THE JUNGLE TRAIL.
They sighted it at dawn. It revealed itself in the growing light,
before the sun rose above the sea-line, like an image developing on a
negative in the dark room, somber, gradually acquiring definite shape,
a blot against the purple-black of the sky where the stars were winking
out.
The skipper had found it unerringly; he told them he expected to pick
it up at daylight, and here it was, darkly sinister, spray booming
along iron-bound cliffs, heights veiled in mist. The sound of the surf
rolled back to them as they skirted the coast to the east, seeking for
some place to land. It was not going to be easy, and they held off
until the light strengthened.
It came with a rush as the disk of the sun rolled up from the tumbling
sea rim, day instantly proclaimed. The island woke to life. Myriads of
birds rose from the cliffs and from tiny, outlying islets; gulls and
gannets, squas and boobies, whirling and screeching, then winging out
to sea to some shoal where they would find good fishing.
There were other birds, of the land, squawking parrots above the thick
forest that verged the iron walls rising sheer from the spouting sea.
Above the bush lofted three torn pinnacles, fangs that tore the vapors
writhing about them. There were deep cañons here and there, dark in
shadow; small coves; waterfalls, leaping to the beach over sheer
precipices.
Then they saw the god. A cliff was sharply set back, and they only saw
the upper part of the image, flaring livid red in the sunrise, carved,
it seemed, from the living rock. It was of gigantic proportions, the
art primitive, so primitive it might have been the work of some
futurist, striving to simplify curves and lines, to crystallize
expressions.
The face was long, a long nose, flattened, bridgeless, but with flaring
nostrils. A wide mouth, thin-lipped, austere, yet subtly sensual, with
the hint of a cruel sneer at the corners. The eyes were carved so that
they suggested a malignant glance as the crimson light blazed full upon
them. The ears touched the narrow shoulders.
The body, what they saw of it, was misshapen, out of all proportion,
small arms, with the hands resting on knees far apart, deep shadow
between them. It stood out of the cliff in full and startling relief,
infinitely evil, leering. It had a sort of crown, hewn from the summit
of the cliff and the foliage back of this looked like plumes. The whole
aspect was baleful, brooding, gazing out to sea like the old gods at
Easter Island, whose origin and purpose no man has yet discovered.
The Chinese gazed at it stolidly. The man at the helm paid no attention
and the captain was occupied with the shore line, looking for some spot
where he could send a boat ashore. There was no indication of a lagoon.
The island rose straight from the waves that ravened all about it.
Tiki's attitude was curious. He squatted on deck and bowed his head to
the planks, in deference rather than fealty. This was his fetish, but
he did not seem to be afraid. The priests of Moloch may have felt no
terror at their horrible, blood-demanding image.
The girl shuddered, and Stanton had to tell himself sharply that here
was only a thing hewn from lifeless stone. It glared at them and, as
the morning clouds dissolved under the sun, its lips seem to quiver
scornfully.
"Lifeless, I am," it seemed to say, "yet man-made from things he
sensed, the brooding influences of this solitary isle, born of fire and
smoke, delivered in water. Influences that may still be conjured from
the sea, the sky, the core of the earth. I represent them and I bid you
beware."
Bizarre and fantastic thoughts these; but the image itself was only
concrete thought. It seemed to proclaim the place dangerous, cynically
warning the intruder. It appeared to hold many tragic secrets, reaching
back through the centuries.
* * * * *
A spur of land, a cape like a high fin, reached out far into the sea.
As they passed it a putrid smell enveloped them. It was like the odor
of a glue factory and it pursued them on the breeze until distance made
it bearable. This was the stench from piles of shell set out long since
to rot so that the shells might be more readily searched for pearls.
The shell itself was valuable.
Here there was a deep indentation in the island, and placid water
showed behind a foaming barrier of lava reef, not coral, that
paralleled the shore. This must have been the diving ground for the
precious bivalves. The skipper surveyed it narrowly, seeking an
entrance. The reef ended presently, and he came about, hugging the
land, one man casting the lead from the bobstay and chanting out the
depth. It was satisfactory and the tide was with them as they glided
along between the barrier and the shore, once more encountering the
foul odor of decay until they tacked into the cleft and made slowly up
it, foresail down and mainsail peaked, with the current.
* * * * *
They were in a somber water cañon, still in shadow, though, higher up
the fanged peaks glowed in the sunrise and the timber on the loftier
slopes took on vivid coloring. The ravine turned sharply and they saw
a narrow beach lined with dark-green mangroves from which a stream
issued. There were signs of habitation here, a long shed of thatched
roof and wattled walls, two houses of the same type. But there was no
indication of life, no hail. The place lay wrapped in silence as the
Fahine glided slowly on.
The masts of a vessel showed their tops above water a hundred yards
out--a sunken schooner. It was a depressing sight, but Stanton twisted
a measure of hope from it which he handed to the girl.
"Loo Fong didn't find the pearls," he said. "I think this means that
your father is still on the island. They sank his ship to prevent his
leaving."
He tried to make it convincing, and Lucy Haines essayed a pitiful smile.
"I hope so," she replied, "but why doesn't he show himself? Why doesn't
some one answer?"
"They may be asleep," he said, and shouted. The echo came back from
the cliff, rebounded from the opposing one. The Chinese captain found
bottom to his liking, the cable slipped out to twelve fathoms, and a
boat was lowered. It was impossible to tell from those yellow faces
what they thought of the situation, but the rowers took rifles with
them, pistols holstered at their belts. Stanton took his automatic and
another revolver. He had shortened a belt for the girl and she also
carried a gun at her hip.
She had dressed for the landing in breeches and high-laced boots, and
she looked like a tight-lipped boy, her expression much as Stanton
had seen it on the street in Suva. Tiki slid down the fall rope and
squatted in the bows. The captain had given him a knife and a leather
belt in which he thrust it above his _sulu_ kilt.
The silence was profound. The sea birds had gone, the land birds
settled down. The only sound was the melancholy cooing of doves. In the
water appeared the scything fins of sharks on some mysterious patrol.
The boat grounded and the rowers hauled it beyond the rise of the
flooding tide. Crabs scuttled along the shingle. Blocks of lava
protruded here and there. Beach vines straggled over black sand.
Stanton tried to save the girl the sight of the skeletons. There were
six of them, the bones scattered, picked clean by crabs, in front of
the long shed. They lay in plain view, and she uttered a low cry and
halted, then started to hurry forward, checked by Stanton's hand on her
arm.
"There's no clothing," he said. "Your father's not there." It was scant
comfort. There were a few lengths of cloth, but he thought these the
loin coverings of the men Haines had with him. The grisly objects were
separated as if they had fallen making a stand against invaders. The
yellow men investigated as Stanton led the girl aside. Tiki looked at
the skeletons incuriously.
The captain reported briefly:
"They all Kanaka. Some got hole in head. Bullet make. No white man
there."
Nor anywhere else, it seemed, as they searched the shed, half full of
lustrous shells; the two houses, one of which held some of Haines's
belongings that brought tears to the girl's eyes, though she strove
to check them. Both huts showed signs of search. The winds had erased
all footprints. The shell was valuable, but it had been disdained. It
looked as if the dead men had been wantonly shot down at the first
encounter.
"He got away," said Stanton. "We'll find him somewhere." But he held
faint hope of finding Haines alive. The atmosphere of murder and sudden
death possessed the place.
"We'll stay here until we've searched the island," he said to the
captain.
"Can do," the skipper answered. It seemed a stupendous, futile task.
Towering cliffs, dense jungle and barren, precipitous crags, deep
clefts, hidden valleys, caverns: a myriad places where a man might stow
himself away, or lie dead.
They spread out, hallooing, looking in all likely spots. The captain
made Tiki understand what they were seeking and he nodded, came to
Stanton, took his hand and set it on his breast, starting off on a
quest of his own, trotting along the beach, disappearing up a ravine
choked with guava scrub. They saw no more of him that day as they
searched without finding any trace of Haines, living or dead. Night
fell with tropic swiftness on their utter lack of success.
* * * * *
The skipper, at least, looked also for the pearls. He had his own
instructions. To Stanton, the discovery of Haines was more important,
even aside from thought of the girl, who had stayed beside him all day
as they tried in vain to solve the riddle of what had happened to her
father. Let them find Haines and, if he was alive, the pearls would be
forthcoming.
The fear grew on him--he knew it grew on the girl also--that Haines had
been killed by the raiders because he refused to give them up or tell
where he kept them. Only the lack of a body offset this dread and a
body was easily disposed of. He did not try to comfort Lucy Haines; to
do that would be practically an acknowledgment there was no hope. He
got her to eat on the plea that she must keep her strength for renewal
of search the next day.
They slept aboard. No sail had been in sight up to nightfall. A lookout
had been maintained on a cliff and, since the search had extended to
the crags, they had seen the whole circle of the horizon. They had won
the race down, but their advantage was checked by the search. When Loo
Fong arrived, with Johnson, there was going to be trouble.
Stanton was up at dawn. He dressed swiftly, going on deck. The girl
was already there, pale from a sleepless night. She was gazing at the
island with an expression of hopelessness that she tried to banish as
she saw Stanton.
"I'm not going to leave here until I know what has happened to him,"
she said, her voice firm, her mouth and chin resolute as she finished
the determined sentence. He did not answer her. There was nothing
to say. He was not going to let her stay alone. The question of
conventions did not enter into the matter. Conventions vanished in
these latitudes.
"He's all I have," she said. It was in his mind, his heart, to deny
this, but it was not the time for it. Complications were likely to
settle matters, not as they would have them, but as the fates willed.
Motutabu lay in sunshine, but it was emphatically a savage place. The
Chinese had buried the skeletons, but they were not to be forgotten.
Tragedy brooded over the island.
"We'll have to arrange some sort of systematic search," he said,
foreseeing how impossible was the task. An army, seeking for weeks,
might not hope to unearth the secrets of the wild jungle, impenetrable
in most places. The seabirds were winging out, others shrilling their
morning ecstasy; fish leaped in the water while, up and down, two
sharks roved as if they had tasted blood and scented more.
"We've got to eat," he said. "It's just a question of fuel."
"I suppose so," she answered wearily.
They went below and breakfast was served. Overhead the crew padded
about their tasks, washing down the decks, ordinary duties that they
carried on. Stanton saw two tears on her cheeks as she tried to drink
the strong coffee. She wiped them away, but the drink choked her.
There was a singsong cry on deck that had a stirring note in it.
Stanton thought that the Lehua must have been sighted.
"Something's happened," he said. "I'll see what it is." The girl looked
at him, startled. For a moment hope flashed in her eyes and died out
at the sight of his grim face. The captain came hurrying down the
companionway.
"Tiki!" he said. "He come along beach. I think he find something."
They raced on deck. The shore boat was ready, the armed rowers in it.
Tiki was at the water's edge, gesticulating, pointing to the heights.
The girl was trembling as the oars bent to the short, sturdy strokes.
She set her hand on Stanton's arm, and he laid his own over it. Her
lips moved silently. He knew that she was praying that her father was
still alive, fighting off the thought of other news.
"Call to him, please," she asked the skipper, "Ask him if--if--"
The captain stood up in the stern, handling the steering sweep, and
shouted a few syllables. Tiki shouted back.
"He alive," said the skipper, and the girl broke down as Stanton put
his arm about her and she set her head against his shoulder and wept in
the revulsion of relief.
Tiki had found him, with his knowledge of jungle craft, looking for
sign by instinct, finding it where others would have sought in vain. He
pointed out certain places as they trailed him up the ravine in which
he had vanished the night before. Stanton could see little. A fragment
of broken lava, a snapped stem, but the savage had read all unerringly.
* * * * *
They climbed high, following an ancient path hacked through the
bush, the ground hard-beaten, a relic of the time when Tiki lived on
Motutabu. The trees, matted and bound together with undergrowth and
vines, rose on either side like walls. Great orchids swung, brilliant
butterflies hovered about them like living flowers.
They came to where the trail forked and here was a pyramid of
crumbling skulls. Tiki took the right-hand path. It led to a deserted,
half-ruined village back of walls of coral, in which bamboos grew along
the top. There was a heavy gateway, sagging now, stilted houses, whose
roofs had decayed, the wattled walls torn by the weather, rotting from
the rains.
There was a sing-sing ground with a great banyan tree, whose boughs
were decked with strings of skulls. One great building had collapsed.
Two stone images had fallen on their faces, tall drumlogs, carven like
totem poles, lay prone. The earthquake had flung them down. The place
was littered with signs of hasty, frenzied flight.
Tiki led them through this abandoned capital of Motutabu, pressing
on ever upward by paths that the jungle was already reclaiming. They
climbed above the forest and crossed a plateau of high yellow grass
that terminated at a great rift, at the bottom of which was a lake of
dark water, divided into unequal parts by a sharp ridge that led to the
other side. There the crags began.
It was a narrow and perilous crossing. The volcanic rock was badly
decomposed and it scaled and broke as they passed, the fragments
bounding down to the still water, far below.
On the other side they came to a ledge and Tiki turned and made
gestures, nodding at them, talking in excited gutturals.
"He speak we soon find," the captain interpreted.
They had to go in single file along that narrow way. Once Tiki pointed
to some dark marks on the rock.
"That blood," said the captain. The girl shuddered and Stanton steadied
her. It was the dry season. Such stains would linger. Haines had been
wounded. Suddenly Tiki stopped where a tangle of vines cascaded down
the cliff that backed the ledge. He drew them aside and disclosed a
narrow cleft, a fissure made ages past in some upheaval.
It led to a little glen that was merely an oval enlargement of the
fissure. Its sides were thick with moss. Water trickled down and formed
a pool. There was shrubbery, a few trees, guava scrub. The sun never
reached this hidden place in which Haines had found sanctuary. They saw
a little shelter of boughs by the pool and saw him lying there, gaunt,
haggard, his face covered with a beard, his eyes deep sunken, but with
light in them, as the girl gave a cry and ran forward to kneel beside
him.
He was reduced almost to skin and bone. One shoulder and a foot were
crudely bandaged. His voice was barely audible.
Stanton had brought along a first-aid kit and a flask of brandy. Lucy
gave some to her father and a faint flush came into his hollow cheeks.
"I thought you were a ghost," he said faintly. "How did you come here?
It was just in time. I wouldn't have lasted--much longer--my dear."
He closed his eyes and Stanton thought he was gone, but the pulse still
fluttered feebly. The girl gave him more brandy.
"He's starved," she said. "We must get him down to the boat. Thank God
he's still alive!" The pearls were forgotten. The Chinese captain had
got a fire started. One of the crew put on some water to heat.
"We'll have to be careful how we feed him," said Stanton. "I've got
some beef cubes. We'll have to make a litter, and those wounds should
be looked to. He doesn't seem to have any fever."
In the hope of Tiki's discovery they had brought up certain equipment,
including the utensil in which the water was warming. The girl
dissolved the cubes and added a little brandy, while Stanton unbound
the foot. A bullet had gone through the small bones. The wound showed
in a purple pucker. There had been inflammation, but, with the fever,
it had been starved out of him. The lead had passed through and there
was no infection. It was the same with the shoulder. Haines was
terribly weak, but he had been a strong man and he had survived.
He managed to swallow the beef tea. It was all they dared allow him.
Stanton cleansed the wounds and temporarily dressed and bandaged them.
The litter was being made by the sailors. Haines insisted upon talking.
Stanton thought it might be better for him than repression.
* * * * *
"They nearly got me," he said. "They got my men. They'd have had me but
for chance. They came early in the morning expecting to catch us all
asleep, and they butchered my boys, without giving them a chance. I saw
it and could do nothing. They were after the pearls. They couldn't have
found them. They tortured two of my men to find out, but they didn't
know. It was the Lehua. They were all in it, but it was Loo Fong who
brought them. I nearly got him. It was this way--let me talk, Lucy, I
haven't talked for days, not since I went out of my head.
"I wanted meat. There are goats up here in the crags and I came up
overnight to get a kid or two. We were running short of grub, you see,
and were pretty well fed up on fish. We were going back in a few days.
We cleaned the patches and were rotting out the last of the shell. A
lot of pearls. We're rich, Lucy. Luck's turned, after all.
"I saw the schooner coming in. I didn't recognize it. Thought at first
Cheung had sent it. I didn't suspect anything, but started down the
mountain. There's a place across the grass where you can see the beach.
Time I got there, they had anchored and were sending a boat ashore.
They were all like ants from the height. I saw my men come out of their
hut and run back again. Those devils were armed, of course, and they
didn't even wait to parley. Some of them went to my house. Then the
butchery started. My boys were not armed. I had my rifle with me. I had
one extra clip along. It was all over in a few minutes and I couldn't
help them. They'd have got me if I had been there. I ran down the trail
when I saw what was happening and then they started up after me. I
suppose they got out of one of my men that I was up here after goats.
They burned the men's feet in the fire, damn them.
"One has to keep to the trails. I started back for the crags. They
beat all through the grass and then they started to cross the big gap.
I fired at them, hit one of them. He fell into the lake. That was a
mistake, I suppose; it gave me away; but I was seeing red. On the
next shot my rifle jammed. They came over and they hunted me all day,
spreading out. The crew were black men and it was easy work for them.
They sighted me three times. Once they hit me, in the shoulder.
"I saw they'd get me sooner or later. I couldn't stay in the crags.
They had me nearly surrounded, but I got past them, down to the ledge
just below here. My only chance was to bolt across the ridge. But they
spotted me. They had me on the ledge. I knew who they were then. It
was Loo Fong who hit me in the foot as I bolted for cover. I didn't
feel it for the moment, though I had a shoeful of blood. I was bleeding
from the shoulder, weak. I dodged out of sight and then I saw my last
chance. I knew the cleft, though I had never been up it. A wounded dove
flew into it one day and I had gone after it. I thought the vines might
hide me. There was a loose bowlder on the ledge and I shoved it over
and dodged into the crevice. The rock went crashing down to the lake
and they thought it was my body.
"They came down to the ledge and looked at the place. I heard Loo Fong
cursing. They stayed there for a little while and then went away,
swearing. I suppose they tried to find the pearls, but they couldn't
get down to the lake. I crawled up to this place presently, bandaged
my foot at the pool, and my shoulder. They both got pretty bad after
awhile. I made this shelter, I got some guavas, and lived off them and
the _olehau_ berries. I couldn't walk, and fever set in. I don't know
how long I've been here; I was delirious."
The litter was ready. They set Haines in it, a light weight for all
his big frame, and he lay there exhausted as two of the crew swung him
up and they started down, Lucy as close to her father as the trail
permitted.
They crossed the ridge and the grassy plain, coming to the place he had
spoken of where they could see the beach and their schooner. There was
another ship coming round the bend--the Lehua! They saw the two men
left on board the Fahine jump into a small boat and row ashore. They
were fired at from the Lehua. The reports came up in tiny cracks of
sound, but the two reached the beach and bolted for the jungle.
A boat crammed with men put off from the raiding vessel.
They were hampered with the wounded Haines. They had to get him into
safety. Stanton's blood boiled at sight of the invaders.
"We fight them," said the skipper. "Can do. If not, they sink ship, all
same his." Tiki was jabbering.
"He say take him along god," said the captain. "He speak it safe place.
He speak God fixee. Cave along that place."
Tiki nodded emphatically. Stanton thought of Cheung's warning, spoke of
it to the captain.
"I savvy. All same I think Tiki talk plopeh."