The fire was kindled on a clear space between the wreck and the vegetation that clothed the foot of the cliffs. Beyond it, nearer the vessel, about twenty natives were stamping in time with the two drums, placed at one end of the line. They were men of average height, well built, but rather thin in the legs, wearing fantastic head-dresses, bone or coral necklaces and armlets, and scanty loin-cloths. The watchers were at once struck by certain differences in the types of feature. All the savages were a dull black in colour, except where they had painted their skins white or red, but while the majority had wide bridgeless noses and frizzy hair, there were some whose noses were arched, and whose hair, though curled, was neither stiff nor bushy. Every face was disfigured by a long skewer of bone passed through the nose.
The dance was disappointing. The men did little more than stamp up and down, swaying a little now and then, stepping a pace or two forward or backward, shaking their spears, and emitting a grunt. There was no excitement, no crescendo of martial fury.
'A very tame performance!' whispered Hoole.
But Trentham was no longer watching the dance. Beyond the dancers, only occasionally visible as they moved, there was something that had fixed his attention. He could not quite determine what it was, but a suspicion was troubling him. Between the swaying figures there appeared, now and again, a whitish object partially obscured by bush, and barely within the circle of light from the fire. It was motionless, but the fugitive glimpses that Trentham caught of it made him more and more uneasy.
'You see that white thing?' he whispered, taking Hoole by the arm.
'Yep! What of it?'
Trentham pressed his arm more closely. The dancers had moved a little farther apart, and for the first time the object behind them was completely outlined.
'By gum, it's a man!' murmured Hoole.
'And a white man!' added Trentham. 'I was afraid so.'
CHAPTER III