TOMBS OF SILENCE
For my own part I found no great liking for the moonlight. Up to that
moment I had followed blindly in the tracks of Holman, nerved somewhat
by the thought that the trail he passed over would carry me. The dangers
were hidden by the darkness, and my imagination was too stunned by the
happenings of the night to make any endeavour to torture my nerves by
picturing them.
But the reappearance of the moon brought an opportunity to my eyes, and
I wondered if we could negotiate the goat track which the youngster was
scrambling over. I turned my face to the wall and crawled timorously in
the rear. Higher and higher we went with bleeding fingers and knees, but
at last Holman reached the top, and I dragged myself up beside him.
"Get up!" he cried savagely. "We must kill the devil before morning."
We got to our feet and started to run toward what we knew to be the
direction of the cavern. The ground sloped gradually, and we reasoned
that it would continue to fall away till we reached the mouth of the
cavern by which Leith had entered from the far side. For once we had a
clear run. At that height there was little vegetation, and at a mad gait
we sped across a bare stretch where the only obstacles were lumps of
rock that were scattered around in great profusion.
"If--if we could find the place and block the devil and all his gang
inside," gasped Holman.
"That's too good a thing to entertain," I spluttered.
"We might, Verslun! We might!" he cried. "I've got a feeling that we've
been picked to put that devil out of existence. That's why I'm taking a
chance in leaving the girls back there at the camp. I believe I'm going
to kill him, but whether it is to-night or some other time I don't
know."
"The sooner the better," I stammered. "From what Kaipi said about that
dance, something out of the way is going to happen, and I've got a
hunch that the something will happen to us."
Holman remained silent, and we raced on, moving down the slope at an
angle that we judged would bring us somewhere near the entrance. At
moments my brain assured me that it was a mad proceeding, but something
of the certainty with which the youngster looked upon himself as the
Fate-appointed destroyer of Leith came to me as I raced beside him, and
I put aside the fears for Edith Herndon's safety that besieged me as I
ran. The last doubt about Leith's treachery had been chased away by the
dance we had witnessed, and I felt assured that the man was a monster, a
vile thing, who, for some purpose that I could not allow myself to
ponder over, had brought the foolish old scientist and his daughters
into a place of terrors. Treachery had been apparent from the start. It
was only the confidence of the old antiquarian that had blinded our eyes
to a score of incidents that should have convinced us that the brute had
some ulterior motive in view. During that mad race through the night the
big sallow-faced giant appeared to us as a devil, a fiend that was
connected with some sort of horrible practices that had continued to
exist in this remote islet long after all trace of such things had been
lost in those islands that were visited by traders and missionaries.
Kaipi connected the dance with death, and the same conclusion had come
to us before we had heard the words of the frightened Fijian.
Holman slackened speed, and we dodged through a mass of boulders that we
judged were in a direct line with the crevice through which we had
witnessed the happenings in the cave.
"We should be near the place if there is an entrance to it on this
side," he muttered. "This pile of rocks looks from--oh, Gee! here's a
path!"
It was a path, sure enough. It wound in and out among the rocks, a
narrow beaten trail, singularly white against the black surroundings.
Holman stopped and took up a handful of the dust. "They coat it with
coral lime to make it plain in the darkness," he growled. "Come on,
Verslun, the wriggly batch must be straight ahead."
I pulled the army Colt from my pocket and ran softly abreast of the
youngster. The corrosive terror of the earlier part of the evening had
fled then, and my nerves had taken up a sort of dare-devil attitude
toward all happenings that the future might hold in store. Besides, the
more I thought of Leith, the greater his villainy appeared to be, and to
save Edith Herndon from the slightest contact with the ugly ruffian was
a task that would give the greatest coward in the world the courage of a
warrior.
The white path wound in and out of the boulders, which became thicker
as we advanced, and suddenly it dived through a dark passage into the
side of the hill. We felt that we were at the mouth of the burrow by
which Leith and his dancers had entered, and we moved into the shadow to
reconnoitre. Leith had informed the Professor that he would not return
to the camp till the following morning, so the chances were that the
treacherous scoundrel was still assisting at the ceremonies that we had
witnessed.
"Shall we go in?" whispered Holman.
"As you like," I answered.
He moved toward the mouth of the burrow, then stopped and turned toward
me. "What time is it?"
"It's ten minutes of midnight," I replied.
"We've got six hours," he whispered. "Come along, we'll chance it."
Very cautiously we moved into the darkness of the passageway, feeling
our way along the walls that were cold and damp from the moisture which
had soaked through from the crown of the cliff. The place was not more
than five feet wide, and as I walked along on one side of the wall,
Holman, feeling his way along the other, could touch me whenever he
wished to ascertain my position. Our shoes made no sound upon the floor
of the corridor. It was covered deep with fine dust, upon which we
walked noiselessly.
An occasional bat fluttered past us, but outside the flapping of the
wings not a sound disturbed the stillness of the place. The silence of
the outside was intensified a hundredfold. In the open, one heard the
crooning of the trees as the soft winds from the Pacific played with
their heavy foliage, but in the natural passage through which we crawled
in search of Leith the air felt as if it had not been disturbed for
centuries. It was heavy and thick, possessing a faint odour that seemed
to rise from the dust beneath our feet.
We had walked about one hundred yards along the corridor when it widened
suddenly. The walls that we were following turned off at right angles,
and from the moonlight which filtered through a dozen small fissures
high up above our heads we saw that we had entered a cavern of vast
proportions. We sensed its vastness. The few streaks of moonlight that
stabbed the darkness were like so many guide-posts that enabled us to
make a mental calculation of the height and extent of the place.
We stopped and moved together instinctively. Holman put his mouth close
to my ear.
"What do you make of it?" he asked.
"It might be a cavern leading into the one that runs out to the face of
the cliff," I replied.
"But how are we to cross it?"
"I can't tell you. I'm afraid if we leave this opening that we'll get
lost."
It was rather plain that we would. The surrounding walls were as black
as the opening by which we had entered the place, and we stood with
quick-beating hearts staring out across the place through which the bars
of moonlight appeared like silver skewers.
One of these skewers fell upon a ledge of stone some few yards in front
of the spot where we were standing, and Holman stepped toward it.
"Stay where you are," he said. "If I get lost I'll whistle softly and
you can signal back to me."
He moved away and I was left standing in the opening. A bat banged
heavily against my face, and the odour from the dusty floor irritated my
nostrils so that I had difficulty in restraining myself from sneezing.
It was about twenty minutes before Holman returned. He whistled ever so
softly, and when I replied he came toward me hurriedly.
"Just walk out to that spot of moonlight," he whispered. "I'll keep
guard on the door. Feel around there and tell me what you think of it."
I did as he directed. I walked forward to the spot and felt around with
my hands. My fingers came in contact with round, smooth objects that
filled every available inch of a stone table in front of me, and with a
feeling of revulsion I hurried back to the mouth of the corridor. Holman
gripped my arm and put a question.
"Gave you a shock, eh?"
"Why, they're skulls!" I breathed hoarsely.
"Yes, hundreds of 'em," he said. "The place is chock full of them. This
island must have been the burying ground of all the adjoining groups,
and it's the atmosphere of the place that keeps the niggers away from
it. Leith has been wise to that. The present generation of islanders
know nothing of the things that happened here hundreds of years back,
but they've got an inborn horror of the place, and they keep away."
"Well, what are we to do?"
"Wait here."
"But if he doesn't come this way?"
"He must," he answered. "It's the only way out, I think. We can't go
across this wilderness, so it's safer to await developments here."
We hadn't long to wait. From a point directly opposite our position, and
at a distance that we judged to be two hundred yards away, a bobbing
light broke into the wall of darkness and moved directly toward us.
Holman gripped my arm and pulled me forward to the stone tables upon
which the skulls were laid, and side by side we crouched and waited.
It was the ship's lantern that Soma had carried in front of Leith that
was now moving upon us. Its yellow light showed the parrot-feather mat
and headdress of the big Kanaka, while the hum of voices, which drifted
across the vast space of the cavern, informed us that the dancers who
had assisted at the ceremony were returning with Leith and the one-eyed
white man.
Holman's breath came hot upon my cheek. There was no necessity for
speech. I knew that he intended to seize the first opportunity to
attack, and that opportunity was at hand. Behind the bobbing lamp that
was approaching us by an irregular trail, as if Soma was winding in and
out amidst stone supports similar to the one that sheltered us, was the
brute who held us in his grip, and after the events we had witnessed it
seemed impossible to reconcile his actions with anything that smacked of
decency or honesty.
[Illustration: "Behind the bobbing lamp was the brute who held us in
his grip."]
I attempted to drop on my knees at that minute, but the moment was
disastrous to the ambush which we had planned. As I moved my hand
forward I dislodged a skull that was evidently resting upon a shelf
somewhat higher than the one before us. With a noise that appeared
terrific in that place, the object crashed down upon the stone, and the
bobbing lantern halted about fifteen paces in front of us.
Leith broke the silence that followed. "What was that?" he asked.
"A bat," answered Soma.
"I don't think so," droned Leith. "Lift up the light."
Soma raised the lantern high above his head, and as he did so Holman
fired.
The echoes were terrific. High in the vaulted roof of the place echoes
answered each other with the sharp reports of Maxims, and the thick air
shivered.
Leith's voice roared an order. "Put out the light!"
Soma immediately crashed the lantern upon the ground, and I heard Holman
groan.
"I missed him!" he whispered. "Move along a little, Verslun; they've got
a line on our position."
We didn't move a minute too soon. Half a dozen shots broke out from the
spot where the light of the lantern had been suddenly quenched, and we
fired twice and shifted ground the moment we pulled the triggers.
But the opposition guessed the direction of our sidestep. A bullet
lifted my hat into the darkness, and, as I scrambled away, a hand
touched my thigh and was immediately taken away.
I felt Holman's body on the other side, and then, clubbing the big Colt,
I drove it down through the darkness at a point that my imagination
suggested would be the most likely place to find the head of the
stranger whose hand touched my thigh. The blow missed, and as I made a
kangaroo-like jump sideways, a spurt of flame blazed out within a yard
of my face.
I fired immediately, and the soft _plop_ of a body settling into the dry
dust upon the floor convinced me that I had settled one of our enemies.
For about ten minutes after that there was no more firing. My skin, more
than my ears, brought to my brain the information that there were others
somewhere in the thick darkness, but the little air tremors that came to
me were so faint that it was impossible to tell in which direction they
were. I had lost all trace of Holman. With extreme caution I crawled
toward what I thought to be the spot where I had left him, but my
groping fingers found only the fragments of bone that covered the dusty
floor of the charnel house.
I sat in the dust and endeavoured to make my addled brains direct me as
to the best course to pursue. The silence led me to infer that Leith and
his party, who were evidently familiar with the cave, were making for
the passage by which we had entered the place, and a cold chill passed
over me as my imagination pictured Leith, One Eye, and the oily dancers
waiting for Holman and me in the narrow corridor. To escape from the
place immediately was our only chance, and with a courage born of terror
conjured up by the thoughts of imprisonment in that place of skulls, I
started to crawl rapidly into the dark.
I had not proceeded half a dozen yards when my hand touched a bare leg,
and I drew back hastily. With madly pounding heart I crouched in the
dust, waiting for an attack, but as I waited I convinced myself that the
leg had not been drawn back when my fingers encountered it. With my
right hand clubbing my revolver, I reached my left out cautiously, and
once again my fingers came in contact with the bare limb. The fear left
me at that moment. I was back at the spot where I had fired at an unseen
foe some fifteen minutes before, and the body near me was the victim of
my lucky bullet.
Carefully I felt the dead man. He wore a large feather cloak and a tall
headdress, and I concluded that he was one of the wriggling brutes whose
performance we had watched in the cave. In the dust, beside the body, my
fingers found his revolver, and the fact that he had been armed at the
moment his party came unexpectedly upon us was more proof, if proof were
needed, that Leith's tactics were anything but straightforward.
Securing the revolver, I started to crawl away, but a sudden inspiration
came to me. I stripped the parrot-feather mat and the headdress from
the corpse and donned them over my own clothing. In the darkness
recognition was made through the fingers, and as there were eight
enemies in the cavern and only one friend, I considered that the danger
I ran of receiving a bullet from Holman was more than counterbalanced by
the protection that the dancer's costume would give me if I ran against
the groping hands of Leith or his gang.
After a wearisome crawl I touched the wall of the cavern, and standing
upright I debated for a moment whether I should move to the right or the
left. I had no definite idea as to the position of the opening through
which we had entered the place, and I dreaded the weary circuit of the
cavern which I would be compelled to make if I turned in the wrong
direction. It was possible that the corridor was within a few yards of
me, and if I turned away from it I might get lost in other passages
leading to the long gallery where the dance of death had taken place.
I decided to move to the right, and with one hand upon the cold wall I
stumbled forward. If Holman was still a prisoner, Edith Herndon and her
sister were entirely unprotected, and my tormenting imagination made me
throw prudence to the winds. I had to reach the camp before Leith or any
of his evil bodyguard arrived, and, becoming reckless of the terrors of
the dark, I ran blindly in my desperate desire to find the path into the
open air.
I cannoned into a man who was standing with his back to the wall of the
cave, and before I could lift my arm his fingers had gripped my throat.
For a second we struggled, then he released his grip and murmured some
words in a dialect that I did not understand. His hand had touched the
parrot-feather mat that I had drawn about my shoulders, and he was
convinced that I was one of his own companions.
Still holding my shoulder he pushed me a pace or two forward, and
instinctively I knew that I was in the corridor. The faintest tremor
disturbed the heavy air, and a wild surge of joy rushed through my
being. The place of skulls had brought a terror upon me that swept away
my reason, but the knowledge that I was on the way to the open, where I
could fill my lungs with God's pure air, acted as a powerful
restorative.
As my guide's fingers slipped from my shoulder, I stood still and
listened. His heavy breathing was distinctly audible, and with a prayer
to Providence to guide my right hand, I brought the butt of the heavy
revolver down through the darkness. It must have caught him squarely
upon the crown, for he dropped without a groan.
"Holman!" I shrieked. "Where are you, Holman? The passage is here! This
way, quick!"
A revolver cracked within two feet of me, and the bullet ripped through
the tall headdress. I crouched quickly and ran along the corridor. There
was no answering cry from Holman, and although it was possible that he
would not disclose his whereabouts by replying to my yell, I decided
that I could do little to help him in the impenetrable darkness.
Besides, Edith Herndon and her sister were in danger, and the dawn was
coming rapidly. Throwing off the parrot-feather mat, which had served me
to such good purpose, I raced headlong toward the opening. A few bats,
returning early to their sleeping quarters, banged against my face, but
the way was otherwise clear, and with a cry of joy I rushed through the
mouth of the passage into the calm, clear night.
[Illustration]