thislittle army there was Holman, Kaipi, the two sisters, and myself. TheProfessor's insane craving for a sight of the antiquities would probablymake him a partisan of the big brute till his devilish tricks were laidsufficiently bare to allow the childish mind of the scientist to seethrough them. The situation was pitiful to contemplate, and sick withterror at thoughts of the fate of the two girls, I found Holman andpulled him out of the circle of light thrown by the fire which Kaipi wastending.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I've got proof!" I cried. "Soma dropped a note that Leith sent him offwith when we halted. Kaipi found it and brought it to me."
I recited the few words that were now pounding madly through my brain,but the mere recitation would not satisfy Holman. He wanted to see thewords--to stare at them, so that his eyes might confirm the informationwhich his ears had gathered, and together we dived deeper into thecreepers till it was safe for him to light a match by which he couldview the scrawl.
"My God!" he cried hoarsely. "He's a devil, Verslun! We're fools!Infernal fools! Do you hear me? I'll shoot the brute now!"
He flung aside my hands and made a dash toward the fire, plungingthrough the creepers with a strength born of the sudden flame of temperwhich had come with the confirmation of Leith's duplicity. The boy'slove for Barbara Herndon made him a madman as he raced madly to obtainvengeance from the brute who had led us into the trap.
Like two maniacs we rushed into the light of the fire, but only the twogirls and the Professor were seated round it. Leith was not in sight.
"Where is he?" gasped Holman.
The Professor looked up in mild astonishment. "Who?" he asked.
"Leith!" cried the boy. "Where has he gone?"
"Mr. Leith has gone forward to help Soma," squeaked the Professor. "Itwill be moonlight, so he took the opportunity of making certain aboutthe direction we were to go in the morning. He said he would not be backbefore daylight."
Holman mastered his anger, and I beckoned the Professor to one side. Itwas necessary to make an attempt to convince the foolish old scientistthat we were in the hands of a scoundrel, and I determined to place thenote and our suspicions before him.
I told hurriedly of the appearance of the figure upon the stone table onthe previous evening, but before I had time to tell of the note, thedoddering old imbecile interrupted.
"What's that?" he cried. "Some one else upon the island? Well, theycan't steal the honour of the discoveries. I have first claim uponeverything we find upon the place. Mr. Leith and I made that arrangementbefore we left Sydney. Besides, it is Mr. Leith's island, and if otherscientists are here--
"Oh, confound it! Who said they were scientists?" roared Holman. "It'sbad luck for us that they are not. Scientists are harmless, but theseare natives or something worse."
"Leith will fix 'em!" cried the Professor, ignoring the youngster'scomment on the inoffensive nature of men of his type. "Leith will putthem off the place--"
"Stop chattering and read that!" I interrupted. "Your precious friendsent this ahead by Soma. He dropped it and we got hold of it."
Holman struck a match and held it over the scrap of paper while thescientist stared at it through his thick glasses.
"Well?" he queried. "What has this nonsense to do with me?"
"The five babies," snapped Holman.
"Five babies?" repeated the Professor. "I know nothing about babies!"
His small head wagged backward and forward as he made the statement, andhis evident inability to see that the reference concerned us irritatedthe youngster beyond measure.
"You're the biggest baby of the five!" he roared. "You're a madman! Comeaway, Verslun; it's no use arguing with him!"
The Professor gave an indignant snort, straightened his small body, asif he contemplated an attack upon the youngster, then dashed madly backto the fire, where we watched him bobbing his head up and down as hespoke to the two girls. His confidence in the rascal who was possiblyluring him to his death was pitiful to see, and we recognized at thatmoment that it would be useless to waste any further arguments with him.
"We've got to get out of this scrape by our own efforts," mutteredHolman. "The girls won't leave him, worse luck. If they would I'd turntail this minute and make an attempt to fight our way back to theyacht."
"And I doubt if you will find a haven there," I remarked. "That biliouscaptain was in a great hurry to send word to Leith that I had got safelyby his farewell bombardment. We're in for it, old man, and we might aswell realize the fact right now."
"You're not sorry I found you on that pile of pearl shell?"
"Sorry?" I cried. "I'm glad, man--I'm infernally glad."
Holman gripped my hand, and then we crawled through the bushes towardthe spot where Soma and Leith had started off on their supposed work ofexploration.
"What can we do?" I asked.
"Wait round here and pot him when he is coming back," said the youngstercheerfully. "But we should let the girls know something, shouldn't we?That old fool will tell them a garbled account that will frighten themout of their wits. One of us had better go and try to quiet theirfears."
"You go then," I remarked. "I'll wait here till you come back."
Holman crept quietly toward the campfire, and I waited in theundergrowth. The moon was rising in the east and a soft gray light wipedout the intense blackness that had come upon the place after the shorttwilight. The tops of the cliffs toward which we were journeying weretipped by a brilliant thread of silver as the moon peeped above theirramparts, and I crept deeper into the shadows as the full glory of theglowing orb turned the night into day.
I had waited some thirty minutes for Holman when I noticed a movementbeneath a small bush some fifteen paces to my right. I watched the spotwithout moving, and presently a dark figure crept out of the shelter andmoved cautiously toward the camp. Convinced that the visitor was Soma, Ipulled out my revolver and waited, wondering as I watched what heintended to do.
The black figure came closer. He paused to listen to the sounds thatcame from the fire, and as he lifted his head the moonlight fell acrosshis face, and I put the revolver back in my pocket.
"Kaipi," I murmured.
The Fijian crept quietly to the spot where I was hiding.
"I come for you," he muttered.
"Why?"
"Funny things much," he gurgled. "Light on mountain, no see from here.Me watch it, think it something bad. Come, I'll show you."
Holman returned at that moment and I explained what Kaipi had just toldme.
"The devil!" muttered the youngster. "The note said that he would meetthem at the Long Gallery. See, the light is not visible from our camp,and the brute never thought that one of us would be far enough from thecamp to notice it. If it's a signal we might be able to reach the spotand see what is actually going on. If we leave things till to-morrow I'mafraid we'll be too late."
"But the girls?" I cried.
"We'll get back," he replied. "I told them how everything is, Verslun,and they're not afraid. Edith has an automatic pistol that she broughtfrom the yacht, and she'll use it if she is forced to. Come on!"
We followed Kaipi into the shadows, the Fijian picking his way withwonderful instinct through the clumps. At about half a mile from thecamp he stopped and pointed to the cliffs.
"Me see light flash way over there," he whispered. "You wait and see."
We crouched down and waited. The minutes passed slowly, but the blackbarrier away to the east gave no sign of life.
"I think Kaipi must have sighted a star," muttered Holman. "There isnothing--"
He broke off abruptly and gripped my arm. High up in the basalt barrier,at a spot about three quarters of a mile from where we were crouched, atiny flame suddenly appeared, blazed for an instant, then died awayagain. Three times it flared up and as quickly died away, but at thethird disappearance Holman and I, with the vengeance-seeking Kaipi, werestruggling through the network of damp vegetation toward the spot fromwhich the signal had come.
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br /> CHAPTER XII
THE DEVIL DANCERS
The snaky vines seemed to us to be leagued with Leith as we tried toforce our way to the spot where the tiny flash of light had appearedamongst the rocks. The lawyer-vines gripped our ankles and flung us uponour faces scores of times, but we scrambled to our feet and rushed on.Kaipi had made the discovery at an opportune moment. Now that we werecertain that Leith contemplated treachery, the wait through the longnight would have maddened us. We wanted to meet him quickly, andinstinct told us that the appointment place mentioned in
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