I shut my eyes to escape the fascination of the depths, and I gripped Holman's ankles till my nails burrowed into his flesh. I felt his body heave with a tremendous effort, then another yell, shorter but more terrifying than the first, told me that the struggle was over.

I dragged Holman back to safety, and, stretched side by side upon the rock, we listened. Down in the pit--miles, leagues away, something was falling!

The youngster pulled himself together after the silence had settled upon the place like a film.

"Let's tie the rope and get the girls up here," he said quietly, "In a while--in a little while--I can crawl on to the ledge and pull them up with a rope."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXIV

THE WAY TO HEAVEN

With quick-beating pulses we fixed the rope and shouted directions down the slippery pa.s.sage to the girls and the Professor, and inside of ten minutes they were beside us, looking out with frightened eyes at the coloured wall of the opposite side of the pit. The faces of Edith and Barbara looked pale and careworn, but they smiled bravely when Holman a.s.sured them that we were within a yard of the path by which we had crossed to the Valley of Echoes.

"Be brave," he said cheerfully. "You'll be on your way back to the sh.o.r.e before many hours have pa.s.sed by. There is no--no danger now."

I do not know if the two girls understood the meaning of his words, but they asked no questions. Somehow I think that they knew what had happened. Those two terrible cries must have reached their ears as they waited at the foot of the chute that led to the wizards' seat, but if they had any doubts concerning their origin, they refrained from seeking information. But the Professor knew. A melancholy that had tied his tongue all through the long day in the Black Kindergarten left him as he came to the sunlight, and he became light-hearted and merry. He felt that he had been relieved of his load of nightmares, and the dangers of the climb to the rocky shelf above our heads did not trouble him in the least.

It was Holman who performed the heroic work on the late afternoon of that eventful day. With the rope tied around his waist, he pushed himself out as he had done twice before during the preceding hour, then, gripping the edge of the shelf, dragged himself forward. For a moment, as he swung over the depths, it looked as if he would be unable to drag himself up, and we clung on to the rope and watched him with frightened eyes. But youth and courage won the day. Slowly, inch by inch, he lifted himself, the lips of the two girls moving in dumb prayer; then we lost sight of him as he drew his legs up on to the ledge, and we knew that we were safe!

The youngster secured the rope to a projection on the shelf above, and the Professor, nervous but game, was the next to make the perilous journey. It was blood-curdling to watch the old man swaying over the depths while Holman, lying flat upon his stomach, gripped him beneath the arms and dragged the poor old scientist to safety.

Barbara went next, and when the rope was lowered once more I secured it around Edith's waist. I held her in my arms as I pushed her body forward to Holman's strong hands that waited just below the ledge, and for one brief instant her lips came close to mine, and with a mad, wild love that had been born in danger, where there was no time for words, I stooped and kissed her. And even in that moment of extreme peril a faint smile swept over her face as she looked up into mine, and I knew that she understood.

It was nearly sunset when we moved away from the top of the Vermilion Pit, but we had not gone ten paces when we stopped. A yell came out of the place, then another and another, and Holman and I rushed back to the edge. Down beneath us, on the slippery Ledge of Death, two natives were locked in a death grip, and a single glance told us that they were Maru and Soma. The Raretongan had chased Leith's brown lieutenant on to the path, and now they were struggling like demons in the mad endeavour to thrust each other into the depths.

"Quick!" cried Holman. "The rope!"

He slipped the line around his waist as the pair moved to the edge. Maru was dragging the big savage with a strength that was surprising, but it was a certainty that if Soma went over the edge the Raretongan would keep him company.

Holman slipped down upon the Ledge, but before he could reach them a dusty, bleeding figure stumbled through the entrance to the cavern, a knife flashed in the sunlight, and Maru was drawn back into safety as Soma released his grip. The newcomer was Kaipi!

"He kill Toni!" he cried. "Toni all same brother to me. Toni work with me long time Suva."

Toni, the pupil of the Maori, who had instructed him on Levuka wharf as to the way out of Black Fernando's h.e.l.l, had been avenged at last.

It was a happy reunion we held upon the edge of the pit. Edith and Barbara bound up the wounds of the two faithful natives, and the muscular Raretongan was so touched with their tender ministrations that he foraged in his tattered sulu, and with tears of grat.i.tude in his big brown eyes he handed back to Barbara the emerald ring with which she had caused him to desert from Leith's service.

"Me want no pay from you!" he cried. "Me work for you all same nothing!"

We learned that the one-eyed white man and the last of the Wizards of the Centipede had been dispatched by Maru and Kaipi, and we also received the news that the four carriers had bolted back to the yacht.

The latter piece of information somewhat dampened our spirits. We felt that Leith and Newmarch were friends, and we wondered what the silent, thin-faced captain would do when he heard the story of Black Fernando's discomfiture.

On account of Kaipi's weak state we camped that evening on the same spot that we had occupied on the second night upon the Isle of Tears, and at daybreak next morning we set out for the little bay. We were all happy.

The Professor was as pleased as a boy on his vacation, and he had returned again to his task of taking notes. The two girls were radiant; Kaipi was joyful because the murdered Toni had been revenged, and Maru was in the seventh heaven of delight because Barbara had informed him that he could go to San Francisco with the party as a reward for his devotion. As for Holman and myself, we forgot the loneliness of the place in our joy. The same trees peered at us, the same cablelike vines gripped our legs, and the same weird rock ma.s.ses blocked our paths, but love was in our hearts, and morbid thoughts were chased away.

On the afternoon of the second day from the pit we reached the sh.o.r.e of the little bay, but _The Waif_ was not there. Newmarch had evidently discovered that Leith had not been quite successful in the carrying out of his plans, and fearful of his own share in the business, he had bolted with the yacht. The South Sea breeds piratical thoughts, and from our own knowledge of the captain we guessed that in his particular case those thoughts would be easily generated.

"He thinks he'll save his own skin by clearing out," said Holman, "but I'm satisfied that Dame Justice is an expert with the lariat. If he's not in jail before three months are out, my name is not Will Holman."

It was the missionary schooner _Messenger of Light_ that saw our beacon upon the island on the fourth day after we had reached the spot where we had landed from _The Waif_. The beautiful white vessel hove to outside the entrance to the little bay, a boat came ash.o.r.e, and twenty minutes after they had first sighted our signal we were on the way to Wellington, New Zealand.

"And the 'Fris...o...b..ats call there," murmured Barbara, "Joy! Joy! Joy!"

The moon was whitening the sleeping Pacific when Edith and I stood looking over the taffrail as the _Messenger of Light_ swept on her course. From nearby came the voice of Professor Herndon relating his experiences to a missionary who was returning from the Marquesas. A soft island melody was wafted from the fo'c'stle, and the night was alive with all the witchery of the tropics.

"Edith," I whispered, as I took her hand, "I am a common sailorman, but if you could love me I--I--"

I stopped in confusion, and as she had done on a former occasion, she came to the rescue of my stammering tongue.

"You are a big, true man," she murmured. "If you had not come with us we should not have returned from that awful place. G.o.d let you listen to that song of the White Waterfall so that we might be saved."

Some minutes afterward she released herself from my arms. "Let us find Will and Barbara," she said softly. "We will share each other's happiness."

And as I followed her across the p.o.o.p, a tremendous surge of joy rose up and filled my heart. The whole world was clean and good, and in my glorious exultation I whispered a prayer for the soul of John Leith, alias Black Fernando.

THE END