"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 a.s.sured 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 d.a.m.ned the Professor's idiotic craving for notoriety as we waded through the clammy creepers in search of the trail made by the party. The p.r.i.c.kly 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. Ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sent to the request. His short-sightedness prevented him from noticing the frown which pa.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII

THE PIT

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

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

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

The path of the preceding day was smooth compared to the ground we climbed over that morning. There was no trail as far as we could see.

Soma, who was in the lead, found his way by occasional marks that could only be visible to the eye of a native. Barbara Herndon remarked on one occasion that there was danger of our getting lost, but Leith grinned at the remark.

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

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

He did not consider the sufferings of the two girls; least of all did he think that Holman or myself was doing anything to safeguard his life or property. He was blind to everything but the natural curiosities around him, and he made frequent entries in the notebook that was to be his crutch to Olympus.

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We halted at midday in an ugly-looking spot far up the shoulder of the mountain."]

"This horrible silence makes me long for the clean sound of the waves,"

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

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

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

"What should we have done?" I asked.

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

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

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