A DEAD MAN'S SECRET
That was a long, weird night in the jungle.
What hour it was the tiger finally departed was more than Grenville
could have told. And whether the daylight, finally approaching, or a
royal disgust, or some easily captured morsel, had served to urge the
brute upon his way, was equally unknown.
Grenville descended from his perch at last, when the palms and ferns
had darkly emerged from the velvety blackness of the thicket. He took
up his club, left the bomb in its place, and, searching about,
recovered the sheet of parchment dropped in the darkness. Aware that
the silently moving enemy might still be lurking by the pathway, he
made his way no less boldly from the shadows, and came duly to the hill.
His chagrin was complete when he told Elaine that his night had been
spent in vain. She had scarcely slept, as he could see, for her face
was still pale with worry, while her eyes showed her lack of rest.
"I shall try again to-night," he said, but from that he was dissuaded.
The strain was too great upon Elaine, if not upon himself. He
presently promised to wait a day, and see what might develop. He could
not subject his companion to another such session of agonizing worry as
Elaine had undergone until he felt more certain of results.
But to wait a day in idleness, while he felt that every hour that
passed might bring new dangers upon them, could scarcely accord with
his intentions.
He declared the tiger an arrant coward, who dared not confront him in
the day.
"We have faced far greater perils than this," he told her, as they ate
their simple breakfast, "and we may be called upon to face the like
again. We're enormously fortunate to have nothing more than this
striped beast to limit our freedom on the island."
Elaine could have thought of countless other animals, including snakes,
that would amply curtail her roaming inclinations, but she was not in
the least in the habit of rehearsing her many dreads.
Grenville went promptly to work, after breakfast, fetching clay in the
basket from the pit. It was not brought up to the terrace, but dumped
in a heap beside the hollow tree, in the burned space under the walls.
This tree, he at last explained to Elaine, he intended to use as a
smelter.
"It's a natural chimney I've annexed," was the way he presented the
problem. "If I built a fire in it now, however, it would burn, and be
destroyed. I intend to line it with clay--plaster it on, inside, some
eight or ten feet high. Then when this fire-resisting substance dries,
I can smelt my metal and run it in the molds. The draught will make a
prodigious heat--far more than brass requires."
"I see," said Elaine. "Meantime I am utterly idle."
"I'll cut you those needles. You can knit," he said, "unless you
prefer to go fishing."
He had come to the camp for one of the jugs in which to carry water for
the clay. This task was temporarily abandoned while he sat in the
shade, beside Elaine, and carved out the promised tools. These were
made of wood, instead of bone, since the latter material was far too
hard for his fragment of a blade, and one of the woods provided by the
jungle was so straightly grained and elastic, that even a slender
splinter would bend like steel before it broke.
For a short time after they were finished, he sat there to watch the
craft displayed by Elaine's nimble fingers, as a slender bit of the
fiber stuff began to accumulate in stitches.
"You were made for a home-builder's mate," he said, and arose and left
her to her thoughts, and to certain inflammable emotions.
He carried his jug down the trail and to the spring, resuming the
business in hand. The sight of the pool not only served to arouse his
disgust anew, but he was likewise reminded of the documents, reposing
still unread in his pocket. The bomb, he knew, should be carried back
to camp, lest the fuse become dampened in the thicket. With this and
his jug full of water, he hastened back to the foot of the trail--and
forgot them both forthwith.
The half sheet of paper, readable at last, had enslaved him then and
there.
He sat on a rock, with the paper on his knee, and was lost to all
things else.
For a moment he thought, perhaps, he had dreamed of obtaining the key
to the hidden message. But one hurried glance at the words he had read
convinced him the trick had been done.
On the back of the sheet he began at once to jot down the signs of
which he felt most certain. The results, as he made them, were these:
[Illustration: THREE, HILL, HAUNTED, and their symbols]
The next word, according to his deductions, should be "Island." This,
he felt, was indisputably confirmed by the fact it contained precisely
the required number of "letters," with the sign for L, A, and D,
already discovered, occupying their proper positions. He, therefore,
added:
[Illustration: "ISLAND" and its symbols]
to his growing collection of letters, and promptly produced the
following results by the process of substitution:
[Illustration: many words, and their symbols]
There could be so little doubt, after that, concerning such words as
"Under," "High," "Important," and "Water," which supplied the
characters, U, G, M, P, W, and O, which was also suggested in "Or,"
before "Haunted," that a bit of additional substitution very promptly
cleared the entire affair.
Grenville jotted it down, to make sense, in the following fashion:
"Under tree, Three-Hill, or Haunted Island, Cave. Get in (during) high
water (in) Spring time when noise loud. Important. Make no mistake.
Map on Buli shows same."
The one word which he felt to be doubtful was "Buli," which, he
confessed, might as readily be "Zuli," "Juli," or "Quli," but this was
of no significance, one way or another. Its meaning was still obscure.
There were several things in the message or statement, however, that
confirmed his earlier uneasiness. The principal of these was the
statement that it was important for the possible seekers of some cavern
under the greater wall of rock to visit the island only during the time
when the hideously haunting sounds were at their height. This argued,
he thought, that the sounds would finally subside, or altogether cease,
when complications--doubtless in the form of visitors--might be
expected to develop.
That the visitors would be natives and, probably, Dyaks, Grenville
could have no doubt. As to what there was in the cave beneath the
rock, he had small curiosity only, since it was hardly likely such
tools as he desired would be so concealed from a prying world, and
tools alone had value for him now.
He could not doubt, however, that something there was in the cave here
described, for which men had risked their lives. He thought of the
headless skeletons, and then of the mummy in chains.
Suddenly, at thought of that guardian of the barque, his heart gave an
added leap. He snatched from his pocket the parchment referred to as a
map. He could instantly see, by the light of day, that the leathery
substance was leather, indeed, of the most grewsomely repellent
description! It was simply _tanned human skin_!
And abruptly he understood that phrase--"Map on Buli shows same." The
pyramids represented the island's three great hills, and other signs
the cave. The pole with a knob, on the tallest hill, was the tree so
near his camp.
Aye, the thing was a map in very truth--and once it had been ON Buli!
For Buli was he who sat in the barque, chained fast to prevent his
escape!
_This map he had borne, tattooed on his breast, from which it had
finally been stripped!_