We will put a strong rope under the arms of each so that it will be impossible for an accident to happen. Soma will go first with one of the other boys, and they will guide every one into the opening. Once through there the path leads into a valley in the centre of the island, and the road is perfectly safe."

Edith Herndon looked at her sister as Soma unwound the strong manilla rope which he had carried from the yacht, and they exchanged glances that showed clearly the terror in which they viewed the journey across the ledge.

Leith frowned as he glanced toward the pit. The colours were fading from the brilliant sides as the sun sank lower, and the inky clouds that seemed to heave far down in its mysterious depths fought their way slowly upward as the invading sunbeams were driven out. It became more terrifying as each moment passed.

Leith seemed to recognize this, and he turned upon the Professor. "If we don't get down in half an hour we will have to postpone it till the morning," he exclaimed. "I didn't look for a hitch like this. I tell you that there is not the slightest danger, and the young ladies will be just as safe upon that ledge as they are up here."

The Professor turned to the two girls as he closed his camera. The mad hunger for notoriety evidently blinded him to the dangers which would have been perceptible at any other time, and Holman's remarks had not improved his temper.

"Come, come, Edith!" he entreated. "We must get along. You hear what Mr. Leith says? There is no danger. A rope will be put around your waist, and an accident will be impossible."

The younger girl took a glance at the terrifying abyss and shrank back to Edith's side.

"Wait till the morning," she whispered.

"What is that?" asked the Professor.

"Barbara wants you to wait till the morning," replied Edith. "I think it will be better. This light doesn't make the place look attractive."

Leith moved his big hands in a manner that showed he was willing to wait till the following day, and Barbara Herndon gave a little gasp of relief. Soma coiled the rope that he had laid out in expectation of an immediate descent, and the whole party moved back about thirty yards from the obstacle in our path. As I analyzed my own feelings, on turning my back upon the spot, I felt that Barbara Herndon was not alone in desiring to make the trip when the wholesome sunbeams were pouring into the shadowy cauldron.



CHAPTER IX

INTO THE VALLEY OF ECHOES

Holman and I had sat up late discussing the Vermilion-lined crater on the night we halted upon its brink, and it was Leith's voice that roused us in the morning. He showed no signs of resentment over the difference with Holman on the preceding afternoon, and he attempted to joke with Barbara Herndon as we made a hasty breakfast.

"I hope you slept well?" he grinned.

"I didn't," she replied. "I had dreams of that place, and they were perfectly horrid dreams."

"Well, dreams don't amount to much," he replied, "and this sunshine will soon make you forget them."

The sunshine, or probably the night's rest, had a wonderful effect upon the nerves of the younger girl, and she viewed the crater with much more composure than on the previous afternoon. Soma had the rope in readiness when we approached the edge, and together with another carrier he slipped down upon the slippery pathway, and, with head above the rim, grinned an invitation to the party to follow his example.

"Now who goes first?" asked Leith.

I had settled that matter with Holman as we sat smoking the night before, and I stepped forward while the youngster gripped the rope with Kaipi and the other four carriers. We had decided that I should go down to the ledge to assist the two girls to the cavern, while he should stay above ground to make certain that no hitch would occur while they were being lowered.

That place wasn't so bad when you turned your back upon it. After the rope had been adjusted I crawled back carefully till my toes hung over the edge, then thrusting my hands into the two small crevices in the rock I slipped over, feeling at the same time that peculiar sensation in the pit of the stomach that one gets when an elevator drops about six floors at a fast gait. I was perfectly satisfied that a critical examiner, reasoning on Soma's theory of courage, would not have marked me down as a great fighter by witnessing the careful manner in which I made the descent.

I didn't attempt to look at the gulf beneath me either. Not that one could be ignorant of its existence. Every inch of skin seemed to be yelling out the information to my brain, but I kept my chin up, and tried to ignore the black depths which chilled me whenever I allowed the mental photographs of the place to rise up before my vision.

The Professor followed me over the edge, and was guided by Soma to the opening in the cavern. Leith came next, and when he landed upon the smooth path he stood directly underneath the slipping off spot with the evident intention of remaining there to assist the two girls when they were lowered down. The post was one that Holman had assigned to me as we talked the matter over on the previous evening, and the moment Leith showed no inclination to leave the spot, I started toward him from the mouth of the cavern, where I had stepped to allow the Professor to pass me by.

The big bully immediately noticed my movement, and he waved his hand as a signal for me to go back.

"But I'm coming," I snapped.

"What for?"

"For the fun of the thing," I shouted, and at that moment I forgot the pit in my anxiety to reach the spot before Edith Herndon was lowered over.

"Go back at once!" roared Leith. "I will see to the safety of the ladies."

I was close to him at that moment, and I returned his angry glare. "I'm going to do that," I cried, "if the devil himself ordered me out of the way."

Leith looked like the devil at that moment. His sallow face seemed to heave as if a disturbed emotional centre was immediately beneath the flabby cheeks, and he cursed in an undertone as Edith Herndon slipped from the edge and swung for a moment above the ledge before she managed to get her footing.

Leith attempted to take her arm as her feet touched the unprotected path, but the girl, though unnerved by the ordeal, shook off his big claw, and with her hands clasping mine I led her across the short but dangerous ledge of rock that led to the opening in the wall. I felt strong enough to fight a dozen devils like Leith at that moment. The trusting manner in which the dear girl had given her hands into mine conferred upon me a strength which the crusader of old felt surging through his body when his consecrated sword blade was delivered into his hands.

I returned in time to render the same help to Miss Barbara Herndon, while Leith still remained upon the path, his manner suggesting that he had discovered something humorous in the situation. Holman followed Miss Barbara, and then came the islanders, who scrambled over the ledge with that utter disregard for safety noticeable in the actions of the unimaginative savage. Holman's face seemed to have altered during the preceding thirty minutes. The ready smile, which I had first noticed when he awakened me on the wharf at Levuka, was gone, and a set, defiant look had taken its place. The happenings of the day before, or the possible forebodings concerning the immediate future, had changed him from a boy to a man.

Soma stood at the mouth of the cavern as we passed through, and he grinned at the Professor. The Kanaka had discovered that the Professor placed a monetary value upon his information regarding the long-dead past, and he was ready to contribute to the contents of the fat notebook whenever the opportunity occurred.

"All good people in this party," he cried. "That's mighty plain."

The Professor dived for his lead pencil. He had a scent for copy that a New York reporter would have envied.

"How is that, Soma?" he spluttered.

"Wizard men say so," grinned the Kanaka. "Wizard men tell much truth."

"But what did the wizard men say?"

"They say that only the bad boys can slip," answered Soma. "No good men either. Big hole just for bad people. That what witch doctors say long, long time ago. They call it Ledge of Death."

The Professor's pencil raced madly across the paper, and Holman looked back at the black depths with a grim smile upon his clean-cut features.

"I suppose there have been exceptions," he remarked quietly. "There are exceptions to every rule, and I suppose an occasional bad egg escaped a fall into this abyss in spite of the wizard men's prophecy."

Leith looked up quickly, and he flushed angrily when he found that the young fellow's eyes were upon him. Barbara Herndon gave a little hysterical laugh, and the Professor stopped writing and looked around inquiringly as if he was in doubt whether he had missed something of importance.

"What is it?" he inquired. "I didn't hear."

"It was nothing," replied Leith, in his slow, drawling voice. "Holman suggested that the word of the wizard men might not be infallible, and lest we have some one who ran the gauntlet under false colours we had better move on so as to keep the exception out of danger."

The cavern, into which we passed from the slippery ledge, did not lead into the interior of the mountain as one would be inclined to think after viewing it from the top of the crater. We had hardly traversed it for more than sixty yards when we were once again in the bright sunlight, in what appeared to be a deep, wide valley in the centre of the island. The basalt cliffs surrounded the place on every side, and although we had great doubts regarding Leith's veracity, we felt inclined to accept his word that the path by which we had come was the only one by which we could reach the spot where we stood. The circles of black rocks above the tops of the highest trees, though indescribably beautiful, were strangely repellent in their weird conformation. They struck us as the walls of a prison from which the only way to liberty lay across the path in the crater.

The trees—ebony, chatak, dakua, and sandalwood—grew here in greater numbers than we had met them on the first day, while the lawyer-vines and thorny creepers rivalled the devilish meshes that had held us back as we climbed the slope to the Vermilion Pit. Like green serpents they covered the treetops, and as we struck forward in the same order as we had marched on the first day the solemnity of the place was more apparent than ever. It appeared that Nature, for some reason of her own, had made the place difficult of access, and that our invasion was something that the trees and vines protested against.

But in spite of the strange melancholy of the place, the two girls were in much better spirits than they had been on the previous day. The successful passage over the ledge had brought about a reaction, and a remark of Holman's caused Barbara Herndon to laugh with all the spontaneity that was noticeable upon The Waif. The effect of that ripple of laughter was startling. The sound rebounded from the rocky cliffs, cannoned against the barriers opposite, and then bounced backward and forward till the whole atmosphere of the valley seemed alive with the laughter of sprites. For quite five minutes we stood listening, then the silence chased the last faint echoes out across the cliffs, and we breathed again.

"It is the Valley of Echoes," said Leith. "The cliffs throw back the sound in a marvellous manner."

"I'll not laugh again, not in this spot," murmured Barbara Herndon. "Those noises chilled my blood."

In spite of a blazing sun we found the air unpleasantly cool in the shaded spots as we struggled slowly through the undergrowth. The moist flabbiness of uncommon tropical plants startled us whenever the leaves brushed against our faces and hands, while the constant popping of the green pods of the nupu, the sounds resembling nothing so much as the groans of a person in extreme pain, did not have a cheering effect upon the party. The Professor was the only one who seemed to be actually enjoying himself, and even his joy was tempered by a malignant Fate. While endeavouring to dot down some information tendered him by Soma, he had tripped upon a vine that was in wait for such an opportunity, and he skinned his nose badly upon a projecting rock.

But rocks or vines would not dampen the Professor's ardour. He saw himself upon a pedestal that he would build out of the Polynesian lore and the relics which he would collect. With Spartan fortitude he would not allow the expedition to halt for one moment while the injured nose was being attended to, and he took up the interrupted matter with Soma before the blood had been staunched.

Kaipi worked himself close to me just before midday, and, with one eye upon Soma and the other five carriers, whispered a message.

"Soma much friend of big man."

"How do you know?" I questioned.

"Talk to him out back of camp last night," he murmured. "Me make believe sleep, me watch. I think I kill him to-day."

"Kaipi," I whispered, "if you wait a little while I promise you that you'll have your revenge for Toni's death. You watch Soma and the others, and when the time comes you can give him all he deserves. If you stuck a knife into him here Leith would shoot you."

Kaipi nodded his head and trudged forward as Soma came sidling toward us. The Fijian's desire to get revenge for his "all same brother's death" was something that might be to our advantage later on, and I looked upon Kaipi as a staunch ally in the event of trouble.

We ate our midday meal in the sombre silence and again plunged forward. The appearance of gayety which Barbara Herndon had tried to assume after we had left the Vermilion Pit had passed away, and once again there was the look of pathetic helplessness upon the faces of the two girls. During the luncheon Holman and I endeavoured to make conversation, but the thoughts of both were upon their surroundings, and they answered questions with an effort. The prison-like appearance of the valley, and the utter absence of sound, both of bird and insect life, had a depressing effect upon their nerves.

Holman's face showed that the mental sufferings of the two sisters had worked him into a decidedly unfriendly state of mind toward the Professor and the big brute who was leading the old scientist on the mad hunt, and another quarrel was barely averted during the early afternoon. Leith suggested that Edith Herndon should walk beside him so that he might assist her over the rough parts of the way, and in the conversation that ensued the youngster asserted that the girl was in better company when she was walking with her sister and himself. Leith's voice rose to a roar as he made another threat regarding what he would do if the youngster did not hold his tongue, but Holman was defiant, and an immediate conflict was only averted by the tact of Edith Herndon.

The afternoon closed in with us still tramping on. The blood-red sun slipped hurriedly toward the basalt barriers that encircled the valley, and as I glanced at the cliffs the picture of the creepy ledge, that was our only way back to the outer world, was continually in my mind. The knowledge that the velvety polish upon the block of porphyry was brought there by the hands of thousands who had once peopled the island or visited it from the adjacent groups was not provocative of mirth, and I knew that the feeling that they were journeying in a place that had been of special veneration in long past centuries was producing a depressing effect upon the two girls.

As the tropical twilight fell upon the valley we came to one of the strange stone structures that are to be found in the Tongan and Cook groups, and which have puzzled explorers who have sought in vain to find a reason for their construction or an explanation of the methods by which a savage people lifted the huge blocks of rock into position.

The one that suddenly appeared before us was situated on a small slope that was free from trees and creepers, and as it stood there, black and massive, one could fancy it part of the ruins of Karnak instead of a relic left by a people that were much below the intelligence of those who raised the wonders in the land of the Nile. The four supporting piers of stone were about four feet square and fully fifteen feet in height, while the immense flat rock that was laid upon them was more than twelve feet in length and breadth, with a six-foot thickness. It was moss-grown and gray, but the supporting pillars had not deviated one inch from the perpendicular, although the weight upon them was tremendous. The bed of coral rock on which they rested had proved a reliable foundation, and the singular structure had scoffed at time.

The Professor started a lengthy discourse on sacrificial altars the moment we halted, ranging from Stonehenge to Toluca in search of comparisons, but we were too tired to give it much attention. Holman remarked in a whisper that Soma could probably outpoint the Professor if it came to an array of facts concerning the probable uses of the gigantic table, and when I glanced at the Kanaka, as he stopped to listen to the scientist's discourse, I felt inclined to agree with the scoffer. Soma had an intelligence that lifted him above his class, and I was convinced that many of the Professor's surmises caused him secret merriment.



CHAPTER X

A MIDNIGHT ALARM

I think that Professor Herndon was the only person in the company who was quite contented with the day's doings on that evening when we camped near the table of stone. The polished slide and the ledge along which we had passed to the cavern stirred his imagination concerning the wonders that were before him, and he convinced himself that he had the god of his ambition by the heel. The fat notebook was made the repository of countless surmises regarding the period at which the ledge was in active use as a test for courage, and the stone structure that loomed up immediately beside the camp was tagged with countless suppositions regarding its uses and its probable date of construction. Soma gathered in some easily earned shillings by raking his mind in search of traditions and retailing them to the scientist by the light of the fire. He made magazine prices for tales that he spun from his fertile brain, and the Professor could hardly write fast enough in the excitement brought about by the discovery of so much historical knowledge.

"It is wonderful!" he cried, pausing for a moment to polish the thick lenses of his glasses upon the end of his silk coat. "The chance of enlightening the world upon this subject is one that I would not have missed for a million dollars."

"The dollars for me," murmured Holman. "I don't think the old world cares three cents about anything that happened a thousand years ago in this patch."

The Professor adjusted his glasses and turned them upon the doubter for the space of three minutes, but Holman was blissfully ignorant of the look which the angry archaeologist favoured him with. The youngster was watching the firelight upon the face of Miss Barbara Herndon, and his thoughts were probably in a dream-fed future instead of a dismal past.

Leith sat silent and gloomy, his head pillowed against the trunk of a maupei tree, his face in the shadow of his hat, which he had pulled down over his forehead. The supper had been eaten with little conversation, the Professor being the only one who showed conversational powers of any note. With the notebook already partly filled he felt certain of a niche in the Pantheon of Fame, and he could not resist a desire to prattle childishly about the sensation which his discoveries would cause. It's a terrible thing for a man to get the applause craving in its worst form. It is liable to make him do things which no craving for treasure would allow him to do, no matter how badly he desired the tempting gold.

The girls retired early, and soon afterward Leith wrapped himself up in a blanket and lay down at the foot of the tree. The Professor at last became tired of firing questions at the wonderfully well-informed Soma, and the Kanaka, finding that the market for legends was not as good as it was in the early part of the night, retreated to the other fire, where Kaipi and the fire carriers were slumbering.

The heavy silence that comes in the night to the outposts of the world fell upon the place like a cold hand at that moment. A moon that appeared to have a pellicle across it, like the film upon a dead man's eye, peeped over the barrier of black rocks—peeped over as if it wondered what we were doing in that God-forgotten quarter. Sudden puffs of wind rustled the leaves of the maupei and fled hurriedly, and from somewhere in the coral rocks one of those red-striped lizards that are sometimes found in the rocky parts of the Carolines sent his unearthly shik-shuck into the stillness, where one fancied it a little projectile of sound crushed in its efforts to pierce the tremendous silence of the night. One's imagination pictured the places where there were lights and music, the tinkle of glasses, and the laughter of men and women, and the wilderness suffered in the comparison. Coral atolls with waving palm trees are delightful spots when one reads of them when seated in a comfortable armchair in a snug library, but the real island comes down heavily upon the nerve-centres when night falls upon the spot. Then the fringe dweller feels that he is an outcast from the warm places of the world where men and women meet in social intercourse.

Holman, who had been staring in silence at the fire for some twenty minutes, turned toward me after the Professor had retired.

"Sleepy?" asked the youngster.

"Worse than that," I muttered.

"Let's turn in."

The "turning in" was an easy performance. We lay down on the pile of leaves which the carriers had scraped together, pulled a rug over us, and in spite of the surroundings I was soon fast asleep.

It was Holman's fist that disturbed my slumber. It came with some force against my short rib, and I sat upright. The moonlight made it possible to see across the valley, while every object around the camp was clearly outlined.

Holman was sitting up on his leafy bed, and I put a question breathlessly as I jerked myself upright.

"What's up?"

"Didn't he say that this place was uninhabited?" asked the youngster.

"Yes," I answered. "Why?"

"Well, some one has just pushed his head and shoulders up above that stone table," whispered Holman. "He put his head up, looked across at us for about five minutes, then dodged quickly back."

"You weren't dreaming?"

"Dreaming? Rot! I haven't closed my eyes since we retired!"

I threw off the rug and looked around. Leith lay under the maupei tree in the same position as we had seen him in at the moment I lay down. Near him the Professor snored dismally, probably dreaming dreams of the greatness that would be thrust upon him in the near future. No sounds came from the tent that sheltered the two girls, but a combination of curious nasal sounds rose from the spot where the natives were sleeping around their fire.

"It might be one of the niggers," whispered Holman. "Let us see."

We stole silently across the intervening space, and, crouching in the shadows, counted the sleepers. There were seven. The prowler that Holman had seen upon the top of the stone structure was evidently an outsider, and the knowledge brought no pleasant feelings. Leith had assured the Professor on several occasions that the island was uninhabited, yet it was quite possible that natives from the adjoining groups had visited it during the period that elapsed since his last visit. Yet we felt that it was no stray visitor from another island that had peeped over the top of the massive table, and it was with a suspicious eye upon the sleeping Leith that we crept quietly over the coral rocks toward the tremendous stone piers of the structure that rose like a monster gateway against the gray sky. The atmosphere of that place was indescribable. We seemed to be in the midst of relics that were older than the pyramids. The temple of Luxor may seem impressive by moonlight, but the knowledge we possess of Thebes in its glory somewhat modifies the awe which we would feel if we knew nothing of the people who had raised the great monuments in the city of Amen-Ra. And Holman and I knew nothing of the dead race that erected the mighty stone table on the cleared slope, which by its construction gave evidence of a knowledge of mechanics of which the present-day Polynesian is entirely ignorant. I recalled the Nan-Tauch ruins and the tombs of the mysterious Chan-te-leur kings Ola-Sipa and Ola-Sopa in the Carolines, the tolmas and the langis of the Marshall and Gilbert groups, and I wished the Professor anything but pleasant dreams. The place seemed waiting for the return of its dead. The scenery possessed that singular expectancy that compels one to turn around every few moments to convince one's self that an unfriendly watcher is not immediately in the rear.

Still keeping in the shadows, we circled the camp till we were in front of the stone table, but just when I took a step into the moonlight space before it, Holman grasped my arm and drew me back.

"Look!" he gurgled. "Look! there he is again!"

All doubts concerning the youngster's previous observations were swept away at that moment. A head and shoulders rose suddenly above the black line of the immense flat stone, remained there for the space of three minutes, then dropped back so that we could not see it from the position in which we stood.

"Take the two front pillars!" whispered Holman. "I'll watch the two back ones. Come on!"

We dashed across the open space, the youngster rushing to the rear, while I ran to the front columns. It was impossible for any one to descend unless we saw him, and with nerves on a tension we walked around the huge supports and watched anxiously for the midnight watcher to descend.

We must have remained on guard for twenty minutes or more, but there was no sign of the spy. Around us the massive structure cast a patch of velvety shadow, but not the slightest sound came from above.

Holman tired of the inactivity, and stepped across to where I was standing. "I'm going to climb that chestnut tree and see if the beggar is still there," he murmured. "You stop here till I take an observation."

He darted across to the big Pacific chestnut and climbed hurriedly, while I walked round and round the square pillars and strained my ears for the slightest sound that would give a hint that the person on the roof of the mysterious table was preparing to descend.

A low whistle from Holman pierced the silence, and I answered.

"Come up here," he cried softly. "He's given us the slip."

I climbed the tree to the branch where the young fellow sat awaiting me. From his position he had a clear view of the top of the big table, and as I reached him I looked through an opening in the thick leaves. The top of the stone was empty!

"Do you think he slipped down while I was climbing the tree?" asked Holman.

"I'm certain he didn't," I answered. "It would have been impossible."

We stared at the stone in silence. The top was covered with short moss that had gathered there through the centuries, and instead of being flat as we had surmised there was a noticeable slope, so that the part that was directly behind the camp was fully two feet higher than the rear. This was the only peculiarity in its construction, and although we sat in silence, staring at its moss-covered surface, we were utterly unable to put forward the slightest supposition that would account for the disappearance of the watcher. The incident was an extraordinary one. The man could not have dropped from the table before we reached the supporting piers, and we were equally certain that he had not slipped down the pillars while we stood guard beneath.

"I'm going up there," muttered Holman. "We can get the rope from the camp. Come along! I'd like a look at that place at closer quarters."

We climbed hastily down the tree, crept cautiously back to the camp and took the stout rope which we had used in reaching the Ledge of Death. The camp was quiet. The curious nasal sounds produced by the natives, together with the rather high-toned snore of Professor Herndon, were the only sounds that came through the still night.

Holman flung one end of the rope over a projecting corner of the flat slab, twisted one half of it round and round the pillar to make occasional grips which we could use in the ascent, then clutching the hanging end he worked himself slowly up. I followed him, only to find the upper surface of the table as bare of any signs of life as we had previously noted from our perch in the chestnut tree. The tough moss upon the stone was fully four inches long, and covered the slab completely. In vain we stamped around looking for a possible hiding place. The massive block didn't offer a cranny that a lizard could hide in, and with an unsolved mystery upon our hands we descended to the ground.

"What do you make of it?" asked Holman.

I shook my head. The enigma baffled me. Our suspicions regarding the honesty of Leith made the strange appearance of the figure on the table of stone more perplexing than it would have been under ordinary circumstances. Leith had asserted that the island was uninhabited, yet we were not inclined to rush to him with the news of the discovery. We felt that it was another of the small discoveries that made us pile up suspicions against the big bully at the head of the party. We had no proof of the midnight visitor, and the story of his sudden disappearance while we watched below would only provoke an unbelieving grin from Leith, and an idiotic laugh from the foolish old Professor.

"Better keep it to ourselves," growled Holman.

"For the present at any rate," I remarked. "If Leith knows that there are others upon the island, and if those others are friendly to him, it will only make him more careful of his actions if we tell what we have seen to-night."

Arriving at this decision we came back to the camp and crawled quietly under the rug, where we watched the mystical monument till the flaming tropical dawn lit up the valley.



CHAPTER XI

KAIPI PERFORMS A SERVICE

The Professor used a roll of films in snap-shotting the stone table while we were breaking camp. He photographed it from every point of the compass, and made a magnificent effort to dislocate his collarbone by falling from a tree up which Holman had urged him to climb so that he could get a view of the upper surface. In his mad pursuit of antiquities the Professor forgot that tree climbing was an accomplishment that he had never mastered properly in the days of his youth, and our departure was somewhat delayed by the shock which he received from the fall. The camera fell upon the pile of leaves which Leith had used as a mattress, and it escaped with abrasions that were microscopical compared to those received by the Professor, who glared angrily at Holman as Edith Herndon attended to his injuries.

"I thought you could climb," murmured the youngster. "'Pon my word I did. I wouldn't have urged you to get up there if I didn't think you could hang to a limb."

"I am acquainted with a number of persons who would look well hanging to a limb," retorted the Professor, as he rubbed his ankles.

"Same here," said Holman, unperturbed by the sharp retort. "When I think over their actions, Professor, I wonder how they escaped being suspended from such places. Especially when you consider that trees are plentiful."

We made slow progress during the morning. The Professor's accident robbed him of a lot of the nimbleness which had been noticeable during the two preceding days, and the other members of the expedition had to move at a pace that would suit his stiff limbs.

"I'm unlucky," whispered Holman, as he sat beside me at the midday halt. "I tried to show him how he could get a good snapshot, and now he's as poisonous as a red-necked cobra just because he was silly enough to skin his shins."

We crossed the lowest part of the valley during the early afternoon, and commenced to ascend gradually toward the black walls on the far side. Leith had remarked at the lunch table that we would probably reach our destination on the following morning, and the information brought a thrill of expectation in spite of the suspicions we entertained. The undefined dread had upset our nerves, and I think the two girls, as well as Holman and myself, were looking forward anxiously to the arrival at the objective point so that our suspicions could be either verified or abandoned. Leith was more affable than usual on that afternoon, and he held forth in such a gloomy fashion upon the wonders that were within reach that the Professor almost forgot his injuries and his animus against Holman as he listened to the description.

"It is my opinion that the island was the burial ground of the chiefs of the nearby groups," remarked Leith. "There is every indication that the people who were buried here were not ordinary people, as you will see when you view the wonders that will meet your eyes to-morrow."

The Professor beamed through his thick glasses, and, forgetting his injuries, gave a little jump in negotiating an obstruction, but the look of agony which passed across his face proved that his injured limb objected to useless gambols.

"We may be wrong after all," muttered Holman, after he had listened to Leith's description of the wonders of the tombs of the long-dead members of Polynesian royal families. "I hate to be suspicious of a fellow, and I'll be glad if he proves genuine in the end."

"So will I," I remarked. "If he measures up all right I'll be half inclined to apologize before I go back to take a gruelling from Captain Newmarch."

It was Kaipi who stampeded the small ray of charity that had pierced the cluster of suspicions we had collected. The little Fijian performed the trick about seven o'clock in the evening, and it was done in a most effective manner. When we had made camp, Leith had sent Soma on ahead with the ostensible purpose of locating the easiest route to the base of the cliffs, and an hour afterward Kaipi managed to attract my attention, and he indicated by signs that he had information to impart. I seized a chance to help him with the small tent which sheltered the two sisters, and as we tugged at the knots he slipped a small piece of paper into my hand.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Soma drop it," he explained nervously. "I follow him just little way think get good chance kill him, but no chance come. He drop little piece of paper from his belt; me pick 'em up. I no know what it say; you read."

I crammed the note into my pocket as Leith approached, but at the first opportunity I dived into a thicket of leaves and opened it with nervous fingers. It was brief, exceedingly brief, but no number of words could have produced the same cold chill of dread which took possession of me as I glanced over the scrawl upon the paper. The note read:

"Five babies for kindergarten. Arrange everything. Meet at the Long Gallery."

I stumbled out on the clearing in a half stupor. The arrival of the long-expected confirmation of our suspicions had the same effect upon me as a blow from a sandbag. Leith was apparently everything that Holman and the girls had suspected him of being, and as I looked around at the nearly impenetrable jungle growth upon which the night had come down with that appalling swiftness of the tropics, I understood the helpless condition in which we were placed. Soma and the other five carriers were evidently tools of the big bully; the person or persons to whom the note was addressed would also stand behind him in a fray, and against this little army there was Holman, Kaipi, the two sisters, and myself. The Professor's insane craving for a sight of the antiquities would probably make him a partisan of the big brute till his devilish tricks were laid sufficiently bare to allow the childish mind of the scientist to see through them. The situation was pitiful to contemplate, and sick with terror at thoughts of the fate of the two girls, I found Holman and pulled him out of the circle of light thrown by the fire which Kaipi was tending.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I've got proof!" I cried. "Soma dropped a note that Leith sent him off with when we halted. Kaipi found it and brought it to me."

I recited the few words that were now pounding madly through my brain, but the mere recitation would not satisfy Holman. He wanted to see the words—to stare at them, so that his eyes might confirm the information which his ears had gathered, and together we dived deeper into the creepers till it was safe for him to light a match by which he could view the scrawl.

"My God!" he cried hoarsely. "He's a devil, Verslun! We're fools! Infernal fools! Do you hear me? I'll shoot the brute now!"

He flung aside my hands and made a dash toward the fire, plunging through the creepers with a strength born of the sudden flame of temper which had come with the confirmation of Leith's duplicity. The boy's love for Barbara Herndon made him a madman as he raced madly to obtain vengeance from the brute who had led us into the trap.

Like two maniacs we rushed into the light of the fire, but only the two girls and the Professor were seated round it. Leith was not in sight.

"Where is he?" gasped Holman.

The Professor looked up in mild astonishment. "Who?" he asked.

"Leith!" cried the boy. "Where has he gone?"

"Mr. Leith has gone forward to help Soma," squeaked the Professor. "It will be moonlight, so he took the opportunity of making certain about the direction we were to go in the morning. He said he would not be back before daylight."

Holman mastered his anger, and I beckoned the Professor to one side. It was necessary to make an attempt to convince the foolish old scientist that we were in the hands of a scoundrel, and I determined to place the note and our suspicions before him.

I told hurriedly of the appearance of the figure upon the stone table on the previous evening, but before I had time to tell of the note, the doddering old imbecile interrupted.

"What's that?" he cried. "Some one else upon the island? Well, they can't steal the honour of the discoveries. I have first claim upon everything we find upon the place. Mr. Leith and I made that arrangement before we left Sydney. Besides, it is Mr. Leith's island, and if other scientists are here—

"Oh, confound it! Who said they were scientists?" roared Holman. "It's bad luck for us that they are not. Scientists are harmless, but these are natives or something worse."

"Leith will fix 'em!" cried the Professor, ignoring the youngster's comment on the inoffensive nature of men of his type. "Leith will put them off the place—"

"Stop chattering and read that!" I interrupted. "Your precious friend sent this ahead by Soma. He dropped it and we got hold of it."

Holman struck a match and held it over the scrap of paper while the scientist stared at it through his thick glasses.

"Well?" he queried. "What has this nonsense to do with me?"

"The five babies," snapped Holman.

"Five babies?" repeated the Professor. "I know nothing about babies!"

His small head wagged backward and forward as he made the statement, and his evident inability to see that the reference concerned us irritated the youngster beyond measure.

"You're the biggest baby of the five!" he roared. "You're a madman! Come away, Verslun; it's no use arguing with him!"

The Professor gave an indignant snort, straightened his small body, as if he contemplated an attack upon the youngster, then dashed madly back to the fire, where we watched him bobbing his head up and down as he spoke to the two girls. His confidence in the rascal who was possibly luring him to his death was pitiful to see, and we recognized at that moment that it would be useless to waste any further arguments with him.

"We've got to get out of this scrape by our own efforts," muttered Holman. "The girls won't leave him, worse luck. If they would I'd turn tail this minute and make an attempt to fight our way back to the yacht."

"And I doubt if you will find a haven there," I remarked. "That bilious captain was in a great hurry to send word to Leith that I had got safely by his farewell bombardment. We're in for it, old man, and we might as well realize the fact right now."

"You're not sorry I found you on that pile of pearl shell?"

"Sorry?" I cried. "I'm glad, man—I'm infernally glad."

Holman gripped my hand, and then we crawled through the bushes toward the spot where Soma and Leith had started off on their supposed work of exploration.

"What can we do?" I asked.

"Wait round here and pot him when he is coming back," said the youngster cheerfully. "But we should let the girls know something, shouldn't we? That old fool will tell them a garbled account that will frighten them out of their wits. One of us had better go and try to quiet their fears."

"You go then," I remarked. "I'll wait here till you come back."

Holman crept quietly toward the campfire, and I waited in the undergrowth. The moon was rising in the east and a soft gray light wiped out the intense blackness that had come upon the place after the short twilight. The tops of the cliffs toward which we were journeying were tipped by a brilliant thread of silver as the moon peeped above their ramparts, and I crept deeper into the shadows as the full glory of the glowing orb turned the night into day.

I had waited some thirty minutes for Holman when I noticed a movement beneath a small bush some fifteen paces to my right. I watched the spot without moving, and presently a dark figure crept out of the shelter and moved cautiously toward the camp. Convinced that the visitor was Soma, I pulled out my revolver and waited, wondering as I watched what he intended to do.

The black figure came closer. He paused to listen to the sounds that came from the fire, and as he lifted his head the moonlight fell across his face, and I put the revolver back in my pocket.

"Kaipi," I murmured.

The Fijian crept quietly to the spot where I was hiding.

"I come for you," he muttered.

"Why?"

"Funny things much," he gurgled. "Light on mountain, no see from here. Me watch it, think it something bad. Come, I'll show you."

Holman returned at that moment and I explained what Kaipi had just told me.

"The devil!" muttered the youngster. "The note said that he would meet them at the Long Gallery. See, the light is not visible from our camp, and the brute never thought that one of us would be far enough from the camp to notice it. If it's a signal we might be able to reach the spot and see what is actually going on. If we leave things till to-morrow I'm afraid we'll be too late."

"But the girls?" I cried.

"We'll get back," he replied. "I told them how everything is, Verslun, and they're not afraid. Edith has an automatic pistol that she brought from the yacht, and she'll use it if she is forced to. Come on!"

We followed Kaipi into the shadows, the Fijian picking his way with wonderful instinct through the clumps. At about half a mile from the camp he stopped and pointed to the cliffs.

"Me see light flash way over there," he whispered. "You wait and see."

We crouched down and waited. The minutes passed slowly, but the black barrier away to the east gave no sign of life.

"I think Kaipi must have sighted a star," muttered Holman. "There is nothing—"

He broke off abruptly and gripped my arm. High up in the basalt barrier, at a spot about three quarters of a mile from where we were crouched, a tiny flame suddenly appeared, blazed for an instant, then died away again. Three times it flared up and as quickly died away, but at the third disappearance Holman and I, with the vengeance-seeking Kaipi, were struggling through the network of damp vegetation toward the spot from which the signal had come.



CHAPTER XII

THE DEVIL DANCERS

The snaky vines seemed to us to be leagued with Leith as we tried to force our way to the spot where the tiny flash of light had appeared amongst the rocks. The lawyer-vines gripped our ankles and flung us upon our faces scores of times, but we scrambled to our feet and rushed on. Kaipi had made the discovery at an opportune moment. Now that we were certain that Leith contemplated treachery, the wait through the long night would have maddened us. We wanted to meet him quickly, and instinct told us that the appointment place mentioned in the note was identical with the spot to which we were fighting our way.

We were bruised and bleeding when we reached the foot of the black cliffs whose perpendicular walls towered above us. We were almost certain that the light had been flashed from a point immediately above the spot where we came face to face with the barrier, but the scaling of the black barricade was a proposition that seemed incapable of solution as we rushed along the base.

"This is the spot," gasped Holman. "This big tree cluster was just to the right of the place where the light was flashed."

"That's so," I remarked, "but how are we to get up to the point where the signal came from?"

We raced madly up and down the front of the strange black wall, hunting eagerly for a place that offered the slightest foothold by which we could climb to the terraces that we could see far above, but the search was a futile one. The tremendous mountain of ebony rock appeared to have been driven up out of the earth during some volcanic disturbance, and as we stumbled blindly along we thought it would be easier to scale the outside wall of a New York skyscraper than the slippery sides of the obstruction in our path.

It was Holman who found a key to the situation. The big clump of maupei, or Pacific chestnut, that we had taken as a landmark when we were running through the moonlit night, grew close to the barrier, and the limbs of several of the trees scraped the sides of the basalt columns as the faint night breeze moved them backward and forward.

"There's a ledge up there," whispered the youngster. "Look! It's about fifty feet from the ground. If we could climb a tree we might be able to reach it from one of the limbs."

He had hardly outlined the proposition before we were swarming up the trunk, Holman in the lead by right of discovery, and the nimble Kaipi in the rear. Higher and higher the youngster climbed into the thick green foliage. He reached the topmost branches, and selecting one that led toward the rocky wall, he straddled it and worked his way slowly forward.

Kaipi and I clung to the fork of the limb and waited, and as I watched Holman the wisdom of our actions was assailed by a cold doubt. We had left the two girls entirely unprotected, and if Leith reached the camp before we returned, and heard from the chattering Professor the story of the finding of the scrap of paper, it would be reasonable to suppose that he would consider the moment had arrived for the perpetration of any deviltry he had planned.

But Holman's actions interrupted my mental criticism of the wisdom of our plans. The youngster had reached the extreme end of the limb, and he was clawing madly at the rock to obtain a footing. He succeeded after a five minutes' struggle, and he sent a breathless whisper back to our perch.

"There's a ledge here," he murmured. "I think we can climb up from it. Hurry along, and I'll give you a hand."

I needed a hand when I reached the end of that leafy seesaw. I was much heavier than the boy, and the limb could hardly support my weight when I neared the end. Holman reached out his hand at a moment when I thought that a drop through the air would be my reward for attempting aerial exhibitions, and the next moment I was beside him on a little projection that barely gave us a footing.

"It's easy climbing just above us," whispered Holman. "Wait till we get Kaipi."

The Fijian came along the limb with the agility of a trapeze artist, and when he reached the ledge we stared up at the dizzy heights that rose above our little resting place. Small jutting projections, like gargoyles, stuck out from the wall, and we looked at them hungrily.

"If we had only brought the rope!" cried the boy. "Say, Verslun, put your face against the rock and I'll climb on to your shoulders."

I did so, and the youngster climbed up cautiously. For a long time he stood there, peering around in an effort to discover a path by which we could go upward and onward, but at last he stepped off, and I looked up to find him clinging to the wall like a huge beetle. A pack of fat clouds that had harried the moon during the earlier part of the evening now closed in upon her, and we were in complete darkness. The threshing limb of the maupei tree that was within a yard or two of the spot where Kaipi and I stood waiting disappeared in the night, and the scratching of Holman's shoes high above our heads came down to us through the intense silence and proved that he was holding his position with difficulty.

A small piece of shale hit me on the shoulder after a long wait, and I turned my face upward.

"Verslun!" breathed the strained voice of the youngster. "Are you there?"

"Well?" I asked.

"H'sh!" he murmured. "We are right near the spot, Verslun. If Kaipi climbs up on your shoulders to this place I think the two of us could pull you up. Are you willing?"

"Come on, Kaipi," I whispered, and the Fijian climbed nimbly upon me and moved up into the void above.

"Now, Verslun," muttered Holman. "Reach up till we get a grip of your wrists. Are you ready? Well, try hard, man! Think of those two helpless girls and dig your toes in!"

I didn't need any reminder concerning the position of the two sisters as I stood on tiptoe and scratched with my fingers at the crumbling ledge upon which Holman and the Fijian crouched. The predicament of Edith Herndon, and not fears for my own safety, made me scratch madly for a foothold as I swung above the shelf I left. Kaipi and Holman tugged till every muscle in my arms shrieked out against the way they were being handled. But I was going up. I "chinned" the crumbling layer of rock upon which my fingers had a perilous grip, laid my chest across the shelf and wriggled into safety.

"That's good," whispered Holman. "Don't puff so hard, man! We're too close to take any chances."

I got upon my hands and knees and followed him along the narrow pathway. Over a thousand obstructions we crawled like three rock snakes, till finally the boy halted and turned toward me.

"See the streak of light through that split in the rock?" he whispered. "Look in front of you! Well, they're inside."

The split in the rock to which Holman had pointed was a perpendicular crevice about four feet in length, but possessing only a width of six inches. It separated two rock masses that were fully eighteen inches thick, and as we wriggled noiselessly toward it we saw that it gave us a glimpse of the interior of a huge cavern, the part of which that was just inside our point of observation being illuminated by a swinging ship's lamp which hung by a rope that dropped from the vaulted dome.

The lamp swung directly in front of the crevice through which we peered breathlessly, and for a few seconds it was the only object that was visible. Gradually our eyes became accustomed to the light, and we found that a pair of brown legs were moving slowly along the floor past our spyhole. A body, gorgeously decorated in mats of green and crimson parrot feathers, followed the legs, and then came a head that was hidden behind a mask of sennet daubed thickly with coral lime and ochre till it appeared a ghastly nightmare.

The horror moved upon its stomach, and, viewing it as we did through the narrow cranny, it appeared as if the film of a biograph was being slowly dragged before our eyes. Another pair of legs followed the masked head, another body, and another mask that was even more fear-inspiring than the first. And the procession continued. Three, four, five, and six—each succeeding one being arrayed in a mask of more ghastly appearance than those which had preceded him. The sixth was followed by the first, who had wriggled clear around the circle of light thrown by the lamp, and in perfect silence the infernal snaky circle moved backward round and round, the faint light shining on bare legs, on bodies from which the parrot mats were thrust aside by the contortions, and upon the masks that were weirdly fantastic and Mephistophelian.

They had circled the floor about ten times when Holman tugged my coat and I wriggled back from the crevice.

"What's up?" My lips were dry as I put the question.

"Kaipi."

"Where is he?"

"Cleared out. Those human serpents scared him. Go softly, man! We must get him before he attempts to go down that cliff or he'll break his thick head."

We caught up to the deserter on the ledge to which Holman and the Fijian had dragged me a short time before, and the youngster abused the frightened native as he endeavoured to turn him back.

"No, no!" shrieked the Fijian. "Me no see dance like that. Me die if I stay."

"Why?" I asked.

"It is 'tivo'—death dance," gasped Kaipi. "Wizard men dance it. Something going happen, damn bad."

"But they can't get you," cried Holman, "Come back and watch them. Soma and Leith will be there directly, and you'll get your revenge."

But Kaipi would have nothing more of the performance in the rocky chamber. The repulsive masks and the backward wriggling of the six upon the floor had upset his fighting stomach for the time being, and we could not induce him to return.

"Well, you wait here," ordered Holman. "We're going back, but we'll return in a few hours and pick you up. Don't move from this ledge."

Kaipi would promise anything if he was not forced to witness the performance, and we left him huddled up in the darkness, and returned to the spyhole in the wall.

The "tivo," as the Fijian called it, was still in progress. Without noise, the six half-nude figures were describing circles upon the smooth floor. The silence and the serpentlike motions had a peculiar hypnotic effect upon us, and in a sort of dreamlike trance we watched them wriggle by the narrow aperture to which we pressed our faces. With each circle more of the brown, sweat-polished bodies showed beneath the twisted mats. The pace was beginning to tell upon them now. Slower and slower they moved past the crevice, till at last all movement ceased, and, apparently lifeless, they lay face downward upon the floor.

I thought of the two girls at the lonely camp as we sat watching, and I knew well that Holman's thoughts were turned in the same direction. We had seen nothing of Leith, but an intuition that would not be put aside connected Leith with the strange ceremony that was in progress within the cavern, and we were chained to the spot.

I have no idea how long the six figures remained motionless upon the floor. It may have been an hour, it may have been two. The mystery of the performance we were witnessing seemed to drag us into a world where minutes and hours did not exist. We were dumfounded by the confirmation of our suspicions and the peculiarly devilish exhibition, and I shook off the lethargy with an effort as Holman prodded me with his finger and pointed at a spot beyond the body of the dancer who lay immediately in front of the spyhole.

Looking in the direction Holman pointed I saw that another light was approaching through the gloom of the cavern. It bobbed toward us slowly, a tiny pin point that came nearer and nearer as the bearer walked in the direction of the six. The distance it was away from the dancers, which was evident from the time that elapsed from the moment we saw it till it was close up, convinced us that the cavern was of an enormous length, and the words "Long Gallery" in the note which Soma had dropped came up before my mind. There was no doubt that the cave was the meeting spot which Leith had mentioned, and as I felt Holman's body stiffen as he shouldered against me for a share of the peephole, I knew that he believed that the treacherous brute was one of the three that were approaching behind the bobbing lamp.

The bodies of the dancers, or at least the parts that we could see, became tense and rigid. A soft hiss went round the circle, and once again the wriggling movement started. But this time the six went forward instead of backward. They broke out of the circular formation, and in a long glistening line moved up the cavern toward the three approaching. The lamp halted, then it was raised high in the air as the crawling half dozen approached, and Holman gave a curious little gurgle as the light fell upon the three newcomers. Wrapped in parrot feathers and a white mask, the lamp bearer stood revealed as Soma. Immediately behind him was a tall white man in the same outlandish garb, while the last of the three, barearmed and barelegged, and wearing an immense headdress of plumes, was Leith!

The snaky six circled the three at a respectful distance, then, again breaking into a single file formation, they turned toward the end of the cave nearest our spyhole, and behind the length of creeping bodies, Soma, the tall white who had only one eye, and Leith came slowly.

Holman's breath came faster as the procession approached. The exhibition chilled us. There was a devilish suggestiveness in the proceeding. In some indescribable manner it brought up mental pictures that were nauseating, and it required something of an effort to watch the performance. The mystery of the silent night, the thoughts of the danger which threatened the two girls, and the glimpses of the astounding performance within the cavern brought a dazed mental condition that made us doubt our sanity.

I felt Holman's hand reach out across my shoulder as the procession moved down upon us, and instinctively I understood the movement. The cold barrel of a revolver had slipped by my face, and I gripped his wrist and forced the hand downward. The manner in which Soma and the one-eyed man walked in front of the big brute made it impossible to shoot with telling effect, and Leith was the person we desired to kill at that moment. The others seemed to be but creatures of his will, and he stood up in our minds as a devil whose existence was a menace to everything that was pure and clean.

The three newcomers moved to the side of the cavern, so that nothing except their bare feet were visible, and backward and forward in front of those feet moved the human serpents with a regularity that was stupefying. In an unbroken line they would move forward, flatten themselves upon the floor, then, with a unanimity that was remarkable, they would wriggle backward, to repeat the same movement over again.

Holman pulled me away at last, and we retired to a point that made it possible for us to converse in low whispers without being heard.

"What will we do?" he gasped. "I can't stay there any longer! I want to get inside to the devil! I don't want to shoot him; I want to throttle him with my two hands!"

"But the entrance to the cavern is from somewhere on the other side of the hill," I remonstrated, as the young fellow raved about our helplessness.

"We must get there!"

"Don't lose your head about it," I remarked. "Keep cool and we'll win out in the long run."

It was useless to speak of patience to that boy at the moment. He clawed desperately at the slippery wall in an endeavour to find a path that would lead us to the opening on the other side by which Leith had made his entry, but the attempt appeared to be madness. A dozen times the youngster scrambled up rough portions that offered a slight footing, but each time he slipped back bruised and battered. He would listen to no arguments. The desire to get to the mouth of the cavern, and kill Leith before the morning, had produced an insanity, and we crawled and climbed along the face of those basalt cliffs in a manner that chilled my spinal marrow. Holman possessed the courage of a maniac. His imagination was blinded to the dangers that lay alongside the crumbling shelves of rock, and I scrambled behind him wondering dimly what would happen to Edith and her sister if an unkind fate flung us from the ledge into the darkness from which the soft croon of the chestnut clumps came up like a warning against our foolhardiness.

Holman paused at the end of a wearisome climb, and he drew himself upright. At that moment the cloud-harried moon dragged herself from beneath the pack, and the young fellow gave a cry of joy.

"We can do it from here, Verslun," he cried. "I see a path to the top. Come along, man!"

"What about Kaipi?" I gasped. "We'll never find our way back here."

"Let him sit there," he snorted. "Hurry or the moon will be under the clouds before we cross the cliff."



CHAPTER XIII

TOMBS OF SILENCE

For my own part I found no great liking for the moonlight. Up to that moment I had followed blindly in the tracks of Holman, nerved somewhat by the thought that the trail he passed over would carry me. The dangers were hidden by the darkness, and my imagination was too stunned by the happenings of the night to make any endeavour to torture my nerves by picturing them.

But the reappearance of the moon brought an opportunity to my eyes, and I wondered if we could negotiate the goat track which the youngster was scrambling over. I turned my face to the wall and crawled timorously in the rear. Higher and higher we went with bleeding fingers and knees, but at last Holman reached the top, and I dragged myself up beside him.