Here, with only a glance over the sloping sides of the basin and the stagnant pool at its bottom—its heavy waters already iridescent in the dying sun—he strode rapidly toward the stockade. As he had seen it before, the king’s home still stood—the signs of decay more evident, but the totem palm trunks still erect.
No one blocked his passage, but he did not enter the gate. Still swaying on the palm trunks, he saw that which sent a chill through him. He also saw, almost above, but apparently guarding the gate, the big black who had accosted him on the beach years before. The man was heavier, there was a brutish kind of fear on his face, but he yet carried in his belt the one revolver the Englishman had seen on the island.
“Tell the great thief Cajou the white man is here.”
Captain Bassett uttered these words in a tone that made the big black start.
“Him no walk,” was the answer in a hesitating voice.
“Tell the great thief Cajou that the white man brings death.”
“Him sick,” faltered the swarthy guardian.
Within the shadow of the filthy stockade court, other men could now be seen. The white man could see the glare of eyes as if beasts were crouching in the fast-gathering night.
“Tell the great thief Cajou,” went on the white man—his tone unchanged, cold and imperative, “that to-night comes the Bird of Death. He who was robbed of his pearl, to-night brings fetich; to-night, the white man brings death to the women and children of thieves; to-night, out of the south, he commands the Bird of Death.”