scientist's discourse, I felt inclined to agree with thescoffer. Soma had an intelligence that lifted him above his class, and Iwas convinced that many of the Professor's surmises caused him secretmerriment.
CHAPTER X
A MIDNIGHT ALARM
I think that Professor Herndon was the only person in the company whowas quite contented with the day's doings on that evening when we campednear the table of stone. The polished slide and the ledge along which wehad passed to the cavern stirred his imagination concerning the wondersthat were before him, and he convinced himself that he had the god ofhis ambition by the heel. The fat notebook was made the repository ofcountless surmises regarding the period at which the ledge was in activeuse as a test for courage, and the stone structure that loomed upimmediately beside the camp was tagged with countless suppositionsregarding its uses and its probable date of construction. Soma gatheredin some easily earned shillings by raking his mind in search oftraditions and retailing them to the scientist by the light of the fire.He made magazine prices for tales that he spun from his fertile brain,and the Professor could hardly write fast enough in the excitementbrought about by the discovery of so much historical knowledge.
"It is wonderful!" he cried, pausing for a moment to polish the thicklenses of his glasses upon the end of his silk coat. "The chance ofenlightening the world upon this subject is one that I would not havemissed for a million dollars."
"The dollars for me," murmured Holman. "I don't think the old worldcares three cents about anything that happened a thousand years ago inthis patch."
The Professor adjusted his glasses and turned them upon the doubter forthe space of three minutes, but Holman was blissfully ignorant of thelook which the angry archaeologist favoured him with. The youngster waswatching the firelight upon the face of Miss Barbara Herndon, and histhoughts were probably in a dream-fed future instead of a dismal past.
Leith sat silent and gloomy, his head pillowed against the trunk of amaupei tree, his face in the shadow of his hat, which he had pulleddown over his forehead. The supper had been eaten with littleconversation, the Professor being the only one who showed conversationalpowers of any note. With the notebook already partly filled he feltcertain of a niche in the Pantheon of Fame, and he could not resist adesire to prattle childishly about the sensation which his discoverieswould cause. It's a terrible thing for a man to get the applause cravingin its worst form. It is liable to make him do things which no cravingfor treasure would allow him to do, no matter how badly he desired thetempting gold.
The girls retired early, and soon afterward Leith wrapped himself up ina blanket and lay down at the foot of the tree. The Professor at lastbecame tired of firing questions at the wonderfully well-informed Soma,and the Kanaka, finding that the market for legends was not as good asit was in the early part of the night, retreated to the other fire,where Kaipi and the fire carriers were slumbering.
The heavy silence that comes in the night to the outposts of the worldfell upon the place like a cold hand at that moment. A moon thatappeared to have a pellicle across it, like the film upon a dead man'seye, peeped over the barrier of black rocks--peeped over as if itwondered what we were doing in that God-forgotten quarter. Sudden puffsof wind rustled the leaves of the maupei and fled hurriedly, and fromsomewhere in the coral rocks one of those red-striped lizards that aresometimes found in the rocky parts of the Carolines sent his unearthly_shik-shuck_ into the stillness, where one fancied it a littleprojectile of sound crushed in its efforts to pierce the tremendoussilence of the night. One's imagination pictured the places where therewere lights and music, the tinkle of glasses, and the laughter of menand women, and the wilderness suffered in the comparison. Coral atollswith waving palm trees are delightful spots when one reads of them whenseated in a comfortable armchair in a snug library, but the real islandcomes down heavily upon the nerve-centres when night falls upon thespot. Then the fringe dweller feels that he is an outcast from the warmplaces of the world where men and women meet in social intercourse.
Holman, who had been staring in silence at the fire for some twentyminutes, turned toward me after the Professor had retired.
"Sleepy?" asked the youngster.
"Worse than that," I muttered.
"Let's turn in."
The "turning in" was an easy performance. We lay down on the pile ofleaves which the carriers had scraped together, pulled a rug over us,and in spite of the surroundings I was soon fast asleep.
It was Holman's fist that disturbed my slumber. It came with some forceagainst my short rib, and I sat upright. The moonlight made it possibleto see across the valley, while every object around the camp was clearlyoutlined.
Holman was sitting up on his leafy bed, and I put a questionbreathlessly as I jerked myself upright.
"What's up?"
"Didn't he say that this place was uninhabited?" asked the youngster.
"Yes," I answered. "Why?"
"Well, some one has just pushed his head and shoulders up above thatstone table," whispered Holman. "He put his head up, looked across at usfor about five minutes, then dodged quickly back."
"You weren't dreaming?"
"Dreaming? Rot! I haven't closed my eyes since we retired!"
I threw off the rug and looked around. Leith lay under the maupei treein the same position as we had seen him in at the moment I lay down.Near him the Professor snored dismally, probably dreaming dreams of thegreatness that would be thrust upon him in the near future. No soundscame from the tent that sheltered the two girls, but a combination ofcurious nasal sounds rose from the spot where the natives were sleepingaround their fire.
"It might be one of the niggers," whispered Holman. "Let us see."
We stole silently across the intervening space, and, crouching in theshadows, counted the sleepers. There were seven. The prowler that Holmanhad seen upon the top of the stone structure was evidently an outsider,and the knowledge brought no pleasant feelings. Leith had assured theProfessor on several occasions that the island was uninhabited, yet itwas quite possible that natives from the adjoining groups had visited itduring the period that elapsed since his last visit. Yet we felt that itwas no stray visitor from another island that had peeped over the top ofthe massive table, and it was with a suspicious eye upon the sleepingLeith that we crept quietly over the coral rocks toward the tremendousstone piers of the structure that rose like a monster gateway againstthe gray sky. The atmosphere of that place was indescribable. We seemedto be in the midst of relics that were older than the pyramids. Thetemple of Luxor may seem impressive by moonlight, but the knowledge wepossess of Thebes in its glory somewhat modifies the awe which we wouldfeel if we knew nothing of the people who had raised the great monumentsin the city of Amen-Ra. And Holman and I knew nothing of the dead racethat erected the mighty stone table on the cleared slope, which by itsconstruction gave evidence of a knowledge of mechanics of which thepresent-day Polynesian is entirely ignorant. I recalled the Nan-Tauchruins and the tombs of the mysterious Chan-te-leur kings Ola-Sipa andOla-Sopa in the Carolines, the _tolmas_ and the _langis_ of theMarshall and Gilbert groups, and I wished the Professor anything butpleasant dreams. The place seemed waiting for the return of its dead. Thescenery possessed that singular expectancy that compels one to turn aroundevery few moments to convince one's self that an unfriendly watcher is notimmediately in the rear.
Still keeping in the shadows, we circled the camp till we were in frontof the stone table, but just when I took a step into the moonlight spacebefore it, Holman grasped my arm and drew me back.
"Look!" he gurgled. "Look! there he is again!"
All doubts concerning the youngster's previous observations were sweptaway at that moment. A head and shoulders rose suddenly above the blackline of the immense flat stone, remained there for the space of threeminutes, then dropped back so that we could not see it from the positionin which we stood.
"Take the two front pillars!" whispered Holman. "I'll watch the two backones. Come on!"
W
e dashed across the open space, the youngster rushing to the rear,while I ran to the front columns. It was impossible for any one todescend unless we saw him, and with nerves on a tension we walked aroundthe huge supports and watched anxiously for the midnight watcher todescend.
We must have remained on guard for twenty minutes or more, but there wasno sign of the spy. Around us the massive structure cast a patch ofvelvety shadow, but not the slightest sound came from above.
Holman tired of the inactivity, and stepped across to where I wasstanding. "I'm going to climb that chestnut tree and see if the beggaris still there," he murmured. "You stop here till I take anobservation."
He darted across to the big Pacific chestnut and climbed hurriedly,while I walked round and round the square
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