The White Waterfall

by James Francis Dwyer

"Well, they're going to start operations," said the youngster. "We're going to the top, Verslun."

It was plain that we were. Two of the natives had shinned up one of the pillars by means of small notches in one corner, and now the other cut the bands that tied us together, promptly attached Holman's feet to the rope his comrades lowered, and signalled that all was ready by clapping his hands. The youngster was quickly jerked upward, and in a few minutes I was beside him on the moss-grown sloping surface of the immense stone.

The three dancers were evidently impressed with the importance of the work they had in hand. Their movements on the stone became more dignified and solemn. They moved around us in a manner that would have provoked laughter at any other time, and we watched eagerly for developments.

With much care they placed us side by side on the upper part of the stone, but Holman's feet were turned to my head, and as we were placed crosswise upon the inclined surface, my body was a few inches lower than his. That we were to be sacrificed appeared to be a certainty at that moment, but the method by which we were to be sent into eternity puzzled us. Not one of the three had a weapon. The surface of the stone was as bare as it was upon the night that we had investigated it, and we began to think that death by starvation and thirst would probably be our fate.

But thoughts of such an ending were soon put aside. Two of the savages slipped from the stone while the other dropped upon his stomach and hid his face. That something was going to happen we felt certain, but we could not discover the slightest clue that would guide our puzzled wits to a solution. We expected death, but we could not guess in what manner the job was to be performed.

"Looks as if something is coming, Verslun," cried Holman. "I was a fool to miss him, old man, but I guess—oh, Gee!"

The final exclamation was caused by a happening immediately beside us. A section of the moss-grown stone, about eight feet long and eighteen inches in width, started to rise slowly, and when our astonished eyes fell upon it we knew that we had the solution of the strange appearance of the figure upon the table on the night we camped in its shadow. Holman had seen this movable slab rise above the top of the table, but it had returned to its groove before we had climbed the tree, and it had fitted so closely into its moss-grown bed that we had been unable to detect a crevice in the moonlight. We had been on the verge of a discovery, but as we recalled the incident, lying there helpless, we were doubtful if it would have saved us from the fate we expected. The note which Soma had dropped gave full confirmation to all our suspicions concerning Leith, yet we had been unable to hold our own against him.

One end of the slab remained stationary after it had risen a few inches from its bed, but the other end, which was nearest us, went up and up, pushed by some screwjack arrangement that lifted it with slow, jerky movements till it was nearly upright. The moonlight fell upon the under surface that was turned toward us, and we understood the manner in which Leith's friends had arranged for us to make our exit from this world. The bottom of the stone slab had been carved into a perfect representation of a centipede, and as the slab remained stationary just before it reached the perpendicular, I began to dive into my mental reticule for the scraps of prayers that had been caught and held through a rather checkered career in places where the efficacy of prayer was looked upon with a cold eye.

The prostrate savage rose slowly when the movements of the slab had ceased, and very tenderly he rolled Holman and me over the bed from which the stone had been lifted. He pushed our bodies against the wooden post that, fitting into a sliding groove on the body of the stone centipede, had lifted the thing upright, and to make certain that we would be in the exact centre of the depression when the stone came back to its proper resting place, he strapped us carefully to the support with pieces of ramie fibre, so that we could not move an inch. With faces turned upward we stared at the carved figure above us, and the insecure tenure we had upon life at that moment was impressed upon our minds by the extreme caution which the officiating wizard exercised in keeping his own body clear of the slab lest his brethren, who were evidently operating the clumsy mechanism from some place nearby, should let the stone centipede return to his home without giving him proper warning.

At last he finished the business to his satisfaction and stepped backward. My imagination made the thing above me tremble as I looked at it with eyes of fear. The part of my body that spanned the depression became numb, and I breathed with difficulty.