CHAPTER IX

INTO THE VALLEY OF ECHOES

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

"I hope you slept well?" he grinned.

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

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

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

"Now who goes first?" asked Leith.

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

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

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

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

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

"But I'm coming," I snapped.

"What for?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How is that, Soma?" he spluttered.

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

"But what did the wizard men say?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'll not laugh again, not in this spot," murmured Barbara Herndon.

"Those noises chilled my blood."

In spite of a blazing sun we found the air unpleasantly cool in the shaded spots as we struggled slowly through the undergrowth. The moist flabbiness of uncommon tropical plants startled us whenever the leaves brushed against our faces and hands, while the constant popping of the green pods of the nupu, the sounds resembling nothing so much as the groans of a person in extreme pain, did not have a cheering effect upon the party. The Professor was the only one who seemed to be actually enjoying himself, and even his joy was tempered by a malignant Fate.

While endeavouring to dot down some information tendered him by Soma, he had tripped upon a vine that was in wait for such an opportunity, and he skinned his nose badly upon a projecting rock.

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

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

"Soma much friend of big man."

"How do you know?" I questioned.

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

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

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

We ate our midday meal in the sombre silence and again plunged forward.

The appearance of gayety which Barbara Herndon had tried to a.s.sume after we had left the Vermilion Pit had pa.s.sed away, and once again there was the look of pathetic helplessness upon the faces of the two girls.

During the luncheon Holman and I endeavoured to make conversation, but the thoughts of both were upon their surroundings, and they answered questions with an effort. The prison-like appearance of the valley, and the utter absence of sound, both of bird and insect life, had a depressing effect upon their nerves.