The White Waterfall

by James Francis Dwyer

afternoon after I hadsaved him from being washed overboard, but the confession had been madein the presence of Soma, and, as Kaipi asserted, it had cost Toni hislife. Leith, alias Black Fernando, had ordered the big Kanaka to put thepossessor of such important information out of the way.

  I repeated over and over again the words which the Maori had addressedto his woolly headed pupil on that hot day at Levuka. They raced madlyround in my mind, as if exultant because I had found the reason why theypersisted in storing themselves in the cells of my brain. The soulwithin me had known that the knowledge would be wanted!

  "How many paces?" asked the Professor.

  "Sixty!" I roared; and then, seized with temporary insanity, I chantedthe song of the Maori at the top of my voice:

  "Sixty paces to the left, Sixty paces to the left, That's the way to heaven, That's the way to heaven, That's the way to heaven out Of Black Fernando's hell."

  "And here's the waterfall!" cried Holman, "Go easy now! It must beflowing into some hole, and we don't want to fall into an abyss just asVerslun has discovered the way out."

  We advanced cautiously toward the spot where, as Edith had said, thewater sparkled like fireflies in the darkness. It was an eerie place. Weknew that the water was there by the sound it made flowing over therocks, but, except for the tiny sparks of phosphorescent light thatseemed to fly out from it, we could not see it. The spectacle thrilledus. A million sparks of light seemed to rise from the bed of feldsparover which the water leaped, and the peculiar quality of the rock gaveto it the weird brilliancy which held us spellbound as we advanced withextreme caution. It wasn't white by any means, but in those inky depthsit would not require a great effort of the imagination to call it white.The faint luminous flashes were the only particles of light that we hadseen since Leith had thrown the half-extinguished torch into the holethat morning, and we could hardly turn our eyes from the novelty.

  The water fell into an opening in the rocky floor, and gurgled away intodepths that made us shiver as the distant tinkle came up to us as wecrept forward on hands and knees. We were all thirsty at that moment,but we wished to put the directions of the Maori to an immediate test,and we were satisfied to let our longing for a cool drink stay with ustill we could prove whether the strangely luminous waterfall before uswas the one about which the two natives chanted the strange song.

  "They said to the left, didn't they?" asked Holman.

  "Yes," I answered. I hardly recognized my own voice as I jerked out theword. I couldn't see the faces of the girls, but I understood whatskyscrapers of hope they had built upon the announcement I had made whenEdith had told of her discovery. Now, as we moved around the hole in thefloor, I understood what a tremendous shock it would be to them if wediscovered that there was no connection between the falling water andthe chant.

  "I suppose the left side will be the one upon our left hand when facingthe fall?" said Holman.

  "I suppose so," I stammered. "Let us move up close to the side of thewater."

  We edged along till we could touch the flashing stream that dropped fromsome point high up in the immense roof of the place, and then we startedto step the distance, the Professor chattering along behind us, whilethe two girls brought up the rear.

  Holman chanted the numbers aloud, and a cold sweat broke out upon me ashe counted. A fear of my own sanity came upon me. I thought that thisconnection between the song and the luminous water might have beensuggested by a brain that had suddenly lost its balance under thetorture of the preceding three days.

  "Fifty-six! Fifty-seven! Fifty-eight!----"

  It was Holman's voice, but to my reeling brain the sound came from theroof and thundered in my ears like a brazen bell.

  "Fifty-nine! _Sixty_!"

  We stopped together, and the suppressed sobs of Barbara Herndon were theonly sounds that broke the little stillness that followed. There was noway out! The darkness, so it seemed to us, was thicker than ever!

  "Nothing doing," muttered Holman. "I counted right, didn't I?"

  "I think so," I answered huskily.

  "Sixty paces exactly, and here's the wall alongside us."

  My fingers groped along the moist rock. I felt stunned. Now that thetest had been made it seemed insanity to connect a chant that I heard atLevuka with a waterfall in a cavern on the Isle of Tears. But why hadToni been killed? Why had Leith exhibited such curiosity about the songwhen he heard me relating the incident to the two sisters on board theyacht?

  My fingers came to a crevice in the wall as the question presented abold front to the doubt that had gripped me. The fissure was some fourfeet wide, and my exclamation made Holman put a question.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  "Nothing," I answered. Wrecked hopes had made me cautious. Still I feltcertain that I had remembered those words for some purpose. I recalledhow they had puzzled me on that hot day, and how I had questioned Holmanconcerning "Pilgrim's Progress" when he had roused me from my sleep.

  "Well, if there's nothing here I'm going back to get a drink," saidHolman.

  "Hold on!" I stammered, as I uncoiled the piece of spare rope from myshoulders; "I want you a minute. There's a split in this rock, and I'mgoing to explore it. Take the end of this rope and hang on."

  "Hadn't I better go with you?" he asked.

  "Not this trip," I answered. "I've just got a feeling that I'd like tosee where it leads to. Hold tight!"

  I stepped cautiously into the narrow passage and immediately found thatit narrowed to such an extent that I had to turn sideways to squeezethrough. The floor sloped upward, and as the rock was damp and slippery,I dropped upon my knees so that I could climb more rapidly. The placeseemed a narrow chute. My knees were skinned from the rough bottom, butI scratched desperately to obtain a footing. Hope was still alive. TheMaori had said that the road to heaven was sixty paces from the WhiteWaterfall, and if an all-seeing Providence had guided Edith to thewaterfall, it was surely decreed that we would make our escape from theclutches of the devil who had us at his mercy.

  "We will surely escape," I muttered, as I scratched and clawed in aneffort to drag myself up the slippery path. "We will escape! I know it!We will escape! I know--"

  The muttered words died upon my lips. The crevice turned and thenbroadened suddenly, and a blinding flash of light forced me to flingmyself face downward upon the rock. For a moment I lay there, wonderingstupidly whether something had happened to my eyes or whether I had comesuddenly into the light of day. I had seen light--the light of what?

  Slowly I lifted my head, and the truth came to me with stunning force.It was God's own sunlight that I had seen! The chute ended within threepaces of the spot where I lay, and immediately opposite the openingthrough which I looked was a patch of vermilion rock that blazedgloriously as the rays of the afternoon sun struck full upon it. I knewthat rock! It had thrilled me as I looked at it on the afternoon whenLeith had introduced us to the greatest natural wonder of the Pacific. Iwas at the end of a passage that opened into the Vermilion Pit!

  From where I lay I could not see the top of the crater. When thepassage had suddenly broadened, the roof came down upon it, so that theopening through which I looked at the opposite side of the great pit wasabout ten feet wide but not more than two feet in height. An overhanginglip of rock prevented me from looking up, but I understood that I waslower than the slippery Ledge of Death that we had crossed to reach theValley of Echoes. It seemed years since we had crossed that path, yet itwas less than a week.

  I thought of the others waiting in the darkness, and I turned and sliddown the chute up which I had scrambled. The path to liberty was not yetplain, but there was fresh air and sunlight at the top of the chute, andone could see the faces of those they loved. Bumping and bounding overthe jagged rocks I went at a terrific speed to the bottom of the slide,and, scrambling through the opening, I shouted the news to the four whowaited there.

  "It opens into the Vermilion Pit!" I gasped. "I can't see how we canclimb out, but there's hope--th
ere's hope!"

  I was foolish in making the last statement, but the sight of theglorious sunbeams, striking down into the abyss, had made me blind tothe difficulties that were yet to be faced! And the Maori's chant mustsurely be true! Now that it had brought us to the light, I could notbut believe that it would bring us to liberty.

  The slippery chute brought a suggestion from Holman. He advised that thetwo girls and the Professor remain at the bottom while he and I took oneend of the rope to the top so that we could haul them up the wet trackthat I had scaled with difficulty.

  "We won't be five minutes!" I cried. "Stay where you are till wesignal."

  I didn't think, as Holman and I crawled to the top of that