"Now, Verslun," muttered Holman. "Reach up till we get a grip of your wrists. Are you ready? Well, try hard, man! Think of those two helpless girls and dig your toes in!"
I didn't need any reminder concerning the position of the two sisters as I stood on tiptoe and scratched with my fingers at the crumbling ledge upon which Holman and the Fijian crouched. The predicament of Edith Herndon, and not fears for my own safety, made me scratch madly for a foothold as I swung above the shelf I left. Kaipi and Holman tugged till every muscle in my arms shrieked out against the way they were being handled. But I was going up. I "chinned" the crumbling layer of rock upon which my fingers had a perilous grip, laid my chest across the shelf and wriggled into safety.
"That's good," whispered Holman. "Don't puff so hard, man! We're too close to take any chances."
I got upon my hands and knees and followed him along the narrow pathway. Over a thousand obstructions we crawled like three rock snakes, till finally the boy halted and turned toward me.
"See the streak of light through that split in the rock?" he whispered. "Look in front of you! Well, they're inside."
The split in the rock to which Holman had pointed was a perpendicular crevice about four feet in length, but possessing only a width of six inches. It separated two rock masses that were fully eighteen inches thick, and as we wriggled noiselessly toward it we saw that it gave us a glimpse of the interior of a huge cavern, the part of which that was just inside our point of observation being illuminated by a swinging ship's lamp which hung by a rope that dropped from the vaulted dome.
The lamp swung directly in front of the crevice through which we peered breathlessly, and for a few seconds it was the only object that was visible. Gradually our eyes became accustomed to the light, and we found that a pair of brown legs were moving slowly along the floor past our spyhole. A body, gorgeously decorated in mats of green and crimson parrot feathers, followed the legs, and then came a head that was hidden behind a mask of sennet daubed thickly with coral lime and ochre till it appeared a ghastly nightmare.
The horror moved upon its stomach, and, viewing it as we did through the narrow cranny, it appeared as if the film of a biograph was being slowly dragged before our eyes. Another pair of legs followed the masked head, another body, and another mask that was even more fear-inspiring than the first. And the procession continued. Three, four, five, and six—each succeeding one being arrayed in a mask of more ghastly appearance than those which had preceded him. The sixth was followed by the first, who had wriggled clear around the circle of light thrown by the lamp, and in perfect silence the infernal snaky circle moved backward round and round, the faint light shining on bare legs, on bodies from which the parrot mats were thrust aside by the contortions, and upon the masks that were weirdly fantastic and Mephistophelian.
They had circled the floor about ten times when Holman tugged my coat and I wriggled back from the crevice.
"What's up?" My lips were dry as I put the question.