THE WAY TO HEAVEN
With quick-beating pulses we fixed the rope and shouted directions down
the slippery passage to the girls and the Professor, and inside of ten
minutes they were beside us, looking out with frightened eyes at the
coloured wall of the opposite side of the pit. The faces of Edith and
Barbara looked pale and careworn, but they smiled bravely when Holman
assured them that we were within a yard of the path by which we had
crossed to the Valley of Echoes.
"Be brave," he said cheerfully. "You'll be on your way back to the
shore before many hours have passed by. There is no--no danger now."
I do not know if the two girls understood the meaning of his words, but
they asked no questions. Somehow I think that they knew what had
happened. Those two terrible cries must have reached their ears as they
waited at the foot of the chute that led to the wizards' seat, but if
they had any doubts concerning their origin, they refrained from seeking
information. But the Professor knew. A melancholy that had tied his
tongue all through the long day in the Black Kindergarten left him as he
came to the sunlight, and he became light-hearted and merry. He felt
that he had been relieved of his load of nightmares, and the dangers of
the climb to the rocky shelf above our heads did not trouble him in the
least.
It was Holman who performed the heroic work on the late afternoon of
that eventful day. With the rope tied around his waist, he pushed
himself out as he had done twice before during the preceding hour, then,
gripping the edge of the shelf, dragged himself forward. For a moment,
as he swung over the depths, it looked as if he would be unable to drag
himself up, and we clung on to the rope and watched him with frightened
eyes. But youth and courage won the day. Slowly, inch by inch, he lifted
himself, the lips of the two girls moving in dumb prayer; then we lost
sight of him as he drew his legs up on to the ledge, and we knew that we
were safe!
The youngster secured the rope to a projection on the shelf above, and
the Professor, nervous but game, was the next to make the perilous
journey. It was blood-curdling to watch the old man swaying over the
depths while Holman, lying flat upon his stomach, gripped him beneath
the arms and dragged the poor old scientist to safety.
Barbara went next, and when the rope was lowered once more I secured it
around Edith's waist. I held her in my arms as I pushed her body forward
to Holman's strong hands that waited just below the ledge, and for one
brief instant her lips came close to mine, and with a mad, wild love
that had been born in danger, where there was no time for words, I
stooped and kissed her. And even in that moment of extreme peril a faint
smile swept over her face as she looked up into mine, and I knew that
she understood.
It was nearly sunset when we moved away from the top of the Vermilion
Pit, but we had not gone ten paces when we stopped. A yell came out of
the place, then another and another, and Holman and I rushed back to the
edge. Down beneath us, on the slippery Ledge of Death, two natives were
locked in a death grip, and a single glance told us that they were Maru
and Soma. The Raretongan had chased Leith's brown lieutenant on to the
path, and now they were struggling like demons in the mad endeavour to
thrust each other into the depths.
"Quick!" cried Holman. "The rope!"
He slipped the line around his waist as the pair moved to the edge. Maru
was dragging the big savage with a strength that was surprising, but it
was a certainty that if Soma went over the edge the Raretongan would
keep him company.
Holman slipped down upon the Ledge, but before he could reach them a
dusty, bleeding figure stumbled through the entrance to the cavern, a
knife flashed in the sunlight, and Maru was drawn back into safety as
Soma released his grip. The newcomer was Kaipi!
"He kill Toni!" he cried. "Toni all same brother to me. Toni work with
me long time Suva."
Toni, the pupil of the Maori, who had instructed him on Levuka wharf as
to the way out of Black Fernando's hell, had been avenged at last.
It was a happy reunion we held upon the edge of the pit. Edith and
Barbara bound up the wounds of the two faithful natives, and the
muscular Raretongan was so touched with their tender ministrations that
he foraged in his tattered sulu, and with tears of gratitude in his big
brown eyes he handed back to Barbara the emerald ring with which she had
caused him to desert from Leith's service.
"Me want no pay from you!" he cried. "Me work for you all same
nothing!"
We learned that the one-eyed white man and the last of the Wizards of
the Centipede had been dispatched by Maru and Kaipi, and we also
received the news that the four carriers had bolted back to the yacht.
The latter piece of information somewhat dampened our spirits. We felt
that Leith and Newmarch were friends, and we wondered what the silent,
thin-faced captain would do when he heard the story of Black Fernando's
discomfiture.
On account of Kaipi's weak state we camped that evening on the same spot
that we had occupied on the second night upon the Isle of Tears, and at
daybreak next morning we set out for the little bay. We were all happy.
The Professor was as pleased as a boy on his vacation, and he had
returned again to his task of taking notes. The two girls were radiant;
Kaipi was joyful because the murdered Toni had been revenged, and Maru
was in the seventh heaven of delight because Barbara had informed him
that he could go to San Francisco with the party as a reward for his
devotion. As for Holman and myself, we forgot the loneliness of the
place in our joy. The same trees peered at us, the same cablelike vines
gripped our legs, and the same weird rock masses blocked our paths, but
love was in our hearts, and morbid thoughts were chased away.
On the afternoon of the second day from the pit we reached the shore of
the little bay, but _The Waif_ was not there. Newmarch had evidently
discovered that Leith had not been quite successful in the carrying out
of his plans, and fearful of his own share in the business, he had
bolted with the yacht. The South Sea breeds piratical thoughts, and from
our own knowledge of the captain we guessed that in his particular case
those thoughts would be easily generated.
"He thinks he'll save his own skin by clearing out," said Holman, "but
I'm satisfied that Dame Justice is an expert with the lariat. If he's
not in jail before three months are out, my name is not Will Holman."
It was the missionary schooner _Messenger of Light_ that saw our beacon
upon the island on the fourth day after we had reached the spot where we
had landed from _The Waif_. The beautiful white vessel hove to outside
the entrance to the little bay, a boat came ashore, and twenty minutes
after they had first sighted our signal we were on the way to
Wellington, New Zealand.
"And the 'Frisco boats call there," murmured Barbara, "Joy! Joy! Joy!"
The moon was whitening the sleeping Pacific when Edith and I stood
looking over the taffrail as the _Messenger of Light_ swept on her
course. From nearby came the voice of Professor Herndon relating his
experiences to a missionary who was returning from the Marquesas. A soft
island melody was wafted from the fo'c'stle, and the night was alive
with all the witchery of the tropics.
"Edith," I whispered, as I took her hand, "I am a common sailorman, but
if you could love me I--I--"
I stopped in confusion, and as she had done on a former occasion, she
came to the rescue of my stammering tongue.
"You are a big, true man," she murmured. "If you had not come with us we
should not have returned from that awful place. God let you listen to
that song of the White Waterfall so that we might be saved."
Some minutes afterward she released herself from my arms. "Let us find
Will and Barbara," she said softly. "We will share each other's
happiness."
And as I followed her across the poop, a tremendous surge of joy rose up
and filled my heart. The whole world was clean and good, and in my
glorious exultation I whispered a prayer for the soul of John Leith,
alias Black Fernando.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The White Waterfall, by James Francis Dwyer