THE DEVIL DANCERS
The snaky vines seemed to us to be leagued with Leith as we tried to
force our way to the spot where the tiny flash of light had appeared
amongst the rocks. The lawyer-vines gripped our ankles and flung us upon
our faces scores of times, but we scrambled to our feet and rushed on.
Kaipi had made the discovery at an opportune moment. Now that we were
certain that Leith contemplated treachery, the wait through the long
night would have maddened us. We wanted to meet him quickly, and
instinct told us that the appointment place mentioned in the note was
identical with the spot to which we were fighting our way.
We were bruised and bleeding when we reached the foot of the black
cliffs whose perpendicular walls towered above us. We were almost
certain that the light had been flashed from a point immediately above
the spot where we came face to face with the barrier, but the scaling of
the black barricade was a proposition that seemed incapable of solution
as we rushed along the base.
"This is the spot," gasped Holman. "This big tree cluster was just to
the right of the place where the light was flashed."
"That's so," I remarked, "but how are we to get up to the point where
the signal came from?"
We raced madly up and down the front of the strange black wall, hunting
eagerly for a place that offered the slightest foothold by which we
could climb to the terraces that we could see far above, but the search
was a futile one. The tremendous mountain of ebony rock appeared to have
been driven up out of the earth during some volcanic disturbance, and as
we stumbled blindly along we thought it would be easier to scale the
outside wall of a New York skyscraper than the slippery sides of the
obstruction in our path.
It was Holman who found a key to the situation. The big clump of maupei,
or Pacific chestnut, that we had taken as a landmark when we were
running through the moonlit night, grew close to the barrier, and the
limbs of several of the trees scraped the sides of the basalt columns as
the faint night breeze moved them backward and forward.
"There's a ledge up there," whispered the youngster. "Look! It's about
fifty feet from the ground. If we could climb a tree we might be able to
reach it from one of the limbs."
He had hardly outlined the proposition before we were swarming up the
trunk, Holman in the lead by right of discovery, and the nimble Kaipi in
the rear. Higher and higher the youngster climbed into the thick green
foliage. He reached the topmost branches, and selecting one that led
toward the rocky wall, he straddled it and worked his way slowly
forward.
Kaipi and I clung to the fork of the limb and waited, and as I watched
Holman the wisdom of our actions was assailed by a cold doubt. We had
left the two girls entirely unprotected, and if Leith reached the camp
before we returned, and heard from the chattering Professor the story of
the finding of the scrap of paper, it would be reasonable to suppose
that he would consider the moment had arrived for the perpetration of
any deviltry he had planned.
But Holman's actions interrupted my mental criticism of the wisdom of
our plans. The youngster had reached the extreme end of the limb, and he
was clawing madly at the rock to obtain a footing. He succeeded after a
five minutes' struggle, and he sent a breathless whisper back to our
perch.
"There's a ledge here," he murmured. "I think we can climb up from it.
Hurry along, and I'll give you a hand."
I needed a hand when I reached the end of that leafy seesaw. I was much
heavier than the boy, and the limb could hardly support my weight when I
neared the end. Holman reached out his hand at a moment when I thought
that a drop through the air would be my reward for attempting aerial
exhibitions, and the next moment I was beside him on a little projection
that barely gave us a footing.
"It's easy climbing just above us," whispered Holman. "Wait till we get
Kaipi."
The Fijian came along the limb with the agility of a trapeze artist, and
when he reached the ledge we stared up at the dizzy heights that rose
above our little resting place. Small jutting projections, like
gargoyles, stuck out from the wall, and we looked at them hungrily.
"If we had only brought the rope!" cried the boy. "Say, Verslun, put
your face against the rock and I'll climb on to your shoulders."
I did so, and the youngster climbed up cautiously. For a long time he
stood there, peering around in an effort to discover a path by which we
could go upward and onward, but at last he stepped off, and I looked up
to find him clinging to the wall like a huge beetle. A pack of fat
clouds that had harried the moon during the earlier part of the evening
now closed in upon her, and we were in complete darkness. The threshing
limb of the maupei tree that was within a yard or two of the spot where
Kaipi and I stood waiting disappeared in the night, and the scratching
of Holman's shoes high above our heads came down to us through the
intense silence and proved that he was holding his position with
difficulty.
A small piece of shale hit me on the shoulder after a long wait, and I
turned my face upward.
"Verslun!" breathed the strained voice of the youngster. "Are you
there?"
"Well?" I asked.
"H'sh!" he murmured. "We are right near the spot, Verslun. If Kaipi
climbs up on your shoulders to this place I think the two of us could
pull you up. Are you willing?"
"Come on, Kaipi," I whispered, and the Fijian climbed nimbly upon me and
moved up into the void above.
"Now, Verslun," muttered Holman. "Reach up till we get a grip of your
wrists. Are you ready? Well, try hard, man! Think of those two helpless
girls and dig your toes in!"
I didn't need any reminder concerning the position of the two sisters
as I stood on tiptoe and scratched with my fingers at the crumbling
ledge upon which Holman and the Fijian crouched. The predicament of
Edith Herndon, and not fears for my own safety, made me scratch madly
for a foothold as I swung above the shelf I left. Kaipi and Holman
tugged till every muscle in my arms shrieked out against the way they
were being handled. But I was going up. I "chinned" the crumbling layer
of rock upon which my fingers had a perilous grip, laid my chest across
the shelf and wriggled into safety.
"That's good," whispered Holman. "Don't puff so hard, man! We're too
close to take any chances."
I got upon my hands and knees and followed him along the narrow pathway.
Over a thousand obstructions we crawled like three rock snakes, till
finally the boy halted and turned toward me.
"See the streak of light through that split in the rock?" he whispered.
"Look in front of you! Well, they're inside."
The split in the rock to which Holman had pointed was a perpendicular
crevice about four feet in length, but possessing only a width of six
inches. It separated two rock masses that were fully eighteen inches
thick, and as we wriggled noiselessly toward it we saw that it gave us a
glimpse of the interior of a huge cavern, the part of which that was
just inside our point of observation being illuminated by a swinging
ship's lamp which hung by a rope that dropped from the vaulted dome.
The lamp swung directly in front of the crevice through which we peered
breathlessly, and for a few seconds it was the only object that was
visible. Gradually our eyes became accustomed to the light, and we found
that a pair of brown legs were moving slowly along the floor past our
spyhole. A body, gorgeously decorated in mats of green and crimson
parrot feathers, followed the legs, and then came a head that was hidden
behind a mask of sennet daubed thickly with coral lime and ochre till it
appeared a ghastly nightmare.
The horror moved upon its stomach, and, viewing it as we did through the
narrow cranny, it appeared as if the film of a biograph was being slowly
dragged before our eyes. Another pair of legs followed the masked head,
another body, and another mask that was even more fear-inspiring than
the first. And the procession continued. Three, four, five, and
six--each succeeding one being arrayed in a mask of more ghastly
appearance than those which had preceded him. The sixth was followed by
the first, who had wriggled clear around the circle of light thrown by
the lamp, and in perfect silence the infernal snaky circle moved
backward round and round, the faint light shining on bare legs, on
bodies from which the parrot mats were thrust aside by the contortions,
and upon the masks that were weirdly fantastic and Mephistophelian.
They had circled the floor about ten times when Holman tugged my coat
and I wriggled back from the crevice.
"What's up?" My lips were dry as I put the question.
"Kaipi."
"Where is he?"
"Cleared out. Those human serpents scared him. Go softly, man! We must
get him before he attempts to go down that cliff or he'll break his
thick head."
We caught up to the deserter on the ledge to which Holman and the Fijian
had dragged me a short time before, and the youngster abused the
frightened native as he endeavoured to turn him back.
"No, no!" shrieked the Fijian. "Me no see dance like that. Me die if I
stay."
"Why?" I asked.
"It is 'tivo'--death dance," gasped Kaipi. "Wizard men dance it.
Something going happen, damn bad."
"But they can't get you," cried Holman, "Come back and watch them. Soma
and Leith will be there directly, and you'll get your revenge."
But Kaipi would have nothing more of the performance in the rocky
chamber. The repulsive masks and the backward wriggling of the six upon
the floor had upset his fighting stomach for the time being, and we
could not induce him to return.
"Well, you wait here," ordered Holman. "We're going back, but we'll
return in a few hours and pick you up. Don't move from this ledge."
Kaipi would promise anything if he was not forced to witness the
performance, and we left him huddled up in the darkness, and returned to
the spyhole in the wall.
The "tivo," as the Fijian called it, was still in progress. Without
noise, the six half-nude figures were describing circles upon the smooth
floor. The silence and the serpentlike motions had a peculiar hypnotic
effect upon us, and in a sort of dreamlike trance we watched them
wriggle by the narrow aperture to which we pressed our faces. With each
circle more of the brown, sweat-polished bodies showed beneath the
twisted mats. The pace was beginning to tell upon them now. Slower and
slower they moved past the crevice, till at last all movement ceased,
and, apparently lifeless, they lay face downward upon the floor.
I thought of the two girls at the lonely camp as we sat watching, and I
knew well that Holman's thoughts were turned in the same direction. We
had seen nothing of Leith, but an intuition that would not be put aside
connected Leith with the strange ceremony that was in progress within
the cavern, and we were chained to the spot.
I have no idea how long the six figures remained motionless upon the
floor. It may have been an hour, it may have been two. The mystery of
the performance we were witnessing seemed to drag us into a world where
minutes and hours did not exist. We were dumfounded by the confirmation
of our suspicions and the peculiarly devilish exhibition, and I shook
off the lethargy with an effort as Holman prodded me with his finger and
pointed at a spot beyond the body of the dancer who lay immediately in
front of the spyhole.
Looking in the direction Holman pointed I saw that another light was
approaching through the gloom of the cavern. It bobbed toward us slowly,
a tiny pin point that came nearer and nearer as the bearer walked in the
direction of the six. The distance it was away from the dancers, which
was evident from the time that elapsed from the moment we saw it till it
was close up, convinced us that the cavern was of an enormous length,
and the words "Long Gallery" in the note which Soma had dropped came up
before my mind. There was no doubt that the cave was the meeting spot
which Leith had mentioned, and as I felt Holman's body stiffen as he
shouldered against me for a share of the peephole, I knew that he
believed that the treacherous brute was one of the three that were
approaching behind the bobbing lamp.
The bodies of the dancers, or at least the parts that we could see,
became tense and rigid. A soft hiss went round the circle, and once
again the wriggling movement started. But this time the six went forward
instead of backward. They broke out of the circular formation, and in a
long glistening line moved up the cavern toward the three approaching.
The lamp halted, then it was raised high in the air as the crawling half
dozen approached, and Holman gave a curious little gurgle as the light
fell upon the three newcomers. Wrapped in parrot feathers and a white
mask, the lamp bearer stood revealed as Soma. Immediately behind him was
a tall white man in the same outlandish garb, while the last of the
three, barearmed and barelegged, and wearing an immense headdress of
plumes, was Leith!
The snaky six circled the three at a respectful distance, then, again
breaking into a single file formation, they turned toward the end of the
cave nearest our spyhole, and behind the length of creeping bodies,
Soma, the tall white who had only one eye, and Leith came slowly.
Holman's breath came faster as the procession approached. The
exhibition chilled us. There was a devilish suggestiveness in the
proceeding. In some indescribable manner it brought up mental pictures
that were nauseating, and it required something of an effort to watch
the performance. The mystery of the silent night, the thoughts of the
danger which threatened the two girls, and the glimpses of the
astounding performance within the cavern brought a dazed mental
condition that made us doubt our sanity.
I felt Holman's hand reach out across my shoulder as the procession
moved down upon us, and instinctively I understood the movement. The
cold barrel of a revolver had slipped by my face, and I gripped his
wrist and forced the hand downward. The manner in which Soma and the
one-eyed man walked in front of the big brute made it impossible to
shoot with telling effect, and Leith was the person we desired to kill
at that moment. The others seemed to be but creatures of his will, and
he stood up in our minds as a devil whose existence was a menace to
everything that was pure and clean.
The three newcomers moved to the side of the cavern, so that nothing
except their bare feet were visible, and backward and forward in front
of those feet moved the human serpents with a regularity that was
stupefying. In an unbroken line they would move forward, flatten
themselves upon the floor, then, with a unanimity that was remarkable,
they would wriggle backward, to repeat the same movement over again.
Holman pulled me away at last, and we retired to a point that made it
possible for us to converse in low whispers without being heard.
"What will we do?" he gasped. "I can't stay there any longer! I want to
get inside to the devil! I don't want to shoot him; I want to throttle
him with my two hands!"
"But the entrance to the cavern is from somewhere on the other side of
the hill," I remonstrated, as the young fellow raved about our
helplessness.
"We must get there!"
"Don't lose your head about it," I remarked. "Keep cool and we'll win
out in the long run."
It was useless to speak of patience to that boy at the moment. He clawed
desperately at the slippery wall in an endeavour to find a path that
would lead us to the opening on the other side by which Leith had made
his entry, but the attempt appeared to be madness. A dozen times the
youngster scrambled up rough portions that offered a slight footing, but
each time he slipped back bruised and battered. He would listen to no
arguments. The desire to get to the mouth of the cavern, and kill Leith
before the morning, had produced an insanity, and we crawled and climbed
along the face of those basalt cliffs in a manner that chilled my
spinal marrow. Holman possessed the courage of a maniac. His imagination
was blinded to the dangers that lay alongside the crumbling shelves of
rock, and I scrambled behind him wondering dimly what would happen to
Edith and her sister if an unkind fate flung us from the ledge into the
darkness from which the soft croon of the chestnut clumps came up like a
warning against our foolhardiness.
Holman paused at the end of a wearisome climb, and he drew himself
upright. At that moment the cloud-harried moon dragged herself from
beneath the pack, and the young fellow gave a cry of joy.
"We can do it from here, Verslun," he cried. "I see a path to the top.
Come along, man!"
"What about Kaipi?" I gasped. "We'll never find our way back here."
"Let him sit there," he snorted. "Hurry or the moon will be under the
clouds before we cross the cliff."
[Illustration]