CHAPTER XI
KAIPI PERFORMS A SERVICE
The Professor used a roll of films in snap-shotting the stone table while we were breaking camp. He photographed it from every point of the compass, and made a magnificent effort to dislocate his collarbone by falling from a tree up which Holman had urged him to climb so that he could get a view of the upper surface. In his mad pursuit of antiquities the Professor forgot that tree climbing was an accomplishment that he had never mastered properly in the days of his youth, and our departure was somewhat delayed by the shock which he received from the fall. The camera fell upon the pile of leaves which Leith had used as a mattress, and it escaped with abrasions that were microscopical compared to those received by the Professor, who glared angrily at Holman as Edith Herndon attended to his injuries.
"I thought you could climb," murmured the youngster. "'Pon my word I did. I wouldn't have urged you to get up there if I didn't think you could hang to a limb."
"I am acquainted with a number of persons who would look well hanging to a limb," retorted the Professor, as he rubbed his ankles.
"Same here," said Holman, unperturbed by the sharp retort. "When I think over their actions, Professor, I wonder how they escaped being suspended from such places. Especially when you consider that trees are plentiful."
We made slow progress during the morning. The Professor's accident robbed him of a lot of the nimbleness which had been noticeable during the two preceding days, and the other members of the expedition had to move at a pace that would suit his stiff limbs.
"I'm unlucky," whispered Holman, as he sat beside me at the midday halt. "I tried to show him how he could get a good snapshot, and now he's as poisonous as a red-necked cobra just because he was silly enough to skin his shins."
We crossed the lowest part of the valley during the early afternoon, and commenced to ascend gradually toward the black walls on the far side. Leith had remarked at the lunch table that we would probably reach our destination on the following morning, and the information brought a thrill of expectation in spite of the suspicions we entertained. The undefined dread had upset our nerves, and I think the two girls, as well as Holman and myself, were looking forward anxiously to the arrival at the objective point so that our suspicions could be either verified or abandoned. Leith was more affable than usual on that afternoon, and he held forth in such a gloomy fashion upon the wonders that were within reach that the Professor almost forgot his injuries and his animus against Holman as he listened to the description.
"It is my opinion that the island was the burial ground of the chiefs of the nearby groups," remarked Leith. "There is every indication that the people who were buried here were not ordinary people, as you will see when you view the wonders that will meet your eyes to-morrow."
The Professor beamed through his thick glasses, and, forgetting his injuries, gave a little jump in negotiating an obstruction, but the look of agony which passed across his face proved that his injured limb objected to useless gambols.
"We may be wrong after all," muttered Holman, after he had listened to Leith's description of the wonders of the tombs of the long-dead members of Polynesian royal families. "I hate to be suspicious of a fellow, and I'll be glad if he proves genuine in the end."
"So will I," I remarked. "If he measures up all right I'll be half inclined to apologize before I go back to take a gruelling from Captain Newmarch."
It was Kaipi who stampeded the small ray of charity that had pierced the cluster of suspicions we had collected. The little Fijian performed the trick about seven o'clock in the evening, and it was done in a most effective manner. When we had made camp, Leith had sent Soma on ahead with the ostensible purpose of locating the easiest route to the base of the cliffs, and an hour afterward Kaipi managed to attract my attention, and he indicated by signs that he had information to impart. I seized a chance to help him with the small tent which sheltered the two sisters, and as we tugged at the knots he slipped a small piece of paper into my hand.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Soma drop it," he explained nervously. "I follow him just little way think get good chance kill him, but no chance come. He drop little piece of paper from his belt; me pick 'em up. I no know what it say; you read."
I crammed the note into my pocket as Leith approached, but at the first opportunity I dived into a thicket of leaves and opened it with nervous fingers. It was brief, exceedingly brief, but no number of words could have produced the same cold chill of dread which took possession of me as I glanced over the scrawl upon the paper. The note read:
"Five babies for kindergarten. Arrange everything. Meet at the Long Gallery."
I stumbled out on the clearing in a half stupor. The arrival of the long-expected confirmation of our suspicions had the same effect upon me as a blow from a sandbag. Leith was apparently everything that Holman and the girls had suspected him of being, and as I looked around at the nearly impenetrable jungle growth upon which the night had come down with that appalling swiftness of the tropics, I understood the helpless condition in which we were placed. Soma and the other five carriers were evidently tools of the big bully; the person or persons to whom the note was addressed would also stand behind him in a fray, and against this little army there was Holman, Kaipi, the two sisters, and myself. The Professor's insane craving for a sight of the antiquities would probably make him a partisan of the big brute till his devilish tricks were laid sufficiently bare to allow the childish mind of the scientist to see through them. The situation was pitiful to contemplate, and sick with terror at thoughts of the fate of the two girls, I found Holman and pulled him out of the circle of light thrown by the fire which Kaipi was tending.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I've got proof!" I cried. "Soma dropped a note that Leith sent him off with when we halted. Kaipi found it and brought it to me."
I recited the few words that were now pounding madly through my brain, but the mere recitation would not satisfy Holman. He wanted to see the words—to stare at them, so that his eyes might confirm the information which his ears had gathered, and together we dived deeper into the creepers till it was safe for him to light a match by which he could view the scrawl.
"My God!" he cried hoarsely. "He's a devil, Verslun! We're fools! Infernal fools! Do you hear me? I'll shoot the brute now!"
He flung aside my hands and made a dash toward the fire, plunging through the creepers with a strength born of the sudden flame of temper which had come with the confirmation of Leith's duplicity. The boy's love for Barbara Herndon made him a madman as he raced madly to obtain vengeance from the brute who had led us into the trap.
Like two maniacs we rushed into the light of the fire, but only the two girls and the Professor were seated round it. Leith was not in sight.
"Where is he?" gasped Holman.
The Professor looked up in mild astonishment. "Who?" he asked.
"Leith!" cried the boy. "Where has he gone?"
"Mr. Leith has gone forward to help Soma," squeaked the Professor. "It will be moonlight, so he took the opportunity of making certain about the direction we were to go in the morning. He said he would not be back before daylight."
Holman mastered his anger, and I beckoned the Professor to one side. It was necessary to make an attempt to convince the foolish old scientist that we were in the hands of a scoundrel, and I determined to place the note and our suspicions before him.
I told hurriedly of the appearance of the figure upon the stone table on the previous evening, but before I had time to tell of the note, the doddering old imbecile interrupted.
"What's that?" he cried. "Some one else upon the island? Well, they can't steal the honour of the discoveries. I have first claim upon everything we find upon the place. Mr. Leith and I made that arrangement before we left Sydney. Besides, it is Mr. Leith's island, and if other scientists are here—
"Oh, confound it! Who said they were scientists?" roared Holman. "It's bad luck for us that they are not. Scientists are harmless, but these are natives or something worse."
"Leith will fix 'em!" cried the Professor, ignoring the youngster's comment on the inoffensive nature of men of his type. "Leith will put them off the place—"
"Stop chattering and read that!" I interrupted. "Your precious friend sent this ahead by Soma. He dropped it and we got hold of it."
Holman struck a match and held it over the scrap of paper while the scientist stared at it through his thick glasses.
"Well?" he queried. "What has this nonsense to do with me?"
"The five babies," snapped Holman.
"Five babies?" repeated the Professor. "I know nothing about babies!"
His small head wagged backward and forward as he made the statement, and his evident inability to see that the reference concerned us irritated the youngster beyond measure.
"You're the biggest baby of the five!" he roared. "You're a madman! Come away, Verslun; it's no use arguing with him!"
The Professor gave an indignant snort, straightened his small body, as if he contemplated an attack upon the youngster, then dashed madly back to the fire, where we watched him bobbing his head up and down as he spoke to the two girls. His confidence in the rascal who was possibly luring him to his death was pitiful to see, and we recognized at that moment that it would be useless to waste any further arguments with him.
"We've got to get out of this scrape by our own efforts," muttered Holman. "The girls won't leave him, worse luck. If they would I'd turn tail this minute and make an attempt to fight our way back to the yacht."
"And I doubt if you will find a haven there," I remarked. "That bilious captain was in a great hurry to send word to Leith that I had got safely by his farewell bombardment. We're in for it, old man, and we might as well realize the fact right now."
"You're not sorry I found you on that pile of pearl shell?"
"Sorry?" I cried. "I'm glad, man—I'm infernally glad."
Holman gripped my hand, and then we crawled through the bushes toward the spot where Soma and Leith had started off on their supposed work of exploration.
"What can we do?" I asked.
"Wait round here and pot him when he is coming back," said the youngster cheerfully. "But we should let the girls know something, shouldn't we? That old fool will tell them a garbled account that will frighten them out of their wits. One of us had better go and try to quiet their fears."
"You go then," I remarked. "I'll wait here till you come back."
Holman crept quietly toward the campfire, and I waited in the undergrowth. The moon was rising in the east and a soft gray light wiped out the intense blackness that had come upon the place after the short twilight. The tops of the cliffs toward which we were journeying were tipped by a brilliant thread of silver as the moon peeped above their ramparts, and I crept deeper into the shadows as the full glory of the glowing orb turned the night into day.
I had waited some thirty minutes for Holman when I noticed a movement beneath a small bush some fifteen paces to my right. I watched the spot without moving, and presently a dark figure crept out of the shelter and moved cautiously toward the camp. Convinced that the visitor was Soma, I pulled out my revolver and waited, wondering as I watched what he intended to do.
The black figure came closer. He paused to listen to the sounds that came from the fire, and as he lifted his head the moonlight fell across his face, and I put the revolver back in my pocket.
"Kaipi," I murmured.
The Fijian crept quietly to the spot where I was hiding.
"I come for you," he muttered.
"Why?"
"Funny things much," he gurgled. "Light on mountain, no see from here. Me watch it, think it something bad. Come, I'll show you."
Holman returned at that moment and I explained what Kaipi had just told me.
"The devil!" muttered the youngster. "The note said that he would meet them at the Long Gallery. See, the light is not visible from our camp, and the brute never thought that one of us would be far enough from the camp to notice it. If it's a signal we might be able to reach the spot and see what is actually going on. If we leave things till to-morrow I'm afraid we'll be too late."
"But the girls?" I cried.
"We'll get back," he replied. "I told them how everything is, Verslun, and they're not afraid. Edith has an automatic pistol that she brought from the yacht, and she'll use it if she is forced to. Come on!"
We followed Kaipi into the shadows, the Fijian picking his way with wonderful instinct through the clumps. At about half a mile from the camp he stopped and pointed to the cliffs.
"Me see light flash way over there," he whispered. "You wait and see."
We crouched down and waited. The minutes passed slowly, but the black barrier away to the east gave no sign of life.
"I think Kaipi must have sighted a star," muttered Holman. "There is nothing—"
He broke off abruptly and gripped my arm. High up in the basalt barrier, at a spot about three quarters of a mile from where we were crouched, a tiny flame suddenly appeared, blazed for an instant, then died away again. Three times it flared up and as quickly died away, but at the third disappearance Holman and I, with the vengeance-seeking Kaipi, were struggling through the network of damp vegetation toward the spot from which the signal had come.
