They plunged deeper into the groves, and the twilit alleys of the coco-palms and the stretches of pandanus and bread-fruit heard the calling of the man and the child, to which only the wind in the branches made reply.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE DEMON
“He’s gone,” said Kearney.
The child was asleep in the house, and he had taken his seat alone by the water’s edge. The tide was running out of the lagoon under the sunset and a faint chuckle of water against the ribs of the tied-up dinghy was the only response.
Tired out, he had taken his seat near the little boat as if for the sake of company and, with his pipe in his mouth, was chucking bits of coral at the water. Dick had left them kicking about on the sward; they had been his playthings, but he had outgrown them.
“Gone west,” said Kearney, chucking the last of them far out and watching the ripples as they spread, “and Lord knows where he’s dropped in them woods.” He had done his best, beating the trees and shouting and hallooing, hunting right up to where the groves halted before the rise of the summit, and returning with the tired-out Dick on his shoulder.
There was no chance that the missing man was lying somewhere disabled with a sprained ankle or broken leg. He would have heard the shouting and made answer. Lestrange had gone west; he had dropped, maybe by reason of his heart giving out, and was lying somewhere in those woods, lost beyond discovery.
Leaning now on his elbow, with his pipe, which had gone out, between his teeth, Kearney stared at the water before him.
The swirls in it as it moved gently with the outgoing tide seemed part of his trouble. The Ranatonga had not returned, Lestrange was sure dead somewhere or other in those woods, and here he was left alone with the child. What was to be the end of it all?