“Suppose,” thought Utali, “my father were to appear at the head of his men armed as of old and thirsting to kill!”
His mind drew the picture and cast it aside as he drove forward, trampling the ground lianas and shouldering the branches aside.
Suddenly he bolted. The boom of the great wave that Katafa had heard came through the trees, followed by the garrulous chanting of the gulls. He stood listening. He knew every sound of the sea and the meaning of each. A storm of some sort was approaching and his first thought was of the canoes.
Then he heard Laminai giving tongue, and the sound of the chase as it swept to the hill-top, and, turning, leading his men, he began to climb. Laminai had evidently taken no heed of the warning from the sea.
It had been arranged that the two divisions should join up should the illusive enemy give battle to either; each division considered itself all-powerful and ready to meet any contingency, and it was right, for the spears were poisoned with angara, a species of oap, deadly and instantaneous in its effects. So Utali did not hasten his steps unduly, keeping his men fresh for whatever might be to do, and going cautiously with an eye and ear for surprises.
The shouting suddenly ceased as if cut off by a closed door, and Utali, holding up his hand in the green twilight, halted.
The cries he had heard had been the sounds of pursuit, not of battle. Why had they ceased so suddenly?
He listened and waited—not a sound. He stood still listening, his mind filled with wild conjectures, whilst up above, Laminai, spear in hand, stood fronting Dick, touching his breast with the spear-point, flinging back his arm for the thrust.
A yell split the night above as Laminai’s division caught sight of Katafa, and Utali, taking it for the shout of battle, charged upwards through the trees, followed by his men, to the assistance of Laminai.
They had not gone twenty paces when they found that they were being charged. Down through the trees, towards them, a host was pouring—there was only one instantaneous solution: Laminai’s division had been utterly and silently destroyed and the destroyers were coming, ghosts and evil spirits, no doubt, led by the ghostly Makara.