We had a healthy respect for the deviltry of Leith and his friends as we turned our backs upon the lonely throne of the centipede, but the cry of "Father" which Edith Herndon had uttered was still ringing in our ears, and we were anxious to get within hitting distance of the big, treacherous ruffian. A mental review of the engagements made us feel rather light-hearted as we pushed through the tangle. If there were only six native dancers upon the island at the opening of the conflict in the Cavern of Skulls, we had reduced that number to one, while the bullet in Leith's shoulder would depreciate his fighting ability for some time. Outside the carriers, who, as far as we knew, were neutral in the matter, we had as opponents, Leith, One Eye, Soma, and the dancer whose hand had been punctured by Kaipi, and the knowledge that we were more evenly matched brought us some consolation.
But the fact that Edith and Barbara Herndon were in the power of the scoundrel brought thoughts that cast a damper upon the little scrap of joy we derived from reckoning up the casualties of the enemy. The passion which Leith displayed after receiving Holman's bullet made us run forward like madmen each time we recalled the diabolical frenzy that he exhibited. We could not think of a good plan to circumvent the brute. The jungle hampered and maddened us, and although we knew that we had gone about our work in a blundering fashion, the circumstances were such that we could not improve our strategy in the future.
We plunged on till nearly midnight, then Holman called a halt.
"We must sleep," he said. "One can watch while the other two get some rest."
Kaipi, who declared that he was never less inclined for slumber, agreed to take first watch, and Holman and I flung ourselves down upon the grass. We had had no slumber on the previous night, and the incidents in which we had taken part had left us exhausted.
It was daybreak before Kaipi awakened us, and the face of the Fijian informed us that something had alarmed him. He was stretched full length on the ground, listening as only a native can listen, and we waited for his report. We had much respect for Kaipi's hearing after checking the signals he made concerning the approaching "tivo" dancer on the previous afternoon.
"What is it?" asked Holman.
"Some one go by, much hurry," murmured the Fijian.
We crouched in the bushes and listened. It was hardly likely that Leith had changed his route, and the only person that we knew to be in our neighbourhood was the dancer.
"If we could get hold of him we might use the third degree on him to guide us to the spot that Leith is making for," said Holman. "We'll be outgeneralled completely if he gets into those caverns on the hills. If he has provisions he can snap his fingers at a regiment."
I agreed with him on that point. The valley inside the basalt cliffs, and which, as far as we could judge, could only be entered by the slippery pathway in the Vermilion Pit, was about the finest natural hiding place in the world. Without taking the caves into consideration, the luxurious vegetation in the cup between the hills made the finding of a person a matter of extreme luck. It was a marvellous maze that Nature seemed to have constructed especially for the diabolical work in which Leith was engaged.
Kaipi's ear was still to the ground, and the anxious look upon his face convinced us that some one was close.
"Coming back again," breathed the Islander. "One man, walk slow."
Our own ears acquainted us of the approach at that moment. The sound of crackling twigs was quite close, and we waited breathlessly, eying the green curtain through which we expected the unknown to thrust himself.
A black head bobbed through the leaves, and Holman planted a fist between the newcomer's eyes before the head could be withdrawn. The morning visitor dropped to the ground, and the three of us promptly fell upon him, the bloodthirsty Kaipi having to be restrained by main force from giving another exhibition of neat knifework.
"Who is it?" asked Holman. "Get back, Kaipi, and let me see."
We dragged the panting prisoner into the light, but instead of the escaped dancer, we found that we had trapped one of the five carriers, a big Raretongan named Maru, who was possessed of enormous strength.
Holman's punch had been no light one, and it was a few seconds before the mists had cleared from the Raretongan's brain; then his big brown eyes lit up with a smile of gladness, and he nodded to Holman.
"Me want you," he said.
"Quite so," muttered Holman, "but I got you first."
Maru smiled the smile of the man who has a card up his sleeve, and he fumbled in the folds of his sulu till he found what he wanted. With a dramatic flourish he drew from the cloth a small emerald ring that belonged to Barbara Herndon, and he smiled childishly as he saw the look of astonishment upon Holman's face as he snatched the trinket.
"Why—who—how the devil did you get this?" he asked.
"Little missee give me," replied Maru, still convulsed with the humour which his childish mind found in the situation. "She tell me come alonga you."
Holman poured out a torrent of questions which the smiling messenger endeavoured to answer to the best of his ability. In pigeon English he informed us that he had deserted Leith's camp about midnight; that the big ruffian had turned abruptly from the direction he was moving in at the time we caught up with him, and that Holman's bullet had caused him serious inconvenience. The two girls and the Professor were in charge of Soma and the one-eyed white man, who, we now learned, was deaf and dumb. It was while One Eye was on guard that Barbara Herndon had been able to bribe the Raretongan to throw the strength of his muscles upon our side of the argument.
Holman, with lover-like longing for anything owned by the lady of his choice, attempted to put the emerald ring in his pocket, but Maru objected strongly. The smile fled from his face, and his broken English nearly strangled him in his efforts to pour out enough of it to acquaint Holman of the nature of the agreement which he had entered into with Barbara Herndon.
"Me only show you ring, that's all!" he cried. "You look, know little missee send me, ring mine all time. You give back."
"You had better give it back to him," I cautioned. "He has got the idea into his head, and it will take a lot of arguing to convince him that Miss Barbara didn't give it to him to keep."
"But she didn't!" cried Holman. "Why would she give him a ring? She just gave him a loan of it to let him see that she had sent him to us."
"My ring all time," protested Maru. "That my pay fight mighty good for you."
"Give it up to him," I advised. "He's only an overgrown child, and he has set his mind on it."
"But, Verslun, I know she wouldn't do that!" protested the lover. "Barbara sent me this as——"
"Oh, I know," I cried, "but we want fighters now, and Maru is a pretty athletic person."
"Me damn good fighter!" cried the Raretongan. "Me plentee good fighter if me get ring."
Holman gave up the trinket with a snort of disgust, and a few minutes afterward, when we were tramping along, I made it my business to drop back beside Maru and advise him to keep the ring out of the youngster's sight till we had rescued Miss Barbara. If the native had displayed his reward it was highly probable that the lovesick Holman, with nerves on the raw edge from want of sleep and worry, would have pounced upon the mighty Maru and endeavoured to obtain possession of what he fondly thought was a token of affection from his beloved.
But the arrival of the messenger was worth more than the emerald ring to us at that moment. He had more woodcraft than Kaipi, who had spent most of his time upon the ocean, and his information regarding the direction in which Leith was now heading saved us many weary hours of marching.
Yams and guavas, with wild passion fruit, made a breakfast and dinner as we clawed our way in pursuit. At midday we judged that we were hot upon the trail, unless Leith had changed his course, but the black cliffs were close to us at that moment, and the recollections of the gloomy caverns made us silent as we pushed through the matted jungle. We could see no trace of the path which Leith would be compelled to cut to enable the two girls to get through, and we heard no sounds. A lone parrakeet startled us with its harsh cry as it rose from a maupei tree, and the bird even seemed to recognize that it had committed a breach in sending its unmusical cry out upon the awful quiet of the place.
Kaipi climbed a tall tree in the vain hope of catching sight of Leith's party as it crossed the small cleared spaces in the middle of the impenetrable growth, but nothing except the green plain of bushy tops and parasitical creepers was visible. As we waited beneath the tree the "ticking" of a wood bug sounded like hammer blows in the tremendous quietude, while the bursting of a pod reminded one of the beginning of a Fourth of July celebration. We had lost all trace of Leith, and now, immediately in front, rose the cliffs, and we saw a menace on their dark, forbidding front.
The base of the hills presented the same nearly perpendicular formation that we had met when endeavouring to reach the long gallery, and we held a council to decide on what would be the best course to pursue. Maru was confident that Leith was heading for this particular point at the moment that Barbara's bribe caused the Raretongan to desert, and it was reasonable to think that the ruffian had retired to some hiding place to nurse his wound and decide upon the fate of the Professor and his two daughters. From the scraps of conversation which we had overheard before Holman interrupted the argument between Leith and the scientist, we thought it probable that the old man would visit the centipede upon the big table if he did not sign the papers that Leith required, while we shuddered at the probable fate of the two girls unless Providence directed us as to the manner in which we could effect a rescue.
"We must divide," said Holman. "I'll take Kaipi and go north, you take Maru and go in the opposite direction. If you find the trail, camp near it and send Maru on the run back to us. I'll do the same if I strike the spoor of the big devil."
It was about two o'clock, as nearly as we could judge, when we separated. We agreed to keep as close as possible to the rocky wall so that a messenger from one would have less difficulty in locating the other, and Maru and I found, before we had gone a hundred yards, that the nearer we could get to the cliff the quicker we could get along. The lianas found it difficult to get a grip upon the rocks, and we could worm our way without much trouble.
We had travelled about three quarters of a mile when the native dropped upon his knees and I immediately followed his example. The ordinary Polynesian is not to be compared with the Australian black fellow or the American Indian in his knowledge of the forest, but Maru was an exception. His sight and hearing were abnormally keen, and he examined the grass carefully.
"One man go by here pretty short time ago," he whispered.
"Native?" I asked.
"No, him wear shoes."
The Raretongan crawled forward on his knees, his face close to the grass. The tracks upon the soft grass showed that the person was moving in the direction we were going, and for about twenty yards we followed cautiously. Leith, the one-eyed white man, and the Professor were the only three men on the Isle of Tears, outside Holman and myself, who would be wearing shoes. It was hard to think that the Professor or Leith would be alone at that moment, so I concluded, as we crawled along in the shadow of the cliff, that the tracks were made by One Eye.
Maru suddenly sprang to his feet and stood listening. I listened too. Into the awful silence came a tremendous rumbling that increased each second till I pictured it as a cancer of noise growing with appalling rapidity within the encompassing stillness.
"What is it?" I gasped. "Why it's——"
I understood at that moment, and I sprang toward the jungle, but the big hand of the Raretongan gripped my shoulder and dragged me close to the cliff beneath an overhanging ledge.
"Stay here!" he yelled, raising his voice above the tumult that seemed to be coming out of the heavens. "Keep close much!"
The noise was deafening. The black cliff seemed to rock behind us, and as Maru pulled me down on my knees five hundred tons of rock shot from the heights and flattened ten square yards of the packed shrubs immediately in front of us!
"Now!" screamed Maru, as the dust swept in under the ledge and nearly choked us; "we get away quick, plenty dust, they can't see!"
The dirt and small rocks had rolled back upon us till we stood ankle deep, but the native's advice was good. Hugging the wall of the cliff, we ran back on our tracks till we had passed the area devastated by the landslide; then we sprang into the bushes and peered up at the cliff. High above the cloud of dust that was still rising from the ground, and leaning forward so that he could view the extent of the avalanche, was the one-eyed white man!
"Maru," I whispered, "go back and get Holman. I'll wait here till you come."
The one-eyed man stood for a long time contemplating his handiwork. From his point of observation he watched the pile of rocks and the surrounding bushes, and the absence of movement convinced him that the job had been well done. He commenced to make facial contortions as an outlet for the mirth he was generating inside, and at intervals he managed to produce a peculiar noise that reminded one of the bubbling of a camel. I began to think that One Eye, besides being deaf and dumb, was suffering from a shortage of gray matter inside his ugly-shaped head. He strutted up and down, and narrowly escaped toppling over the ledge through attempting a cake dance as a grand finale to the insane actions prompted by the successful manner in which he had engineered the landslide.
The afternoon had lengthened out before Maru returned with Holman and Kaipi, and we hurriedly considered the best course to pursue. One Eye had been with Leith when Maru deserted, so it was obvious that we were not far from the ruffian's hiding place.
"If we could catch this lunatic on the cliff?" muttered Holman. "Gee! we could tickle him with Kaipi's old knife blade till he ran us right into the haunt."
"He's deaf," I said; "there's a good chance of roping him in if we could scale the cliff."
"Me climb!" said Maru. "Him not hear. Me climb all alonga track, drop down, breakem him neck."
"No, don't break his neck!" growled Holman. "We want him as a guide. Do you understand? He knows where Leith is hiding, and if we could get hold of him it would be clear sailing."
Maru borrowed Kaipi's knife, nodded confidently as we adjured him to use caution, and then slipped back along the track so that he could climb to the level of the one-eyed person's perch before attempting to creep upon him. We sat down to await developments. The witless one was evidently a lookout, and it was advisable to wait and see the success of Maru's expedition before we attempted to move.
It was a long wait. Maru didn't intend to take any chances by closing in hurriedly, and it was nearly two hours after his departure before we saw his head rise above a boulder high up over the spot where One Eye was keeping his vigil. It was evidently not the first time that the native had stalked a human being, and his fine tactics, which should have called forth praise, severely tried the small amount of patience that we possessed. Holman cursed softly beneath his breath as Maru sat for ten minutes at a time studying the route before attempting to move from a sheltering rock, and my own nails burrowed into the palms of my hands as I watched. The Raretongan was a genius in his own particular line, and I think he took more than ordinary precautions so that his success would prove to Holman that Barbara Herndon had not overpaid him when she presented him with the emerald ring as a reward for his desertion from Leith. Maru had no idea of the sentimental view of the matter which the youngster took; and he thought that Holman's objections against the bargain were caused by the thought that no services could be rendered that would be half as valuable as the trinket. The unsentimental savage could not imagine that the unstrung lover wanted the ring as a keepsake of the girl who had won his heart on boardThe Waif.
"Caesar's Ghost! Why doesn't he hurry?" cried Holman. "That madman looks as if he's going to change his camping ground!"
It looked as if the witless one was really going to move, and Maru had still some fifty yards to cover before he would be directly above the other's head. Our nerves were in such a state that we felt inclined to scream out to the patient stalker. If we could grab the scout we could probably induce him by gentle persuasion to act as guide, but if he escaped us, we pictured ourselves stumbling over precipices and through dark caverns with the same lack of results as had marked our trip to the place of skulls.
Maru was decreasing the distance by inches. Slowly, very slowly, with all the serpentlike cunning of the savage, he advanced till he was almost above the spot where the other stood taking a survey of the jungle. But it was a farewell glance for One Eye. If Leith had placed him there to keep watch till he had reached a safe position, the watcher evidently considered that the time was up. He hopped to another ledge with the agility of a goat, and Holman groaned.
Maru noticed the retreat, and quickened his movements. Dropping cautiously from ledge to ledge he crept upon the other with the swiftness of a leopard creeping upon its prey. One Eye's deafness left him at the mercy of the shadow in his rear. Swiftly taking cover whenever the white man's head moved to the right or the left, the native decreased the distance, and we rose to our knees.
Then Maru sprang. His muscular right arm went round the neck of the white, and we were rushing toward the cliff without waiting to see the outcome of the struggle. The Raretongan's strength was immense, and we knew that the other could not break the strangle hold that had been put upon him. We were more afraid that One Eye would be choked into insensibility before we reached the post.
The big native was sitting astride his captive when we gained the ledge, and the prisoner was blinking his one good eye as he stared up at him. We dropped down beside him and took a look at the sun-tanned face. He exhibited no fear, and the weak, watery eye showed no glint of intelligence. It was plain that his brain was slightly deranged.
Holman jerked him into a sitting position, and with signs and gestures we endeavoured to explain what we wanted him to do. Neither of us understood the deaf and dumb alphabet, but the alphabet was hardly necessary. With much pantomimic action we described Leith, the Professor, and the two girls, and Kaipi enjoyed himself immensely by waving his knife in front of One Eye's face to signify the fate that awaited him if he did not immediately guide us to the spot. The Fijian was so proud of the blade that he could hardly be prevented from burying an inch of the steel in the prisoner's body.
One Eye, although obviously half-witted, saw that Kaipi was only looking for an excuse to send him to a more undesirable place than the Isle of Tears, and he made eager signs that he would act as our guide. Holman relieved him of the revolver and cartridges he had in his pockets, strapped his arms behind him, and with Maru's hand clutching the collar of his coat, we signalled to him to step forward and step lively if he wished to delay his journey to the other world till his soul was in a better condition. The sun was close to the high ridges in the west, and we wished to close with Leith before nightfall.
One Eye taxed our climbing powers in the next ten minutes. With the agility of a chamois he scurried along the narrow ledges, and several times Maru was forced to check his speed so that we could keep pace with him. Holman's face showed the joy he felt at receiving another opportunity to retrieve the blunders we had made in our two previous attacks. Now we had reduced the big villain's fighting bodyguard to two persons, Soma and the dancer, and if he had not impressed the carriers, we outnumbered him. But Leith was on his own ground, and we had already discovered that the Isle of Tears made an ideal retreat for an outlaw. The nearly impassable jungle, surrounded by the cliffs that were tunnelled with tremendous caverns, made a hiding place in which a few men could defy an army.
One Eye moved along the side of the cliff for about five hundred yards, then turned into a small cañon hardly thirty feet wide, the bottom of which was about twenty yards above the valley from which we had climbed.
Our intuition told us that we were near the retreat, and we halted the hurrying guide, and in the shelter of a boulder explained to him with more signs and gestures that we wished to proceed with extreme caution. The end of the gulch that was not more than a stone's throw from the face of the cliff was already dark with the shadows of the hills, and as we suspected that the opening to Leith's refuge was close, we wished to make no unnecessary noise in approaching it. Using the scattered rocks as covering, we advanced slowly, but before we reached the end the sun had disappeared, and the absence of twilight, noticeable in that latitude, compelled us to crawl along in a darkness that made it impossible to discern any object that was more than three feet distant. Holman was on one side of One Eye while Maru guarded him on the other side, and as the bottom of the gorge made it impossible for more than three to move abreast, Kaipi and I crawled in the rear.
We were at One Eye's mercy at that moment, but the idiot appeared to be much impressed by the manner in which we had pictured the sure and sudden fate that would fall upon him if we suspected him of treachery. The mystery of the place gripped us as we went forward. High above us the stars looked as if they were floating sequins in a sea of dark blue.
But the stars were blotted out suddenly, and I drew Holman's attention to the fact. The youngster got to his feet and groped around in the gloom, while we halted till he made an investigation. It was impossible to see the face of the half-witted guide to gain any information from his gestures.
Holman stooped and whispered his finding to us. "We're in a covered passageway," he murmured. "I can just touch the roof by standing on tiptoe. As we're in the place we might as well walk instead of crawling; we'll get to the end quicker."
Maru dragged One Eye to his feet, and we pushed on. The air of the place was much sweeter than the atmosphere of the Cavern of Skulls. The floor, instead of being covered with thick dust as we had found it in the former place, was one of clean, smooth rock, and the walls were perfectly dry.
I had gripped One Eye's left arm while Holman was making the examination of the passage, and we had not proceeded more than twenty yards when he intimated that he wished to turn to the right. We allowed him to do so, and for fully twenty minutes he followed a zigzag course that left us completely nonplussed as to the way we had come. We could hardly count the number of the turnings. First to the right, then to the left, then back again toward the mouth of the place, he trotted forward with nothing to guide him, yet when we checked him at certain corners to find out if there was an angle in the path, we found that he was right in every instance.
"He's counting the number of paces he takes between the turnings," muttered Holman. "No man, unless he had the eyes of a cat, could find his way along this passage. Keep a grip on him or we'll never see daylight again."
We guessed that we had walked for over half a mile when the guide stopped abruptly. In the dark we endeavoured to find out what had pulled him up short, but we tried in vain. A prick from Kaipi's knife blade would not make him budge an inch, and we clustered together and racked our brains to find the solution.
"P'raps we're up against something," whispered Holman, "Feel if there's anything in front, Verslun."
I walked forward a pace and groped in the blackness. My fingers touched solid rock. It hemmed us in on all sides. One Eye had walked us to the end of the passage, and we had come up against a blind wall.
I whispered the news to Holman, and he swore softly. Maru's fingers tightened on the collar of the prisoner till his breath came in short gasps. Kaipi moved around to the side of the prisoner, but I pushed him roughly back. The Fijian's desire to use his knife on all occasions was somewhat irritating.
"What'll we do?" asked Holman.
"Get back," I answered. "He's either fooled us or he's lost his way."
Holman gripped One Eye by the neck and shook him roughly. The youngster's temper was up, and it looked as if we had wasted the hours we had spent in capturing the idiot alive, and the time lost in following behind him through the cañon and the crooked passage. And time was precious when we thought of the agony which Edith and Barbara Herndon were suffering.
In his temper Holman forgot that the prisoner was deaf, and he shouted a question at him. "What the devil is wrong?" he screamed. "Damn you, will—"
Maru interrupted with a cry of astonishment. The wall at the end of the passage appeared to slide away, and, standing directly in front of us, his big frame outlined against a fire of brushwood that blazed behind him, was Leith!
Holman gave a yell of rage and sprang forward, and Leith turned and sped into the gloom. In his astonishment at finding himself confronted by the enemy when the stone door had rolled aside, Holman had forgotten that he had a revolver in his possession, and Leith had passed the brushwood fire before I yelled out to the youngster to shoot.
Holman fired immediately, and Leith staggered. For a moment we thought that he was down, but he picked himself up and ran on. I snatched a blazing pine limb from the fire as I rushed by, and with the light flickering upon the walls of the place, we sped madly after the flying figure that was barely discernible when the blazing branch flung a splinter of light into the gloom.
Holman emptied the revolver, but the pounding of Leith's feet that came back to us proved that he was still running. Maru and Kaipi were hallooing far behind, but Holman and I ran side by side, our minds unable to think of anything but the capture of the human tiger in front.
We were gaining on him. We could hear his laboured breathing, and I remembered with a thrill of satisfaction the wound that he had received the night before. It was only a question of time when we would have our fingers on his throat. "Keep it up!" gasped Holman. "We've got him, Verslun! We've got him!"
It looked like it. The red glow from the torch enabled us to catch an occasional glimpse of shoes moving up and down at such a rate that the limbs to which they were attached always remained outside the area that was faintly illuminated. The momentary view of the footgear, together with the maddeningplop plopit made upon the rock, raised an insane idea within my brain that we were chasing a pair of bewitched shoes that were enticing us into the very heart of the mountain. The scanty diet and the happenings of the two preceding days had left me light-headed. The race was unreal. I had an idea that the shoes would run on forever, and that every yard they covered took me farther away from Edith Herndon.
The flame of the pine branch went out, and we were left in utter darkness. But the sound of the flying feet still came back to us. At times we were so near that Holman thrust out his hands as he ran, and cursed softly as the sounds seemed to draw away from him.
"I'll have you yet!" he cried. "I'll choke you, you devil!"
A chuckle came out of the darkness and at that instant I made a discovery. Leith was not alone. Keeping time with the clatter of the shoes was a softer tattoo that told me that a barefooted runner was racing beside the man we were pursuing.
Holman made the discovery at the same moment. "Soma," he breathed, and he ran faster. From some place that seemed to be leagues in the rear came the shouts of Maru and Kaipi, but their yells died away, and we were convinced that they had given up the chase.
Theplop plopof the shoes ceased suddenly, and we slackened speed. Our brains suggested that Leith had stopped abruptly on the chance of doubling back before we could pull up, and a sweat of terror broke out upon us. If he doubled successfully he would reach the stone door through which we had got the first glimpse of him.
"He's turned!" cried Holman. "We'll get him, Verslun! After the—O God!Look out!"
Holman's warning came too late. The rocky floor over which we had been running, dropped away from us. I pitched forward after the youngster into a gulf of darkness, landed on my shoulder upon a mass of volcanic ash, and clutching vainly at the stuff, I rolled at tremendous speed down into the bowels of the earth. From far above us came the sounds of uncontrolled merriment—the high-pitched shrieks of a native rising above the deep bass laughter of Leith.
I thought we were a thousand years rolling down that slope of smothering ash. It was a quicksand that melted beneath us. We drove our arms into it, but the stuff slipped away like fine wood ash, and we went on and on. I knew Holman was in front of me. Occasionally a curse directed at Leith managed to slip out when his mouth was not filled with the smothering dust. Once I shouted at him, and he answered the cry with a groan that told me how the happening had affected him. The arch ruffian had checkmated us for the third time inside three days.
We struck the bottom at last, and, like moles, we clawed our way out of the pile of soft, feathery stuff that came streaming down upon us like a river, and for some minutes we were busy wiping the fluffy ash from mouth and eyes and ears. It clung to us like down, and with each breath we drew it into our lungs till we coughed and sneezed from the irritation it produced. Struggling forward, knee-deep in the fine, dry powder, we reached a spot that was practically clear, and for five minutes we were busy endeavouring to relieve our tortured lungs.
"How far did we roll?" asked Holman.
"About half a mile," I replied.
"But straight, Verslun! What do you think?"
"Over a hundred yards; I'm certain of that."
"Well, I'm going to climb back."
"You can't do it!" I gasped. "That stuff is like quicksand."
"All the same I'm going to make a try."
We stumbled back to the gigantic ash pile, and shoulder to shoulder we made a rush at the immense mountain down which we had rolled. We couldn't see it, but we felt it rise around us like a flood as our legs sank deeper. It came up to our waists—to our armpits, choking and smothering us. Coming down we had rolled lightly over its surface, now our legs bored into it like rods, and we struggled vainly to move. The pile was like a high snowdrift into which we sank deeper and deeper the more we struggled, and, worn out with our efforts, we fought our way clear of the smothering ash and made an attempt to review the situation.
"He's beat us," groaned Holman. "He just trotted ahead of us till he had us on the verge of the thing, and then he side-stepped. O God! What asses we have been!"
"We did our best," I said.
"Our best?" repeated Holman. "And the man who tells you that he did his best as an excuse for failure should be shot, Verslun."
"We couldn't tell that this infernal trench was in front," I grumbled.
"Then we shouldn't have chased him like a brace of madmen. I wonder if Maru and Kaipi came near it?"
"We might call out, perhaps they'd hear."
Holman yelled the names of the two natives into the gloom above us, but his yells only started a million echoes rolling through the tremendous fissure in which we were prisoners.
"They turned back," said Holman. "They had sense enough to stay with One Eye; we hadn't."
It was no use arguing with the youngster. He denounced our stupidity till his tongue was too dry to utter the charges his half-crazed brain made against us.
To divert his thoughts I proposed that we make an attempt to explore the place, and without making any choice regarding direction we moved into the inky darkness.
"We'll take it in turns to lead," said Holman gruffly. "Then if one of us topples over a precipice the other has a chance to save himself. I'll take first try at it, and if I find that I have pushed my foot into a hole I'll yell out a warning."
I agreed, and we moved forward slowly. The chances of ever finding our way out of that place seemed small at that moment. Leith had put us in a spot where we would not be likely to trouble him for some time, and with bitterness in our hearts we staggered along in the dark, alternately damning the treachery of the ruffian and our own stupidity. We had tried to exercise caution, but when we reviewed our actions, it seemed, as Holman had remarked, that we had used the judgment of children.
"Why didn't we wait at the door of that place till the brute came out?" he asked.
I had no answer to give to the question, and after an interval of silence he fired others at me.
"Why did you let go of One Eye? Why didn't we examine the cavern near the fire before chasing him? The girls might have been somewhere near the fire! Do you think they were?"
"I don't think so," I answered, trying to soothe him. "I think Leith was the only person at the fire. He picked Soma up just before we reached the gulf."
"But where are they? Where has the devil put them?"
"God alone knows!" I cried. "Here, it's my turn to take the lead."
In silence we went stumbling on into the appalling blackness. We could not see the dim outlines of each other when we stood only a few inches apart. The darkness of the Cavern of Skulls had been relieved by the silver skewers of moonlight, but in the night that rolled around us there was not a single gleam of light.
We had no matches. Everything that was in our pockets had been jolted out during the mad jaunt to the stone table, and now the revolver and cartridges which we had taken from One Eye had been lost by Holman during the slide down the mountain of volcanic ash that brought us to the bottom of the underground prison.
We plodded on for about an hour, then stopped simultaneously. At first I thought that the horror of the situation had affected my brain, but the fact that Holman had stopped abruptly at the same moment as I did choked back the cold fear that had rushed upon me. I was not insane! Holman was listening too! I seemed to feel that the tiny thread of sound which had set my pulses beating madly had also keyed him up to the highest tension.
After a minute of intense silence he put a question.
"Did you hear anything?"
"Did you?" I stammered.
"Are we mad, Verslun?" he asked hoarsely. "I thought—" He stopped and moved close to me. I heard his quick breathing as he groped to find me.
"Verslun, did you hear?" he whispered, gripping my arm. "I heard her speak."
"I thought I did," I breathed. "Perhaps—perhaps it was an echo."
For a few minutes we stood, our ears searching for the sound that had disturbed us. We seemed afraid to call out—afraid to quench the little spark of hope which had suddenly flared up in the despair that filled our breasts. We knew that our ears had lied, and we tried to lengthen the thrill by remaining perfectly silent.
The sound came again, and Holman sent a wild cry into the night that hemmed us in. We were not insane! The spark of hope blazed as we rushed headlong forward. The silvery voice of Barbara Herndon had come to us again through the terrible gloom!
It is impossible to set down any statement that will enable the reader to form a mental picture of the meeting which took place in that spot of eternal night. Hands groped for hands in the darkness, and sobs and cries and words of comfort went out into the silence. Edith and Barbara Herndon wept, the Professor shrieked out denunciations of Leith, and Holman and I were nearly choked by the lumps that rose in our throats.
Explanations came in broken sentences. The Professor's anger prevented him from giving the story in detail, and the girls were not in a condition to give a lucid account of their sufferings since the night we had left them to investigate the light in the hills. We gathered from the hysterical utterances, however, that Leith had rushed them to the hills on hearing from the escaped dancer that we had dodged the fate he intended for us when he had dispatched us to the table of the centipede. The reduction in his bodyguard caused him to make immediately for the secret retreat, and as he considered it inadvisable to press his argument with the Professor and Edith at that moment, he had lowered his three prisoners into the devil chamber into which we had accidentally fallen.
"This is the place you mentioned to me the night you left the camp," said the Professor.
"We mentioned?" repeated Holman in amazement. "We didn't know the place existed till we rolled into it!"
"But you read it out of the note that Soma dropped," cried the scientist. "Don't you remember where he threatened to put the five babies?"
"The Black Kindergarten!" I stammered.
"The Black Kindergarten," said the old man. "That is what the inhuman brute called the place when he lowered us into it. We are to stay here till I sign papers that will give him possession of my property, and till—till Edith consents to marry him!"
He flung the words out into the stillness, and for a few minutes no one spoke. The horror of the situation had the same effect upon me as a blow from a sandbag. Three days before, we were in possession of Leith's letter to the one-eyed man, in which he had remarked that we would be occupants of the place of eternal night, and yet we had not been able to avert the fate which the brute had in store for us in case the Professor and Edith Herndon refused to consider his villainous proposals. The Professor's money and the girl's hand! The words made me physically sick, and I sat down upon the floor of the place till the dizziness had passed from my brain.
"And food?" Holman put the question, but the words seemed to come to me from a great distance.
"He told us he would lower it to us once a day till we—till we came to our senses," said Edith Herndon quietly. "We received our first supply some hours ago."
She tried to speak bravely, but the little catch in her voice belied the courageous front which she endeavoured to assume under cover of the darkness. Barbara was silent, except for an occasional sob which she was unable to stifle, while the Professor poured forth his story of Leith's deception when he first met him in Sydney, and where the big scoundrel had poured into the ears of the laurel-hungry scientist the tales of skulls and ruins which he would find upon the Isle of Tears. The skulls and ruins were there, but it looked as if we would add our own skeletons to the crumbling bones of the long-dead Polynesians, the peculiarities of whose whitened brain cases were to supply the subject matter of the learned treatise that was to bring fame to the archæologist. It was an indescribably mournful reunion. We could not see each other, and when silence fell upon us I had a horrible sensation that the choking, depressing darkness of the place was wafting Edith Herndon away from me. I longed to find and clasp the hand that had taken mine the night on boardThe Waifwhen I made an offer of my services.
The Professor had explained that the opening through which they had been lowered was immediately above their heads. They had not moved from the spot lest they would not be able to find it again to obtain the food which Leith had promised to send till they saw fit to accede to his proposals, and when Holman suggested moving forward upon a tour of investigation the old man combated the idea vigorously.
"We will lose ourselves, and we will never be able to find our way back here to get the food," he cried.
"But we will never get out by remaining here," said Holman. "If he has made the acceptance of those proposals the only grounds upon which he will grant you your liberty, I don't see that it will serve any good to remain here taking the food he throws down."
"That's true," murmured Edith, and I blessed her mentally for the calm way in which she had uttered the words. The surrounding darkness had no terrors for her in comparison to the fate that awaited her above. The manner in which she spoke of the sallow-faced rogue convinced me that the proposals that had been made since the time that Leith had shone out in his true colours had produced a terror which she endeavoured to hide from her father and sister.
But the dark terrified the Professor. Although he viewed Leith's proposals with the greatest abhorrence, the hole above his head appeared to him to be the only path back to the outer world, and he was afraid to stray.
"There might be another way out of the place," said Holman. "Can Verslun and I make the attempt and leave you three here?"
"No, no!" cried Barbara. "Please stay here with us!"
"I think it will be better if we remain together," said Edith. "If you and Mr. Verslun did discover an opening it would be exceedingly difficult to find your way back here, and if you got out of this place you might not be able to reach the opening through which we were lowered. Perhaps the way to it is known only to Leith."
Edith's argument was sound. Our finding them in that black cavern was purely an accident, and it was hardly probable that Holman and myself would be able to find our way back to the spot if we went off on a tour of investigation. Personally I had no desire to leave the girls. Leith's deviltry had so impressed me that I considered him capable of anything, and if he thought we were out of the way, I had no doubt that he would take immediate steps to break down the courage of the Professor and his daughters by means that were familiar to him. I could well understand that Edith Herndon's love for her father would compel her to sacrifice herself if she saw the aged Professor in front of the great stone centipede, and that might happen at any moment now that Leith considered that he had disposed of all active opposition.
For hours we debated the matter, and finally the Professor was won over. He agreed to move forward on an inspection tour of the vast subterranean place the moment the next supply of food came from above, and we waited anxiously. During the wait Holman and I made short trips into the darkness, but we were careful that we did not get out of the hearing of the two girls, who called at intervals so that we would be able to find our way back. The place was awe-inspiring. Its size could only be guessed at. Stones that were flung in a certain direction where the floor sloped gradually downward could be heard rolling for many minutes after they left our hands.
We guessed that it was early morning when we heard from Leith. A blazing torch illuminated a round hole about seventy feet above our heads, and Holman and I immediately remained quiet so that the big scoundrel would be in ignorance of the reunion. There was no possibility of the torchlight making our presence known. It would take a score of torches to enable him to see us.
Leith thrust his head over the edge of the hole while Soma held the torch, and, with a coarse laugh, the ruffian inquired if his victims had changed their minds.
"No, we have not," replied the Professor, his thin, quavering voice sounding strangely weak after the deep-throated bellow of the bully on top.
"Well, you'll change it soon," cried Leith. "I'll leave you down there for another day or two, and then I'll get you up to do some stunts. Mind you, I mean a proper marriage with Miss Edith, Professor!The Waifwill run us up to the German missionary station while you take charge here for your affectionate son-in-law."
I opened my mouth to fling an answer at the taunting scoundrel, but Holman surmised my intention and begged me to hold my tongue.
"They'll get no food if you cry out!" he whispered. "Don't speak to him, man!"
The Professor made no answer to the offensive remark, and after a few minutes' silence Leith drew back, and Soma started to lower a bundle of food into the dark prison.
"That rope might prove useful," whispered Holman. "Feel around and see if you can get hold of it before he pulls it up."
The light of the torch which Leith held only illuminated about six feet of the rope as the native passed it into the prison, so Holman and I, standing directly under the opening, felt around in the darkness as the bundle of food came toward the ground.
"I have it!" murmured Holman. "Wait till he unhooks the bundle."
We let the rope run through our hands till the package of food touched the rock floor. The line had a small hook upon the end, and the moment Soma felt that the parcel had reached the bottom of the place, he dexterously unhooked it with a slight jerk and started to haul in.
"Now!" whispered the youngster. "A big pull! We might bring the nigger through the hole!"
We went very close to performing the feat. The jolt took the native unawares; he fell forward on his knees and barely saved himself from dropping into the opening. The rope came toward us with a run, but as we pulled furiously it stopped with a sudden jerk, and we knew that the other end was tied to some projection on the surface.
Leith laughed derisively, and the laugh maddened Holman. He clutched the rope and started to climb rapidly upward. I couldn't see him, but I felt his shoes as he wriggled away into the darkness above me, and I held my breath, I gripped the rope and kept it taut so that Leith and Soma might not discover the ruse.
But Leith had more cunning than we credited him with. After a futile pull at the rope he thrust the pine torch through the hole, and as it dropped into the cavern it illuminated the figure of Holman, who was then about fifteen feet from the floor. "Cut the rope!" roared the ruffian. "Quick, Soma! Cut the rope and break the —— fool's neck!"
Holman, realizing that it was impossible to reach the top, saved himself a nasty fall by sliding down the rope while the native slashed at it, but he had not touched the floor when the ninety feet of strong manilla came whirling down through the darkness. And the rope was not the only gift we received. Angry at discovering that we had escaped death in our plunge into the place, Leith poured forth a stream of blasphemy that outdid the effort he had made when kicking Holman and me on the afternoon the youngster had wounded him. He cursed us till the shocked Professor dragged his two daughters away out of hearing, and there we found the three when we had gathered up the rope and the food.
"We might as well make a try to explore the place," said Holman. "The scoundrel says that he will not send down any more food till you accept his proposals."
"Then we'll never get any," said Edith Herndon quietly. "I pray that God will show us the way out of this place."