Holman glanced inquiringly at the piece of sticking plaster above my right eye when he met me on the deck the morning after the knife incident, and I grinned sheepishly.
"You were right about that patch of shadow last night," I remarked.
"How?" he queried.
"This came from it," I replied, touching the plaster with my finger as I spoke.
The boy whistled and looked around cautiously. "You'll be getting wise in a day or two," he murmured. "She said you would when I told her this morning about our conversation of last night."
I laughed, and he turned suddenly toward me. "Do you think we'll put in anywhere in the Samoan Group?"
"I don't think so," I replied. "Why?"
Holman came closer. "If we do I'm going to get the girls ashore and keep them there," he muttered. "I don't care what you think of the proposition. This trip is going to be a tough one, and I'm certain there is some deviltry afoot."
I tried to laugh at the serious face upon the youngster, but the conviction which he threw into his words choked my mirth. Whether it was the little brush with the Kanaka or the gloomy forebodings of the boy I couldn't tell, but I felt a trifle anxious after my first night aboardThe Waif.
"But there is nothing to be gained by running away if we do put in to a port," I growled.
"How is that?" stammered Holman.
"Well, if Leith is an admirer of Edith Herndon, as you say," I argued, "and if the captain is in league with Leith, the yacht wouldn't leave till the girls came aboard. Besides, the Professor wouldn't go on without them."
"I don't know about the Professor," grunted Holman. "That old doodlebug only thinks of the silly specimens that he is going to collect down here. If he had any love for his daughters he wouldn't have brought them along."
"But you told me they insisted on coming."
"So they did!" he retorted savagely. "But they knew that the poor old fool was in the hands of a scoundrel and they wouldn't let him go alone. They think they can protect him from that devil, and it nearly makes me cry to hear them say so."
Miss Edith Herndon and her sister came up on deck at that moment, and if I was impressed by the calm sweetness of the elder girl's face on the previous afternoon, the strength and beauty of it as I saw it in the fresh morning sunlight made my heart pound violently against my ribs. The prettiness of Miss Barbara made the quiet dignity of the elder sister more noticeable, and that apparent strength of character made me doubt Holman's contention that she would be unable to help the scientist if Leith's motives were discovered to be criminal.
It was Barbara's keen eyes that detected my plaster, and I squirmed as I saw the light of curiosity in her eyes.
"Oh, tell us how it happened!" she cried. "Please make it a night attack upon the yacht, Mr. Verslun! I heard a wild cry just after I retired and I felt sure that war canoes had surrounded us. They always surround the ill-fated ship, don't they?" she continued merrily. "And the ship is always ill-fated in all the really thrilling sea stories I have read!"
Leith came sauntering aft as she fired her questions at me, and he stood near Miss Edith with his dull eyes fixed upon me as I answered.
"I'm afraid I cannot feed your imagination to-day," I replied. "I tripped over a coil of rope, and the deck sprang up and bumped me."
I glanced at Leith as I spoke, and I fancied I detected a glint of amusement in the lustreless eyes that were turned in my direction. Whether it was caused by my hastily constructed lie or by the girl's inquiries I could not tell, but my dislike for the clumsy giant made me suspicious about his knowledge of the incident of the preceding evening, and I felt certain that he was smiling at my fib.
As if he wished to do something which would convince me of his ignorance of the happening, he hastily changed the subject.
"The captain thinks we are in for a spell of bad weather, Mr. Verslun," he drawled; "are you of the same opinion?"
"If signs go for anything we are," I replied. "We are running into a zone of trouble."
He walked away without further speech, and the two girls went below in response to a message from their father. The Professor was slightly indisposed, and he demanded that his daughters remain with him in the cabin. The selfishness of the scientist irritated Holman exceedingly, and he made bitter comments about him during the hour or two he kept me company.
"I never yet met one of those scientific gazaboos who didn't think he was something more than mortal," he growled. "I try to keep on good terms with the old bone measurer, but his vanity nearly turns me sick. Do you know what he told me yesterday?"
"What?" I asked, amused at the youngster's annoyance.
"Said that he might mention my name in the report of the expedition that he would send to some old research society in the States. When I didn't show any signs of elation he got offended, so I guess I'm cut out of the history."
He went grumbling down into the cabin, and I watched the ocean. The barometer was low, and out of the west a pack of fat black clouds swarmed up from the horizon, stacking themselves one upon another till they resembled a huge pile of rounded boulders which a sudden puff of wind might bring toppling down upon us. The faint scouting puffs of air—"the devil's breath" of the poetical Polynesians—whined through the stays, but the small waves that tried to rise in expectation were clouted back by the heavy, oppressive atmosphere that ironed out the ocean till one's imagination pictured it waiting for the word like a strained runner on his mark.
It burst at last. Three violent blasts ripped over us like projectiles, and the "song of the dead men" was twanged upon the straining ropes.The Waifstopped for an instant, as if debating whether she would run or cower before the onslaught, then she dipped her nose into the mad lather that rose around her and plunged forward. That jump seemed to be a challenge to the storm. It burst upon us in all its fury, and the yacht became a tiny seesaw upon the murderous Himalayas that rose around us.
Great chunks of green water came hurtling over the rail, thundering down upon us tillThe Waifwas buried in a boiling turmoil from which she would leap and shake herself, only to be pulled down again when the next sea fell upon us. When she sprang out of the lather, those devilish, snarling, snaky waves sprang after her, slapping at her flanks, tearing and biting at her like a pack of wolves. There's an awful likeness to a wolf pack about storm waves. When you see them all foam-lathered stretching out like a pack in full cry, or watch them leaping up as if they were trying to see whether the unfortunate ship had been torn down by one of their band, you begin to credit them with some sort of intelligence.
The Waifwas no poppycock yacht, built to dodge about the Solent and run for Cowes if the wind blew a capful. She had been built to hold her own with the hardest slamming seas that ever chased a shattered hull, and it was lucky for us that she was. The storm that came screeching after us from way across the Coral Sea was one of those high-powered freak disturbances that juggle with lumps of water like a vaudeville performer juggling with cheap crockery. It took the tops off those rollers and pelted them at us, and the wind seemed to yell in triumph when the yacht was buried in the whirlpools in which she dived headlong.
All through the night we raced before it, and through the following dayThe Waifnever paused for an instant in her mad race to the eastward. The Kanakas became demoralized with fear, and I forgot the trouble hanging over the heads of the girls and their father as I helped Newmarch drag the crew from their bunks to cut away the wreckage of the vessel.
I saw a new side of the captain during those hours. A very devil of energy took hold of him with the coming of the storm, and he became a human dynamo. He pounded the frightened crew unmercifully, dragging the screaming islanders back to their work by the hair of their heads, and heaping upon them curses that were strange and blood-curdling. That he was a good sailorman I had little doubt. He handledThe Waifwith skill and patience, while the crew, with rolling eyes and quivering lips, were so terrorized by his wrath that they fled to do his bidding.
I had been wondering since the moment when he had ordered me to let go my grip of the Kanaka in the f'c'stle, if he was afraid that any disagreement between me and the knife-thrower would start trouble with the crew, but from the way he hazed the niggers during the storm I was convinced that it was not through any fear of them that he ordered me to leave my assailant alone. The conviction did not increase my love for him. As I viewed the happening he was inclined to shield the big brute who threw the knife simply because the offence did not appear to be one that merited punishment, and this view was not pleasing to my nerves.
It was on the second day of the storm that a little incident happened which is worth mentioning. Toni, the small Fijian who had chanted the song of Black Fernando's hell, was caught by a huge wave and pounded hard against the cabin. The mad turmoil of water swept his nearly lifeless form into the scuppers, but before another comber could snatch him overboard, I managed to reach his side and drag him into safety.
I forgot the incident in the whirl of happenings that followed, but the Fijian had a longer memory. Late that afternoon he was holding the wheel with Soma, the big Kanaka who had jerked the knife at me, and as I stopped to peer at the binnacle he beckoned me toward him.
"That was me that sing," he shrieked, as I put down my head. "I tell damn big lie you an' Miss Herndon."
"Why?" I asked, amused at the peculiar manner in which he tried to express his gratitude for the rescue of the morning.
"Big Jacky tell me not say anything," he screamed. "He tell it to me one big secret all that talk about waterfall. Tell me not to tell any one. You know why?"
I glanced at Soma and found that he was straining his ears to catch the words the other was shrieking, and as I was more than suspicious of him, I promptly closed the conversation.
"I'll see you in the morning," I roared.
The Fijian nodded and I fought my way forward, wondering as I clung to the rigging what the pupil of the Maori had to tell me about the song.
The wind had ceased somewhat on the morning of the third day, but the snaky rollers were still racing after the flying yacht. A watery sun peeped out from between the driving cloud masses, the rays glinting through the heads of the waves that curled menacingly as the battered yacht drove through them.
Newmarch hailed me from the poop when I came on deck, and there was a peculiar look upon his scrawny features as he addressed me.
"Do you know that nigger you rescued?" he asked.
"Toni?"
"Yes."
"What about him?"
"You did your heroic stunt for nothing," he remarked. "The fool can't be found, so I guess he went overboard in the night."
The news came as a shock to me. Toni's last question that he had put as he clung to the wheel with Soma had flashed through my mind several times through the night. He had asked it in a manner that insinuated that I might be interested in the reasons why Big Jacky, his companion on the wharf at Levuka, wished the whereabouts of the white waterfall to remain a secret, and now his disappearance blocked my inquiries. I felt annoyed with myself for not listening to what the Fijian had to say at the moment he confessed that he had lied, and then the face of the listening Soma came up before my mental eye. Soma was a person that I was beginning to cordially dislike.
I turned to Newmarch and fired a question at him.
"Do you think he was helped overboard?"
"Why, no," he said slowly. "Why do you think that?"
"Oh, nothing," I replied. "I thought his narrow escape of the morning would have made him careful."
It was a few hours after this conversation that I had my first chance of speaking to Edith Herndon since the moment we had run into the disturbance. The girl poked her head out of the companionway, and I hastened to assist her out on deck. It was her first sight of the damage which the storm had done to the yacht, and she gave a cry of alarm as she looked at the splintered spars and the cordage that cracked in the wind like the whips of invisible devils.
"Oh, Mr. Verslun, we are a wreck!" she cried.
"Not quite," I said, gripping her arm to steady her asThe Waiftook a header. "We've weathered the worst of it and we're still sound. The storm centre has slipped away to the north, and we can count ourselves out of the ruction for the present."
Her shapely hand clutched my wet oilskins as the yacht plunged from the back of an enormous swell, and I was so busy noting the beauty of the hand that I had no eye for the sallow face that peeped from the companion. Leith's bass voice rose above the noise of the waves, and there was an angry note in it.
"This isn't a nice place for you, Miss Edith!" he cried.
The girl half turned her head, looked at him for a second, then without any intimation that she had heard what he said, she turned again toward me and started to cross-examine me upon the amount of damage we had sustained. I thought that the white, shapely hand tightened its grip upon my wet sleeve at the moment Leith's bass voice came booming to our ears, and I blessed the big brute's interference for the thrill which I derived from the pressure of her fingers upon the greasy coat.
But Leith was not to be denied. The cold stare, instead of driving him back into the cabin, only roused his temper. Very cautiously he climbed along the heaving deck to the point where we were standing, and, clutching a rope, he swayed backward and forward immediately behind us.
"Miss Edith!" he called.
The girl turned her head sharply. "Well?" she cried.
"This isn't a proper place for you!" roared Leith. "One of those seas is liable to come aboard at any moment, and you might be washed away before any one could assist you."
Edith Herndon's lips showed the slightest trace of a smile. "You had better be careful too, Mr. Leith," she retorted. "Mr. Verslun is holding on to me in case one of those old gray rollers should make a sudden leap, but you have no one to hold on to you."
A frown passed over Leith's face like a cloud shadow across a yellow plain. He slackened his grip on the rope and lurched toward us.
"You must go below at once!" he screamed, addressing the girl. "Your father is too ill to look after you at this moment, so the duty is mine. There is danger here, and I order you below!"
He touched her shoulder with his big fingers that resembled talons, but the girl made a quick side movement and slipped from his grip.
"Do not touch me!" she cried fiercely. "How dare you put your hand on me!"
But Leith's temper was up at that moment, and he was angry enough for anything. He made a spring for the girl's hand, and I thrust my shoulder forward to bump him off.The Waifnearly stood on her end at that instant, and her acrobatic feat combined with the push flung Leith off his feet and sent him rolling ludicrously along the deck.
Miss Herndon gave a little cry of alarm and sprang for the companion-stairs, down which she disappeared without taking a glance at the brute on the wet planks. Leith picked himself up, gripped a loose backstay with his left hand and swung himself toward me, striking out viciously with his free right hand when he came within hitting distance.
The blow landed on my shoulder, and I returned the compliment with an uppercut that jerked him from his swing rope and sent him stumbling backward against the rail. The fall stunned him for a few moments and he rolled about in the wash; then Soma, the Kanaka who jerked the knife at me, rushed from the galley door and dragged him to his feet. The native steered him to the companionway, where he stood for a moment glaring at me as if undecided whether to continue the fight or beat a retreat, but the wild plunging of the yacht convinced him that the spot was not one where he figured to advantage, so he stumbled below.
I looked around and saw Holman clinging to the rigging, his boyish face wearing an expression of extreme pleasure.
"You're getting wise," he cried, as he scrambled toward me; "but don't think you've walloped him. He'll come back at you when he has a better opportunity of beating you up."
The morning following the unpleasant incident with Leith broke clear and sunny. The Pacific, as if tired after its mad pranks of the preceding three days, was a shimmering stretch of placid blue water, and the shattered spars and loose cordage ofThe Waifwere the only reminders of the terrific storm that had swept us before it.
Captain Newmarch set all hands at work to repair the damage, and before midday we were bowling along under as much canvas as we could spread. The storm being directly from the southwest had not carried us from our course, and Newmarch chuckled when he had taken an observation.
"We'll strike it in the morning," he growled.
"What? Penrose Island?" I asked.
"No, the Isle of Tears," he answered sharply.
"The Isle of Tears?" I repeated.
"That's what I said," he remarked sourly. "And now you know as much as I know. It was kept a little secret by the orders of my employers, but we are so close to the spot now that I don't think it will matter if I let the cat out of the bag."
"And is it there that the Professor will conduct his search?" I asked.
"You had better ask that question of Professor Herndon," he replied. "I know nothing about what they'll do ashore."
He left the poop before I had time to put another question to him, and as I walked up and down I turned over in my mind the tiny morsel of information I had received. The captain's secrecy was peculiar, to say the least, and as I reasoned that Professor Herndon knew absolutely nothing of the Islands, it was quite evident that the orders prohibiting Newmarch from making known the exact destination of the yacht had come from Leith. It was not the first time I had heard of the Isle of Tears. Strange stories floated across the Pacific concerning the little islet east of the Suvaroff Group, and out of the reticule of the mind I attempted to drag these stories and piece them together during the minutes that passed after Newmarch had given me the information. They were not pleasant stories as I remembered them at that moment. The island had a "past." The mention of it brought hazy recollections to natives—recollections that were too misty to put into words, but which the untutored mind connected with happenings that were anything but pleasant. And I recalled a night at "Tonga Pete's" place on the Rue de Rivoli at Papeete, when a sailor from a copra schooner in the bay, who had been marooned upon the island by Captain "Bully" Hayes, told a wild, weird story of unexplainable happenings that he had witnessed during the two days and two nights he had spent ashore.
Holman came hurrying upon deck as I was endeavouring to remember all the story that the sailor had told, and the youngster immediately rushed me with the news.
"The captain has just told me," I said.
"Well, Leith has just given the information out in the cabin," he cried. "They must have decided to give it out at the same moment."
"But the Professor?" I asked. "Surely he knew. Do you mean to say that he was ignorant of the fact that it was the Isle of Tears and not Penrose Island that we were making for?"
Holman laughed at my question. "You haven't spoken much to him, Verslun. He couldn't remember the name of a place three minutes. He only knows that there are archaeological treasures on this island we are going to, and he doesn't care two cents about its name. Leith has told him some tall stories about the camp, judging by the way the old man's eyes shine when he mentions it. Yesterday he read me Leith's description of stonehamungasand things that are supposed to have been built before Julius Caesar invaded Britain, and he's pop-eyed with joy as he thinks how he'll yank Fame by the tail when he gets on the ground and snapshots the affairs. Gee! I'm glad I haven't got a kink for digging up relics and dodging about places that went to smash thousands of years ago. A vice like that is more expensive than the poker habit."
"Well, Newmarch says we'll strike it early in the morning," I said, "and then we'll see whether your suspicions are correct."
"I'm infernally afraid they are," snapped the youngster. "I wouldn't care ten cents about the brute only that the girls are aboard. I felt sorry when I saw him climb to his feet yesterday. If you hit him again hit him with something that will crack his skull. He's a devil, Verslun, and before we are much older we will find it out."
I laughed at his gloomy forebodings, and as Miss Barbara Herndon came on deck at that moment he raced away and left me to my own meditations.
My thoughts were mixed. I had pleasant and unpleasant ones. If Leith was the scoundrel that Holman suspected, the two girls were in danger, and now as we neared the island where they would leave the yacht to accompany their father, the clutch of fear was upon me. OnThe WaifI felt that I had some little power, but on land, more especially on the lonely island toward which we were heading, that feeling of protectorship which the sailorman has for his passengers would be lost. If Leith knew the island, and it was evident that he had visited it before, any villainy that he contemplated would be held in check till he was ashore and in command of the expedition and I would be powerless.
I recognized that Holman's fears were without solid foundation. They were transmitted through Barbara Herndon, but I also recognized that the elder sister would hardly support the statements unless she had good grounds for her anxiety. Her woman's intuition had branded Leith's motives in bringing the Professor into the Islands as bad, and the sallow-faced giant could not erase the impression. The actual reason for trickery was a matter of speculation. Professor Herndon was wealthy; it was his money that had fitted out the expedition, but how Leith expected to benefit himself by treachery was more than I could tell. Still, try as I would to fight off the impressions that Holman's tongue had fixed within my mind, I was unable to alter the opinion I had formed of the man the moment I met him. There was an atmosphere about the yacht that was unexplainable. Try as I could to find legitimate grounds for fears I could not. The Professor was a scientist who wished to study certain things the whereabouts of which were known to Leith. Apparently the Professor was satisfied with the bargain he had made. Leith, as the two girls had informed Holman, had called upon their father at the Langham Hotel in Wynyard Square, Sydney, and, after fascinating the old man with his stories, had presented his credentials and made a bargain with him which resulted in the chartering of the yacht. His former life was a mystery that he guarded jealously from the probes which the girls had skilfully endeavoured to use. It was clear that he had spent many years in the Islands, but that fact is not one that is generally put forward as a recommendation of good character. The South Sea holds a large percentage of the nimble people who manage to be in another spot when Dame Justice throws her lariat. The Law of the Fringe has made curiosity a criminal offence, and a new name covers more than charity.
I had had little chance of speaking to Edith Herndon since the moment I came aboard, but I determined, after I had looked at the matter from every side, that I would ask her point blank if I could be of any assistance. Leith's face was the only prop he put forward as a support to his claims of respectability, and his face betrayed him.
My chance came early that evening. A big tropical moon rose out of Asia and spread a silvery wash upon the ocean. Professor Herndon and his eldest daughter were leaning over the rail, but the moment I joined them the old man informed us that he had to see to his scientific outfit so that everything would be in readiness for the landing on the following morning, and he hurried off and left us together.
The girl did not speak for a few minutes, and I made no attempt to break the silence. Somehow I felt that her intuition had already told her that I wished to speak about the happenings of the morrow, and her opening remark proved that my surmise was correct.
"You will stay with the yacht, I suppose?" she questioned.
"I cannot say," I replied. "Captain Newmarch hasn't spoken to me about the matter. Does your father intend to go far inland?"
"Father has just told me that the actual distance is not great, but the travelling is very hard. It seems that it is only a few miles to the spot where Mr. Leith says that father can see all the sights and obtain all the specimens he desires, but those few miles will take us four days to travel. There are all kinds of obstacles in the way."
"And you are not afraid?" I stammered. "You do not dislike the idea of going?"
She lifted her head and looked me in the face, the big amber eyes shining softly in the moonlight.
"I dread it," she said quietly. "It is foolish to say so, but—"
She stopped speaking and turned her face away from me. In the little silence that followed I heard theplop plopof the waves against the side of the yacht. A native chanted a Samoan love song in the fo'c'stle, but that and the soft whine of the pulleys were the only sounds that disturbed the night. We seemed such a long way from civilization at that minute, and a great pity for the girl's plight gave me sufficient courage to make a proffer of my services.
"Miss Herndon," I spluttered, "if I could do anything to help you, please tell me. I might help you if you wish. Tell me what you think is best."
"If you stay with the yacht you can do nothing," she murmured.
"Then you want me to go?" I cried. "You would like me to go with——"
"Father and Barbara and me," she said softly. "Mr. Holman is coming, and if you could come too—"
"I can!" I cried. "I will go with the party if you say so."
"But if Captain Newmarch orders you to stay with the yacht?"
"He can order away," I spluttered. "I am going where Leith is going, that is as long as Leith accompanies you and your father."
Something moved on the top of the galley as I put my resolution into words, and I sprang up quickly. The moon made every inch of the yacht as bright as day, yet I was not quick enough in my rush. A tin pan, knocked down by the eavesdropper, rolled across the deck, but the spy had fled.
"Some one was listening to us," I explained as I returned to the girl's side.
"I am sorry then that I asked you to accompany us," she murmured. "I am dragging you into our troubles, Mr. Verslun, and it is not right."
"Hush!" I cried. "Your troubles are mine just because you are a woman out on the very fringe of the earth where you can get no one else to help you bear them. You see I can claim a right in this spot. This is the jumping off place of the world down here, and an offer of assistance must not be refused."
She stood in front of me, a tall, splendid figure, the moonlight silvering the piled masses of hair and giving one the impression that her head was surrounded by a shining halo. Suddenly she put out her hand and took mine.
"I accept your offer gladly," she said softly. "You are very, very kind, Mr. Verslun. It may be, as you say, the jumping off place of the world down here at the very outposts of civilization, but the power that protects one in the crowded cities is surely here as well. Good-night, friend."
It was an hour after the time when Miss Herndon went below that I asked the captain's permission to go along with the expedition. He plucked his scrawny beard with a nervous hand as he stood staring at me.
"What the devil do you want to go for?" he asked.
"For the fun of the thing."
"I don't know," he muttered. "I'll see Leith."
He turned away and I walked for'ard. The beauty of the night was extraordinary. The yacht seemed to be veneered with a soft luminous paint that gave us the appearance of a ghostly ship skimming over a ghostly ocean.
At the top of the fo'c'stle ladder I found a native stretched full length and sobbing mightily. He walloped his head against the planks when I endeavoured to get him upon his feet, and the sobs shook his frame.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Toni! Toni! Toni!" he wailed. "Toni he gone. Toni, my brother, all same come from Suva, now him dead."
"I'm sorry, but it can't be helped," I said. "He should have been more careful."
The native lifted himself from the deck and glanced around fearfully. Satisfied that there were no listeners he dried his eyes and crawled upon his knees to the spot where I was standing. "He not washed overboard," he whispered. "Soma stick one knife in him, then he tip him over. Me see him, very much afraid."
"When?" I asked.
"Night afore last," he gasped. "Captain see him do it. Very bad thing. Toni, my brother, all same work one time Suva."
Holman joined me when I relieved the captain late in the night; I told the youngster what I knew about the disappearance of Toni.
"Who knifed him?" he asked.
"The big Kanaka who pulled Leith out of the scuppers when he fell yesterday."
"Holy smoke!" cried the boy. "I'd like to get the strength of things on board this boat. Why, that big nigger is going to be the guide of the expedition on shore."
"Who says so?"
"Leith pointed him out to the Professor this afternoon," answered Holman. "I was talking to the old scientist at the time."
I whistled softly. If Soma was a henchman of Leith's it was clear to me why the captain had shielded him the night he jerked the knife at me when I dropped the pin upon his woolly head, but why Toni had been put away was a mystery.
"Is it any good of attempting to convince the Professor?" I asked.
"Not a bit," snapped Holman. "The girls have been imploring him to turn back this last three days while we were stuck in the cabin, but he won't listen to them. He's a maniac, that's what he is. He doesn't know what those two women are suffering through his darned foolishness, and if he did know it wouldn't trouble him. If you want the real extract of selfishness you must make a puncture in a scientific guy with a hobby, and you can get as much as you want."
"Well, I'm going along to see what happens," I said. "If Leith refuses to accept me I'm going just the same."
Holman gripped my hand—gripped it fiercely, then he left me hurriedly.
I tramped backward and forward asThe Waifsailed steadily through the waves of glittering mercury. A few days before, when I was an occupant of "The Rathole" in Levuka, life seemed to be empty and cold, but a wonderful change had come in those few days. Although I had not spoken to Edith Herndon more than half a dozen times, it appeared to me that it was those few short conversations that had chased the loneliness and morbid thoughts from my mind. Her very presence stimulated me in a manner that I could not express, and as I stared out across the moon-whitened ocean I started nervously at the thought which had sprung suddenly into my brain. It was an insane thought, and I tried to laugh it away. Edith Herndon was as far above me as the moon was above the waves that were silvered by her beams. I pictured myself lying like a beachcomber upon the pile of pearl shell when the strange chant of the Maori and the dead Toni concerning "the way to heaven out of Black Fernando's hell" had come to my ears, and I blessed the new influence which had come into my life.
"My way to heaven lies in this direction," I soliloquized, and the quivering yacht went bounding on as I allowed wild dreams to race unchecked through my brain.
A sleepy Samoan in the main cross-trees screamed a message to the deck while the pink flush of the tropical dawn was still in the sky, andThe Waifplunged through the water toward the island. One after the other the members of the expedition came on deck. Leith stumbled up when Newmarch shouted down the information, and the big brute watched the tiny spot that came gradually nearer; the Professor danced up like an adventurous boy, and he gurgled ecstatically as he peeped over the rail; while the two girls came up arm in arm and looked in silence across the dawn-reddened waters. Holman's gaze travelled from the island to Leith and back again to the island as if he was trying to trace a criminal connection between the two.
As the yacht drew closer a strange silence seemed to fall upon the vessel. The Professor's gurgles of joy died away slowly, and none of the others seemed inclined to break the stillness. The crew and the half dozen islanders that Leith had brought to carry provisions and specimens were also silent. They were grouped for'ard, but not a murmur came from them asThe Waifcrept slowly ahead, feeling her way cautiously into the little bay on the north side of the island which Leith had suggested to Newmarch as a good anchorage.
The peculiar stories that had gone abroad concerning the Isle of Tears were responsible for most of the wide-eyed looks of wonder which the imaginative Polynesians directed upon the shore; the strange predicament in which they were placed tied the tongues of the two girls; the Professor was thinking of the archaeological treasures, while thoughts that one could only guess at prevented Leith and Holman from speaking.
The island had a strange, wild beauty that seemed to throttle speech. The underlying coral reefs were of colours that ran from pure white to gorgeous crimson, and the effect upon the water above them was wonderful to behold.The Waifseemed to make her way over a floor of beautiful parquetry which Mother Nature had been constructing for centuries. Chameleon-tinted seaweeds stretched upward, waving backward and forward like the hair of sea nymphs hidden in the crevices of the multi-coloured rocks.
The vegetation on the shore was weird and wondrous. The trees immediately near the edge of the bay were covered with riotous lianas that looped themselves like pythons from limb to limb, and from whose green masses blazing red flowers appeared at intervals like watchful eyes. Scarlet hibiscus and perfumed frangipanni were everywhere, while climbing jasmine tried to cover up the black basalt rocks in the foreground as if to hide everything that was ugly from the eyes of the visitor. The sweet, intoxicating odours came out to us in greeting, yet the place seemed to inspire us with a feeling of awe and mystery that became more oppressive as the yacht moved lazily across the bay.
I glanced at Edith Herndon at the moment the anchor plunged down into the bed of coral, and the look of perplexed wonder upon her face startled me.
"It looks a nice place, yet it feels an awful spot," she murmured. "All those snaky creepers with their coloured flowers seem to be hiding something."
I understood her feelings regarding the place. That look of weird expectancy, common to places that are cloaked with a tremendous silence, had gripped the two girls, and the yacht seemed homelike when they compared it to the shore.
"Oh, Edith," cried the younger sister, "I wish father wouldn't go!"
"So do I, dear," murmured the elder girl, "but it is useless to attempt to persuade him to give up the quest."
"But I hate the place!" cried Miss Barbara. "Don't you?"
"Oh, no," stammered Edith, bravely attempting to cheer the spirits of the younger girl. "You will not be lonely, Barbara. Mr. Holman and father and I will be with you, and perhaps Mr. Verslun will be in our company."
Newmarch approached at the instant and squeaked out an answer to the request I had made the previous evening.
"I asked Mr. Leith if you could go with him," he said, "but he doesn't think you would be of any use. He has all the help he requires, so you had better stay on the yacht."
There was a slight grin on his thin face as he imparted the information, and his merriment tickled me. I had made up my mind without waiting for Leith's decision, and I was more pleased than annoyed at knowing that my presence was not desired with the party that went inland.
The anchor had hardly touched the bottom before Leith started to transship the provisions that were required for the trip across the island. The sight of land seemed to stir the sallow-faced giant out of the lethargy that had gripped him on the way down from Levuka. He suddenly discovered that the mantle of authority was upon his shoulders, and he bullied the island boys as they lowered the stores.
Holman was right when he stated that Soma was the man that Leith had picked as first assistant. The big Kanaka was placed in charge of the other five carriers, and he immediately imitated Leith by shrieking out orders and strutting about in a manner that was ludicrous. Professor Herndon was bubbling over with excitement. The stories which Leith had fed to him continuously concerning the remains of an extinct civilization had worked him up to a pitch that bordered on insanity, and it was pitiful to watch him as he made endless notes in the bulky notebook.
"I shall be known throughout the world inside three months," he whispered to Leith.
"In less than that," drawled the giant.
"Yes, you're right!" snapped the dream-fed scientist. "If everything is as you say our task will be an easy one. Are you ready Edith? Barbara, come along!"
He climbed down the ladder with a haste that was nearly his undoing, as he let go his grip before the boat was directly beneath him. Holman saved him from a ducking, but his solar topee, which had a distinctly scientific look, was soaked in salt water before it could be rescued.
Captain Newmarch stood by with a look of unconcern upon his thin face as the two girls went over the side, and he gave an unintelligible grunt as Leith followed. Within two hours afterThe Waifhad cast anchor the two boats containing the stores and the ill-assorted explorers were making for a small promontory that stretched out like a green tongue into the sparkling waters of the bay.
Once on shore, Leith put Soma and the carriers in the lead, Holman and the two girls next, with himself and the Professor bringing up the rear, and in that order they moved across the little strip of white sand that glittered like diamond dust. The heavy green foliage came out to meet them, dropped over them like a veil, and left us staring at the riotous creeper masses with the brilliant flower eyes that appeared to be watchingThe Waif.
Newmarch gave a peculiar chuckle as he turned toward me when the party had disappeared.
"Now, Mr. Verslun," he cried, "we have plenty work to keep us busy for the week or so we will be here. Get about it the moment the boats return, and keep the men on the jump."
I nodded, and he went below without another word, leaving me still staring at the spot where the explorers had dived into the leafy wall. The strange loneliness of the place seemed to clutch me hard at that moment, and I mentally abused myself for not making a stronger protest against the whole affair. But I knew as I damned my own inactivity that protest would have been useless as far as the Professor was concerned, and the filial affection of the two girls would not allow the old ancient to wander off alone.
I had planned to allow the party a few hours' start before I made any attempt to follow, feeling certain that I would be able to find the track, and, moreover, I wished to catch up to the expedition at a point where Leith would have no chance of verifying the story I would tell to account for my presence. The big brute would probably think I was lying when I told him that Newmarch had sent me after him, but the Professor's desire to push on would probably prevent him from making an effort to check my story by sending a runner back to the boat. And luck was with me at that moment. As I racked my brain in the construction of a suitable excuse to account for my appearance, my eyes fell upon the Professor's camera that had been overlooked in the hurry of departure, and I sprang upon it joyfully and hid it till the time had elapsed. Knowing the importance which the old scientist attached to the photographs which he intended to take, I knew that he, at least, would reason that the captain had acted wisely in sending me in pursuit with the instrument, and I trusted that his gratitude would move him to get Leith's permission to allow me to remain with the expedition.
The party had been gone some six hours when I slipped over the side into the dory. Newmarch was below, and only one of the crew was on deck. I seized the oars and struck out for the shore, but I had hardly covered twenty paces when the captain rushed to the rail, took one glance at me, and then dashed toward the companion-stairs.
I sensed the motive in that mad dash for the cabin, and I pulled madly. Thoughts of Edith Herndon thronged my brain, and I drove the dory toward the promontory with every ounce of strength I possessed. To return to the yacht while she was in the eerie jungle-growth under Leith's protection would be worse than death, and I didn't pause for an instant when the captain's squeaky voice hailed me.
"Come back at once!" he shouted. "Are you coming?"
I bent my back to the oars and pulled with every muscle strained. The perspiration half blinded me, but one glance upward convinced me that I had sensed the captain's motive when I saw him rush from the side. He was standing on the poop, taking deliberate aim at me with a Winchester rifle that he had taken from the rack in his own cabin.
It seemed an age before he fired. The bullet missed the side of the boat by about three inches, and I shrieked my defiance. The devil had my nerves on edge, but the green tongue of land was close, and I pulled as never man pulled before.
A bullet lodged in the stern of the boat, another splintered the end of an oar, and then the rifleman's nerves must have got the better of him. The succeeding shots fell wide, and I whooped like a madman as I drove the boat on to the green tongue of land. Springing out hastily I made a dash across the white strip of sand, and dived into the moist creeper growth.
I lay there panting, watching the yacht to see what Newmarch would do. It was impossible for him to leave the yacht to follow me, but I guessed that he would make an attempt to communicate with Leith. And I guessed rightly.
I had not been five minutes in the bushes when a boat put off for the shore. It contained three of the crew, two Tannese and the Fijian that I had found mourning the death of Toni, his "all same brother who had worked with him at Suva." They pulled for the spot where I had left the dory, and here the Fijian sprang out, while the others proceeded to tow the dory back toThe Waif. I surmised that Toni's "all same brother" had been sent to carry a message to Leith, and I lay in the bushes waiting as he raced toward me.
Cautiously he clawed his way through the undergrowth, and when he was certain that the creepers had completely veiled him from the eyes of watchers on the yacht he picked up a small flat stone from the ground, drew a yachting knife from his belt and crouching on his heels started to sharpen the blade. As he rubbed industriously he sang a weird tune in his native tongue, rounding off each verse with five words in English that explained his industry. The words were: "Now I'll kill you, Soma," and the chant was a poem of consolation to the spirit of the dead Toni, assuring it that the hour of vengeance was at hand, and that Soma would go to the great unknown the moment he got within reach of the yachting knife.
I poked my head from my hiding place, and the Fijian turned quickly.
"I think the captain told Soma to kill your brother," I said softly. "If the captain didn't tell him, Leith did, Kaipi."
Kaipi stopped sharpening the blade and fixed his big eyes upon me. "I not to speak to you," he said. "Kapitani tell me not to. I go catch up Leith, give him one piece of paper the Kapitani gave me."
"But Soma?" I asked.
"I kill Soma when chance comes," muttered Kaipi.
"Well, we're of the same mind, Kaipi," I said pleasantly. "Soma is no friend of mine and I'll help you as much as I can if you turn over the note which the captain gave you and do just what I tell you. Otherwise, Kaipi, I have a revolver, and a knife is no match for a revolver."
The Fijian considered the matter for a few moments, his dreamy eyes watching me the while. At that moment duty was forgotten in the thirst for vengeance upon Soma, and the debate with his conscience was of short duration. He pulled a note from the folds of his pareo and tossed it to me with a short laugh.
"Me not care about that," he grinned. "Me catch Soma, that's all."
The note was exceedingly brief. It read:
"The mate is following you,—NEWMARCH."
Kaipi had returned to the job of sharpening his knife in which I had interrupted him, and at intervals he assured the dead Toni that vengeance was only a matter of a few hours. As far as I was concerned the captain could not have chosen a better messenger.
"Kaipi," I said, tearing the note into small pieces, "you have been sent to help me find Leith and the Professor. See, I have the Professor's picture maker. He forgot it this morning, and the captain sent you and me to take it to him. Do you understand?"
The Fijian grinned, tried the edge of his knife blade with the ball of his thumb, then sprang to his feet.
"And don't be in too great a hurry to fix Soma," I cautioned. "Toni's spirit can wait a few days till you get a suitable opportunity. Now, we'll strike the trail."
Kaipi grinned again, put his sharpened knife into his belt and plunged into the dense undergrowth. The snaky, moist lianas made progress next to impossible. They clung around our legs like live things, and I damned the Professor's idiotic craving for notoriety as we waded through the clammy creepers in search of the trail made by the party. The prickly rope-like vines seemed to be in league with the devil who was leading the aged scientist and his daughters into dangers that made my brain dizzy as I attempted to dissect the possibilities which imagination put forward.
At last we found the traces of Soma's handiwork with an axe, and guided by these signs we hurried forward. The ground rose gradually toward the centre of the island, where columns of basalt loomed like the towers of feudal castles against the pure Venetian blue of the tropical sky. But the sky was visible only for moments that were far removed from each other. The crawling vines that overran the trees made an impenetrable barrier against the sunlight, and most of the time we were stumbling along in a mysterious twilight that increased my nervous agony. Masses of rock of volcanic origin were thickly strewn around, and anything like fast travelling was impossible.
The sun dropped slowly toward the west, and we had great difficulty in holding to the path. The axe marks and the branches broken by the carriers were really the only signs that we had to go by, but the eyes of the Fijian were exceedingly sharp in detecting the slightest evidence left by the party. We passed the spot where they had lunched, and increased our speed in an endeavour to overtake them before nightfall. The silence and unexplainable mystery of the place made me anxious to catch up with them before the darkness came down, while hunger and revenge made Kaipi move at a speed that was most unusual.
Darkness came down like a suffocating blanket, and we halted.
"No go farther," muttered Kaipi. "Better make fire and sleep. Catch um to-morrow."
I sat down while the Fijian gathered a pile of rotten wood, but before he could set fire to the heap I was on my feet clawing my way into the darkness in front. From somewhere out of the inky night came the voice of Edith Herndon lifted up in a little Italian melody that I had heard her singing the night we left Levuka. It seemed to me that she suspected my near presence, and that she was singing to guide me to the spot where the party had camped.
Five minutes afterward Kaipi and I stumbled into the circle of light round the fire, and Leith sprang to his feet with a growl of rage.
"What's this?" he cried. "Who the devil gave you permission to come here?"
"The captain sent me," I replied, looking straight at the giant as I fired the lie at him. "The carriers forgot Professor Herndon's camera, and Captain Newmarch sent Kaipi and me after you."
Leith's mutterings were drowned by the scientist's cries of joy as he took the camera from my hand, and the big brute had time to recover himself before the Professor had stopped chattering. I guessed that he reasoned that it would be bad policy to show that he was angry at my arrival, while the camera partly convinced him that I had told the truth. His surprise and the Professor's evident pleasure made me think it an opportune moment to put forward a request to stay with the party, and I put my wish into words.
"Captain Newmarch said that Kaipi and I might go along if you and Professor Herndon had no objections," I lied. "He thought we would prove useful."
Leith scowled angrily, but the Professor gave an immediate assent to the request. His short-sightedness prevented him from noticing the frown which passed over the face of his partner, but the sour look fled immediately the two girls expressed a desire to keep me in the party.
"Oh, please let Mr. Verslun come," cried Miss Barbara. "It will make it ever so much more pleasant."
"I was thinking of the stock of food," growled Leith, as if attempting to explain his evident displeasure.
"I'll go on half measure and let Mr. Verslun have the other half," laughed Holman.
"And he can have some of mine," cried Miss Barbara.
"And mine," murmured Edith.
Leith grinned as he noted the feeling of the party. It would not be diplomatic to go against the wishes of all, and he knew it. With a wave of his hand he ordered Kaipi to the fire where Soma and the other five islanders were sitting, and nodded his head as an intimation that I could stay.
"By the way," he growled, as I fell upon the plate of tinned salmon which Edith Herndon handed to me, "who was doing the shooting this afternoon?"
"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.