THE SHADOW OF THE GOD.
There was no time for delay. They had to do something. To take the
offensive was the best plan. Tiki pointed out the opening of an almost
closed jungle trail. They went into it, going as fast as they dared,
working toward the far side of the promontory, making for the image.
They came out beneath it at last, at the foot of the towering
sculpture. It stood facing a paved terrace, set with flat stones. Great
stones had been piled in two walls that left a passageway to the feet
of the god. There was a space between his knees. Tiki led the way in.
It was a high chamber into which light filtered down from some opening
above where growth masked it. The sides were roughly hewn here and
there into dim shapes. There was a flat rock near the entrance on which
was set another one from which protruded long timbers, capstan fashion.
Tiki pointed to these.
"He say can fixee tlap so no one come in," said the skipper.
Tiki nodded, gesturing. Stanton thought he grasped his meaning.
"All right," he said. "Better send out your men to try and flank that
outfit. I'll stay here with Miss Haines and her father. We'll keep
Tiki."
They went out, going along the terrace, disappearing in the trees,
yellow men intent on battle. The litter was set down on the cavern
floor.
Tiki caught hold of one of the timbers set in the stone, motioning to
Stanton who set his chest against one opposite. The girl did the same
thing with a third. They heaved, without result, put out all their
strength in straining effort. The stone began to turn, more readily
after the first movement. There was a grating sound beneath their feet.
Tiki stepped back, grinning. Sweat covered him. Stanton and the girl
were panting with their efforts, their clothing wet with perspiration.
Tiki beckoned Stanton to come to the mouth of the cave and he followed
him. There was nothing to see but the empty terrace, the waving woods.
But Tiki was satisfied. He pointed at the great slabs before them,
gesturing.
Doves cooed. The girl was ministering to her father who was saying
something. Then there came the sound of shots, close at hand. Report
after report, singly and scattering volleys. They were quite a distance
off, but they came nearer. Then died away. Again they broke out, down
by the beach, it seemed.
Then the two Chinese who had come ashore bolted out of the bush,
carrying their rifles, glancing back. They looked toward the image and
sped on without seeing Stanton or Tiki. Tiki grasped him by the arm
and drew him in the shadows. He did not want the Chinese to enter the
cavern. The girl came and stood beside Stanton.
"Father is sleeping," she said. "I heard the shots."
"We're safe, so far," he said. "Tiki and the god have set some sort of
a trap. The trouble is, it may work both ways." Whatever the device
was he could see that they might be besieged, held there, without
provisions, without water, unless the yellow men conquered.
The Chinese were willing enough, capable enough, he fancied, though he
had never seen them shoot. On the other hand, the crew of the Lehua
were Solomon Islanders, used to brush warfare, trained fighters, a
savage and blood-thirsty outfit, though the Chinese might match them
there. When they took to piracy or banditry they were ruthless enough.
He imagined the forces might be about evenly matched, but the nature
of the ground would break the fighting up more or less into individual
skirmishes.
There was silence again. Haines was resting. With care there would be
no question of his recovery, but if Loo Fong got the best of it their
fates would all be sealed. What would happen to Lucy he dared not
consider. They could put up a desperate fight at the last, if they got
a chance. There was no exit to the cave, no possible way to climb to
the rift.
Doves cooed. The shadows shifted. Once in awhile they heard a distant
shot. The forces were split up now, it seemed. Stanton thought of the
captain's fear their schooner might be sunk, as Haines's had been. It
was a very real peril. He wanted to be out in the vessel, but he could
not leave the girl or Haines alone.
Tiki was complacent. He seemed assured that the god in whose belly they
were hidden, would properly protect them. He had gone inside, to squat
in front of one of the carved figures, passing from that to another.
They could hear him chanting monotonously. He had come back to his old
home again and he was renewing fealty. This had been the fetish of his
father, the wizard, and Tiki was a born _tahunga_, in his veins the
blood of generations of sorcerers who had served a weird priesthood to
this ancient statue which far antedated their own original migration to
this island.
* * * * *
It was cool inside. Without, the sun blazed down fiercely. The shadows
retreated as the fiery orb mounted toward the zenith. It wheeled out of
their sight and the shadow of the cliff, the shadow of the image, began
to stretch out over the paving between the walls of stone that shut out
much of their view.
Tiki came back to the entrance, hunkering down. From some place known
to him he had taken weird paraphernalia. He had daubed himself with
white and yellow and black, there was an apron about his middle that
was made of human hair. He wore a necklace of knuckle-bones, a skullpan
hung upon his chest and his arms and legs were decked with circlets
of shell and bone and fiber. He had been in his father's make-up
repository, Stanton thought.
With him he had brought something that looked like a queer-shaped
basket of plaited strips of pliable cane, like matting. He took no
notice of them apart, remote, droning out some incantations, watching
the creeping shadow.
Stanton remembered something Cheung had said about the shadow of the
god. The shadows of all sacred things, even of chiefs, were _tabu_. To
walk in them was death. Yet the shadow of the god fell only at certain
hours. Tiki could not have timed any attack that might take place. The
combatants seemed to have lost sight of each other, hunting along the
trails, hiding in the bush. But Tiki seemed waiting for something with
a curious certainty. To him the god was infallible.
Stanton told himself that it was only a barbaric, colossal carving, but
even as he held the thought, another came, suggesting that he should
have faith. Civilization seemed now to be an unreal thing. They were
back in the stone age, to which the island and its departed inhabitants
belonged. A superstitious feeling possessed him, not one of fear. The
shadow lengthened and still the island was wrapped in silence.
Suddenly he thought he saw the solid forest waver to and fro. The legs
of the god, portals to the cave, appeared to move. A tremor ran through
the ground and there was a low muttering as of thunder, a hollow
rumbling from inside the cave. The girl started up and would have gone
inside to her father, but he restrained her. The place might fall in.
Motutabu had once flamed, been thrust up with its riven crags in smoke
and steam. Lava had flowed. Now those fires were clogged, the craters
choked, but, far below, the interior wrath still raged. This was a
_temblor_, one of the earthquakes that intermittently shook the peaks
that had been lifted from the sea. This was a slight shock. No other
followed and he let her enter. Haines was still sleeping.
Tiki had risen. To him it was a manifestation that the god was pleased
that a faithful believer had returned. He stood erect with the dignity
of an oracle. As Stanton watched him he took the strange basketry and
placed it over his head. It was a hood that fell below his shoulders.
It had trunklike appendages, two holes for eyes that were glazed by
fish bladders. It turned him to a grotesque and terrible figure, like a
great squid. As he moved, the wicker tentacles writhed.
Something was going to happen. Stanton felt it in his bones. Not
another quake. He saw the shadow vanish, melt away, as if the sun had
been veiled. Then it appeared again, sharp and distinct. Tiki's chant
grew louder, ceased as there came the sound of a brisk fusillade.
Men were coming from the woods, firing back at enemies still hidden.
They came into view between the walls. The Chinese captain and his
men--fewer now--retreating, kneeling to take aim, then running to kneel
again. They passed and, with savage yells, the black men from the Lehua
burst into view, charging, Johnson and Loo Fong at their head.
[Illustration: _With savage yells, the black men from the pirate
schooner burst into view._]
Tiki sent out a yell of defiance, ululating, weird and shrill as it
issued from a reeded mouthpiece in the mask. Loo Fong halted and
turned, Johnson with him. They stared for a moment and then they saw
the girl, who had come, unnoticed by Stanton, to the entrance. Stanton
swept her aside, flattening her against the curve of the image's
colossal leg, taking place himself on the opposite side as bullets came
whining toward them. Tiki had seemingly betrayed them.
He had not moved. He was untouched and again he sent out that piercing
challenge as Loo Fong cried out an order and the savage outfit came
racing up between the walls, firing their pistols. Now Tiki stepped
inside, unhit.
* * * * *
Stanton fired back to stem the stampede. They came leaping on. Lucy
Haines fired with him and a black staggered and fell. Johnson was
struck, but it did not check him. Their bullets were entering the
cave, splaying gray streaks on the rock. Stanton pulled trigger on his
last cartridge, missing Loo Fong whose evil face was lit with triumph.
They were on the last great slab when Tiki reappeared, sounding his
whistling howl.
Stanton saw the rear half of the big slab tilt upward. The whole stone
was balanced and it rose smoothly, inexorably. A gulf opened and out of
it came a moaning sound like the wash of the sea, far below.
Johnson and Loo Fong were pitched forward, their faces twisted with
sudden terror. The angle became acute, and they slid down, dropping
their weapons, crouching, clawing uselessly. The mate pitched forward,
plunged into the gap. Loo Fong made a desperate spring as he squatted
there like a toad. His fingers clutched the nigh edge, the sill of the
cave entrance, clung there.
The stone swung on, up and over in a complete revolution. Its edge
smashed the fingers of the half-caste and the slab closed him in,
leaving bloody smears and remnants on the threshold. There were only
the black men left and they stood in a huddled mob before they broke
and ran, some trying to climb the walls, appalled at this manifestation
of the god.
It was the slab of sacrifice, used on ceremonial occasions where
victims were demanded; set as a trap for the unwary, for meddlers.
Tiki had lured them on. He had provided sacrifice. He had appeased the
long, unsated appetite of his god, and thus established his priesthood.
He had saved Haines, his daughter and Stanton, but they had been bait
for the victims.
He had won the day.
The yellow men were coming back, firing at the terrified blacks. The
fight had gone out of the islanders. They could not battle with gods.
Man after man went down, and then the slaughter swept past and out of
view.
Tiki touched Stanton on the shoulder. He had taken off the mask and he
went back to the moving capstan stone that had triggered the trap. They
took hold of the pole and revolved it.
The grating sound died away and Tiki walked through the entrance, out
on the slab, now firm again, turning to crouch and lower his head to
the rock in salutation and obeisance.
A hail came from the end of the causeway. It was the Chinese skipper
with two of his men. Stanton advanced to meet them.
"They all dead!" he said complacently. There was blood on his clothes
and his hands, but his face was clear of all emotion. "Tiki, he fixee.
All samee stone give way, I think."
It was over. Two of the Chinese were wounded, one seriously. A third
was dead. The captain mentioned it casually. It was all in the day's
work.
"Now we catch pearl and go," he said. "Mo' good we sink Lehua. No can
take. Too muchee talk, too muchee bobbely that make."
Stanton had forgotten all about the pearls. It had probably been the
prime issue in the mind of the skipper. Haines was an incident. He
possessed a share if he lived, but that was Cheung's private business.
Bringing back the pearls was the captain's affair, whether he found
Haines or not. Stanton and the girl, Haines and Tiki, were pawns to the
captain.
Cheung, Stanton fancied, was not so cold-blooded, but Cheung was an
exceptional Chinaman.
They took up the litter as the rest arrived and marched back, past the
out-sprawled corpses of the black men, more sacrifices to the great,
gray god. Haines awakened from his semi-stupor, seemingly refreshed. He
would recover, though he would probably be lame. Stanton ordered him
sent off immediately to the ship with Lucy, to occupy Stanton's own
cabin.
"Catch pearl first," said the captain.
Haines smiled for the first time.
"I think they're safe," he said. "There in that pool over there. It is
only half-filled at high tide. Moisture wouldn't hurt them, anyway. But
there's a crevice near the top, on this side. They're in there, in an
oilskin sack. The hole is plugged with seaweed."
They were safe, a bag half-filled with softly shimmering gems of the
sea, slightly iridescent, oval, round, pear-shaped, symmetrical, a few
of them pink in luster. Stanton could not estimate them, but he knew
they represented a fortune. Haines fingered them.
"You can keep some of them, my dear," he said to Lucy. "A third of them
are mine. We'll sell what you don't want."
"Sell all of them," she said. "They have cost too much. I couldn't wear
them."
The skipper talked with Tiki, who stood apart. Then he came to Stanton.
"Tiki speak he stay along this place," he said. "He like we set up
those dlum and those image topside along sing-sing glound."
Stanton looked at Tiki who walked toward him and once more took
Stanton's hand and placed it over his heart. Then he pointed to the
mountain, toward the god, now hidden by the cape.
The gesture, the desire, were unmistakable. He had come home. Solitude
did not bother him. Later he might adventure, bring back a woman, or a
dusky harem, but this was his land, his god.
He did not belong in Suva, nor on the other island from which he had
fled. Motutabu was his abidingplace, as priest to the graven image.
They left him later, his wishes carried out, standing on the beach,
motionless. Stanton felt that they owed him much, but he had owed a
debt to Stanton for his rescue. He would have died in Suva. And he had
paid his debt. He and the god.
The sunset was flaming back of the island when they made out to sea,
two sunken schooners in the bay. Tiki had been presented with the
stores of the Lehua, all that he selected.
The face of the image was no longer flaming as they had first seen it.
It was gray now, somber but serene. From the mountain came the deep
sound of a reverberating drum.
* * * * *
"What you going to do now?" Cheung asked Stanton as they sat in the
chamber over the restaurant. Haines was under medical care, a rich man,
content to limp, since he could well afford to ride.
"I don't know," Stanton answered. "I'm at a loose end." Cheung smiled,
nodded toward the inside rooms where Lucy Haines was talking with
Cheung's wife.
"Suppose you ask missy?" he said. "These belong along you. If you like
I buy them flom you. Give good plice."
He took a leather sack from his capacious sleeve and poured out pearls
into a lacquered bowl. They filled a third of it with milky radiance.
"You, me, Haines, all same divide," said Cheung. "These velly fine
pearl. Fifty-sixty thousan' dollah. Why you not ask missy?"
"I think I'll take your advice," said Stanton. The trip back had been a
happy one. He was not without foundation for the hope that Lucy might
be interested in what he did and where he went.
He was no longer a derelict, no longer in danger of being a beach bum.
He was a man of substance.
"You ask now," said Cheung. "I call my wife. I wish you plenty luckee."
THE END.