A MIDNIGHT ALARM
I think that Professor Herndon was the only person in the company who
was quite contented with the day's doings on that evening when we camped
near the table of stone. The polished slide and the ledge along which we
had passed to the cavern stirred his imagination concerning the wonders
that were before him, and he convinced himself that he had the god of
his ambition by the heel. The fat notebook was made the repository of
countless surmises regarding the period at which the ledge was in active
use as a test for courage, and the stone structure that loomed up
immediately beside the camp was tagged with countless suppositions
regarding its uses and its probable date of construction. Soma gathered
in some easily earned shillings by raking his mind in search of
traditions and retailing them to the scientist by the light of the fire.
He made magazine prices for tales that he spun from his fertile brain,
and the Professor could hardly write fast enough in the excitement
brought about by the discovery of so much historical knowledge.
"It is wonderful!" he cried, pausing for a moment to polish the thick
lenses of his glasses upon the end of his silk coat. "The chance of
enlightening the world upon this subject is one that I would not have
missed for a million dollars."
"The dollars for me," murmured Holman. "I don't think the old world
cares three cents about anything that happened a thousand years ago in
this patch."
The Professor adjusted his glasses and turned them upon the doubter for
the space of three minutes, but Holman was blissfully ignorant of the
look which the angry archaeologist favoured him with. The youngster was
watching the firelight upon the face of Miss Barbara Herndon, and his
thoughts were probably in a dream-fed future instead of a dismal past.
Leith sat silent and gloomy, his head pillowed against the trunk of a
maupei tree, his face in the shadow of his hat, which he had pulled
down over his forehead. The supper had been eaten with little
conversation, the Professor being the only one who showed conversational
powers of any note. With the notebook already partly filled he felt
certain of a niche in the Pantheon of Fame, and he could not resist a
desire to prattle childishly about the sensation which his discoveries
would cause. It's a terrible thing for a man to get the applause craving
in its worst form. It is liable to make him do things which no craving
for treasure would allow him to do, no matter how badly he desired the
tempting gold.
The girls retired early, and soon afterward Leith wrapped himself up in
a blanket and lay down at the foot of the tree. The Professor at last
became tired of firing questions at the wonderfully well-informed Soma,
and the Kanaka, finding that the market for legends was not as good as
it was in the early part of the night, retreated to the other fire,
where Kaipi and the fire carriers were slumbering.
The heavy silence that comes in the night to the outposts of the world
fell upon the place like a cold hand at that moment. A moon that
appeared to have a pellicle across it, like the film upon a dead man's
eye, peeped over the barrier of black rocks--peeped over as if it
wondered what we were doing in that God-forgotten quarter. Sudden puffs
of wind rustled the leaves of the maupei and fled hurriedly, and from
somewhere in the coral rocks one of those red-striped lizards that are
sometimes found in the rocky parts of the Carolines sent his unearthly
_shik-shuck_ into the stillness, where one fancied it a little
projectile of sound crushed in its efforts to pierce the tremendous
silence of the night. One's imagination pictured the places where there
were lights and music, the tinkle of glasses, and the laughter of men
and women, and the wilderness suffered in the comparison. Coral atolls
with waving palm trees are delightful spots when one reads of them when
seated in a comfortable armchair in a snug library, but the real island
comes down heavily upon the nerve-centres when night falls upon the
spot. Then the fringe dweller feels that he is an outcast from the warm
places of the world where men and women meet in social intercourse.
Holman, who had been staring in silence at the fire for some twenty
minutes, turned toward me after the Professor had retired.
"Sleepy?" asked the youngster.
"Worse than that," I muttered.
"Let's turn in."
The "turning in" was an easy performance. We lay down on the pile of
leaves which the carriers had scraped together, pulled a rug over us,
and in spite of the surroundings I was soon fast asleep.
It was Holman's fist that disturbed my slumber. It came with some force
against my short rib, and I sat upright. The moonlight made it possible
to see across the valley, while every object around the camp was clearly
outlined.
Holman was sitting up on his leafy bed, and I put a question
breathlessly as I jerked myself upright.
"What's up?"
"Didn't he say that this place was uninhabited?" asked the youngster.
"Yes," I answered. "Why?"
"Well, some one has just pushed his head and shoulders up above that
stone table," whispered Holman. "He put his head up, looked across at us
for about five minutes, then dodged quickly back."
"You weren't dreaming?"
"Dreaming? Rot! I haven't closed my eyes since we retired!"
I threw off the rug and looked around. Leith lay under the maupei tree
in the same position as we had seen him in at the moment I lay down.
Near him the Professor snored dismally, probably dreaming dreams of the
greatness that would be thrust upon him in the near future. No sounds
came from the tent that sheltered the two girls, but a combination of
curious nasal sounds rose from the spot where the natives were sleeping
around their fire.
"It might be one of the niggers," whispered Holman. "Let us see."
We stole silently across the intervening space, and, crouching in the
shadows, counted the sleepers. There were seven. The prowler that Holman
had seen upon the top of the stone structure was evidently an outsider,
and the knowledge brought no pleasant feelings. Leith had assured the
Professor on several occasions that the island was uninhabited, yet it
was quite possible that natives from the adjoining groups had visited it
during the period that elapsed since his last visit. Yet we felt that it
was no stray visitor from another island that had peeped over the top of
the massive table, and it was with a suspicious eye upon the sleeping
Leith that we crept quietly over the coral rocks toward the tremendous
stone piers of the structure that rose like a monster gateway against
the gray sky. The atmosphere of that place was indescribable. We seemed
to be in the midst of relics that were older than the pyramids. The
temple of Luxor may seem impressive by moonlight, but the knowledge we
possess of Thebes in its glory somewhat modifies the awe which we would
feel if we knew nothing of the people who had raised the great monuments
in the city of Amen-Ra. And Holman and I knew nothing of the dead race
that erected the mighty stone table on the cleared slope, which by its
construction gave evidence of a knowledge of mechanics of which the
present-day Polynesian is entirely ignorant. I recalled the Nan-Tauch
ruins and the tombs of the mysterious Chan-te-leur kings Ola-Sipa and
Ola-Sopa in the Carolines, the _tolmas_ and the _langis_ of the
Marshall and Gilbert groups, and I wished the Professor anything but
pleasant dreams. The place seemed waiting for the return of its dead. The
scenery possessed that singular expectancy that compels one to turn around
every few moments to convince one's self that an unfriendly watcher is not
immediately in the rear.
Still keeping in the shadows, we circled the camp till we were in front
of the stone table, but just when I took a step into the moonlight space
before it, Holman grasped my arm and drew me back.
"Look!" he gurgled. "Look! there he is again!"
All doubts concerning the youngster's previous observations were swept
away at that moment. A head and shoulders rose suddenly above the black
line of the immense flat stone, remained there for the space of three
minutes, then dropped back so that we could not see it from the position
in which we stood.
"Take the two front pillars!" whispered Holman. "I'll watch the two back
ones. Come on!"
We dashed across the open space, the youngster rushing to the rear,
while I ran to the front columns. It was impossible for any one to
descend unless we saw him, and with nerves on a tension we walked around
the huge supports and watched anxiously for the midnight watcher to
descend.
We must have remained on guard for twenty minutes or more, but there was
no sign of the spy. Around us the massive structure cast a patch of
velvety shadow, but not the slightest sound came from above.
Holman tired of the inactivity, and stepped across to where I was
standing. "I'm going to climb that chestnut tree and see if the beggar
is still there," he murmured. "You stop here till I take an
observation."
He darted across to the big Pacific chestnut and climbed hurriedly,
while I walked round and round the square pillars and strained my ears
for the slightest sound that would give a hint that the person on the
roof of the mysterious table was preparing to descend.
A low whistle from Holman pierced the silence, and I answered.
"Come up here," he cried softly. "He's given us the slip."
I climbed the tree to the branch where the young fellow sat awaiting me.
From his position he had a clear view of the top of the big table, and
as I reached him I looked through an opening in the thick leaves. The
top of the stone was empty!
"Do you think he slipped down while I was climbing the tree?" asked
Holman.
"I'm certain he didn't," I answered. "It would have been impossible."
We stared at the stone in silence. The top was covered with short moss
that had gathered there through the centuries, and instead of being flat
as we had surmised there was a noticeable slope, so that the part that
was directly behind the camp was fully two feet higher than the rear.
This was the only peculiarity in its construction, and although we sat
in silence, staring at its moss-covered surface, we were utterly unable
to put forward the slightest supposition that would account for the
disappearance of the watcher. The incident was an extraordinary one. The
man could not have dropped from the table before we reached the
supporting piers, and we were equally certain that he had not slipped
down the pillars while we stood guard beneath.
"I'm going up there," muttered Holman. "We can get the rope from the
camp. Come along! I'd like a look at that place at closer quarters."
We climbed hastily down the tree, crept cautiously back to the camp and
took the stout rope which we had used in reaching the Ledge of Death.
The camp was quiet. The curious nasal sounds produced by the natives,
together with the rather high-toned snore of Professor Herndon, were the
only sounds that came through the still night.
Holman flung one end of the rope over a projecting corner of the flat
slab, twisted one half of it round and round the pillar to make
occasional grips which we could use in the ascent, then clutching the
hanging end he worked himself slowly up. I followed him, only to find
the upper surface of the table as bare of any signs of life as we had
previously noted from our perch in the chestnut tree. The tough moss
upon the stone was fully four inches long, and covered the slab
completely. In vain we stamped around looking for a possible hiding
place. The massive block didn't offer a cranny that a lizard could hide
in, and with an unsolved mystery upon our hands we descended to the
ground.
"What do you make of it?" asked Holman.
I shook my head. The enigma baffled me. Our suspicions regarding the
honesty of Leith made the strange appearance of the figure on the table
of stone more perplexing than it would have been under ordinary
circumstances. Leith had asserted that the island was uninhabited, yet
we were not inclined to rush to him with the news of the discovery. We
felt that it was another of the small discoveries that made us pile up
suspicions against the big bully at the head of the party. We had no
proof of the midnight visitor, and the story of his sudden disappearance
while we watched below would only provoke an unbelieving grin from
Leith, and an idiotic laugh from the foolish old Professor.
"Better keep it to ourselves," growled Holman.
"For the present at any rate," I remarked. "If Leith knows that there
are others upon the island, and if those others are friendly to him, it
will only make him more careful of his actions if we tell what we have
seen to-night."
Arriving at this decision we came back to the camp and crawled quietly
under the rug, where we watched the mystical monument till the flaming
tropical dawn lit up the valley.
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