To his astonishment, Vaiti made no answer, but stood leaning up against the wall of the tunnel, both hands pressed against her chest. In a moment more she was violently sick.
"The smell!" she said presently, turning a ghastly face towards the light of Pita's candle.
"I smell nothing," said Pita, puzzled. "The wind blows your way. There is perhaps some dead thing down there."
Vaiti shook her head, and Pita saw that her eyes seemed to fill half her face as she looked down into the gulf. Suddenly she sprang, her white drapery flying behind her, and landed half a yard behind Pita, with a leap that drew a cry of wonder from the Atiuan. "Come, come," she said, taking his hand and fairly dragging him on.
They had little farther to go. The tunnel wound on for perhaps another hundred yards, and then stopped. They found themselves in a low-roofed circular chamber, such as is often met with at the end of long underground passages—a small, insignificant place, roofed with drooping green stalactites and floored with shapeless, slimy hummocks of stalagmite. Numbers of deep shelves were quarried out in the rocky sides, and in these lay, row on row, the bare, mouldering skulls of Falaite's long-ago chiefs—many of them cracked and split, and not a few fallen into shapeless fragments, though there were a score or two in excellent condition. They were curious skulls indeed, had their discoverers been able to understand them. In the projecting jaws, huge canines, strangely high cranium, and oddly developed ridges near the opening of the ear were the materials of a problem contradictory and complicated enough to occupy the wits of a whole college of science. But Vaiti and Pita saw none of these things. They only noted with disappointment, that most of the skulls had gone to decay—picked out the best of the unbroken specimens, packed the great sack full of them, and turned homewards.
"Vaiti," said Pita, as they walked down the rocky tunnel, and felt the slope of the gulf beginning under their feet. "Vaiti, what did you——"
Her face, turned back upon him, slew the still-born question on his lips.
It was scarce a minute before the chasm gaped in their path yet again. The leap was worse on this side, for the clustered cones of stalagmite did not allow a fair take-off. Pita looked calculatingly at the farther side, very dimly visible in the faint candle-light, and picked up a fallen stalactite to throw across.
"Do not throw!" said Vaiti, in a breathless whisper.
"Why not? I can jump better if I hear where it hits," replied Pita, casting the stone before Vaiti had time to snatch at his hand. It fell short, and rolled down into the chasm with a loud, crashing noise.