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Title: The gray god

Author: J. Allan Dunn

Release date: December 19, 2025 [eBook #77501]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: The Frank A. Munsey Company, 1929

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAY GOD ***




                             The Gray God

                           By J. ALLAN DUNN

                  _Author of "The Cardinal's Curse,"
                       "Whirlwind Walsh," etc._

                _Broke and almost "on the beach" in the
               Fiji Islands, Bob Stanton hardly guessed
              that just around the corner lay the maddest
              adventure life could offer in the tropics._

                         _Novelette--Complete_

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                Argosy All-Story Weekly March 16 1929.]




       CONTENTS

    I. "TYPICAL TROPICAL TRAMP!"
   II. CHEUNG'S PLAN.
  III. THE RACE TO MOTUTABU.
   IV. THE JUNGLE TRAIL.
    V. THE SHADOW OF THE GOD.




                              CHAPTER I.

                       "TYPICAL TROPICAL TRAMP!"


Bob Stanton walked along the main street of Suva, painfully conscious
that people looked at him as if he was a beach comber. He was not quite
that--yet--though he was not many degrees removed from it, he told
himself. His ducks and his linen, if they were frayed, were clean;
he managed, with old blades and the horrible soap supplied by his
landlady, to keep shaved; the soles of his shoes were broken, but the
uppers were carefully pipe-clayed. He was still respectable, but his
hair needed cutting and his browned features were beginning to wear an
expression that made even the kilted native police look at him askance.

Not to mention the tourists. A steamer was in. Men and women were
strolling or driving, tropic clad, agog for entertainment, planning
luncheon. Some had _lei_ garlands about their necks placed there by
welcoming friends. Friends! There were certainly times when a fellow
needed one, Stanton reflected. There might be Americans in that
laughing crowd intent upon enjoyment. Perhaps if they knew the plight
he was in, from no fault of his own--

He shoved his hands deeper in his empty pockets, crossing over from the
row of stores with plate glass fronts, hotels and clubs, to the shore
side of the street. He walked in the checkered, changing shadow of the
palms and poincianas, which patterned the path with purple and gold.

Across the stretch of seagrass lawn the Goro Sea showed incredibly
blue, blue as laundry blueing. The sky was hardly less vivid. Cliffs of
pearly trade wind clouds lifted on the horizon. The breeze raised the
banners of bananas, rustled in the fronds of coconut and royal palms,
sent down a drift of scarlet poinciana blossoms like carnival confetti.
A glorious, gorgeous mockery of a day.

He had the makings of two cigarettes, perhaps three thin ones, and that
was all. No tobacco, no money to buy any. He was three weeks in debt
to his half-caste landlady, three weeks in board-arrears to Cheung Li.
Broke. Stony broke.

They hadn't said a thing about it yet, but they would not, could not
trust him forever.

There was the sting of it; they had trusted him. He had not lied to
them about coming remittances, but had frankly said he was flat, and
they had smiled and said he was an American and they knew he would pay
them when he could. That seemed a long way off right now.

A girl was coming toward him, from the steamer, unaccompanied. She was
simply dressed, she was slender, but walked with a certain agile vigor
that distinguished her. Stanton almost bumped into her on the narrow
path in his absorption. He got a glimpse of a pair of dark blue eyes,
large, clear, but not carefree; a short nose, red lips that drooped a
little, a hint of coppery hair under the close-fitting hat.

He raised his own, in apology, and the girl bowed. She did not smile,
but looked at him curiously, sympathetically. He did not analyze that
look for a few minutes. Then he realized that her face, like his own,
must have betrayed worriment, was not in accord with the gorgeous day.
She was in trouble of some sort, even as he was, and she had recognized
the latter fact.

       *       *       *       *       *

About ten paces behind the girl a man was walking with a curious ease
of gait, pantherish, slightly furtive for all his swagger, for all
his linen tunic and pants, his silk shirt and cummerbund, the smart
puggaree on his hat of woven palm fiber, the short gold-tipped malacca
cane, the silken socks and shoes of buckskin and tan leather.

His skin was the color of saddle leather, splotched by darker blots,
like freckles. His eyes were jet-black, set aslant, the lids smooth and
unwrinkled, the mouth full-lipped, cruel. A cunning, sensual "breed,"
half Chinese and half native, swaggering along with a knife under his
cummerbund, and gambler's gold in his pockets, Stanton fancied.

The American suddenly wondered, with a hunch that flashed into his
mind, whether the man was following the girl. For a moment Stanton
halted, rolling his cigarette, looking back. The girl had crossed the
street, the half-breed kept straight on. He might be following her, but
he did not seem inclined to annoy her. Too careful of his own skin,
Stanton decided. He would behave himself in the open, but he was no
more to be trusted in the shadows than a roving shark in a lagoon.

Stanton knew him by name--Loo Fong--and by his reputation, or lack of
it, along the waterfront where Stanton had his cheap but clean room
with Panakaloa, the stout half-white widow of a trading skipper.

Loo Fong, petty pirate, smuggler, gambler, half Malay, half Manchu,
and treacherous as a snake, was just back from one of his occasional
disappearances. He had given Stanton a look, tinged with a sneer of
derision on his twisting mouth, that made the American's fists double
automatically.

He crossed the street himself, caught sight of his reflection in a
store window as he checked to let a jovial group pass out of the car
that had brought them from the ship and enter the Victoria Hotel.

A woman glanced at him and said something in a whisper to her escort.
The man was less tactful of tone in his answer.

"T.T.T.," he replied. "Eh, what? Typical Tropical Tramp! Beach bum!
Never has worked, can't get work, and doesn't want to." The woman
looked at him again and shrank a little. It was then the plate glass
revealed to Stanton his mask of a face, grim, almost haggard, the long
hair covering the collar of his coat, the set jaws and smoldering eyes.

"Got to snap out of that," he told himself. "You're nursing a grouch.
It won't get you a thing, not a damn' thing, Bob Stanton! It's the grin
that wins."

He was not so sure of that. He had been grinning a long time, but
the grin had frayed, like the bottoms of his pants and the cuffs of
his coat and shirts. There was no job in Suva, in all the Fijis, for
a "Yank." It was fair enough, perhaps. Jobs seemed to be scarce and
anything that a self-respecting white man would do was held out for a
Britisher.

He had come out to join a man he had known in the States. They had been
comrades in the Argonne, as a matter of fact. It was after an Armistice
Day dinner that Raymond had told him of his plan to log and ship the
valuable hardwoods of the Fijis to American cabinet-makers. The islands
off the north and west of Viti Levu were crammed with such trees, it
appeared. Stanton had put in his share for preliminaries and had left
for Fiji after the jubilant letter saying that the lease was secured
and the prospects rosy. It had taken almost all he had by the time he
reached Suva and, while he was _en route_, the bubble had been pricked.

The British commissioner had received word from the colonial secretary
that no leases or concessions were to be granted on Fijian products
to other than _bona-fide_ British concerns. The bill had passed "as
of" a date before that of Raymond's concessions. It was a washout.
The commissioner was polite, bored, and his expressed sorrow was
tinged with a suggestion that Americans had better stick to their own
possessions.

There were hardwoods, the commissioner believed, in the Philippines.
Whether or not he knew the Washington policies that protected the
countrymen of Aguinaldo to the exclusion of all outside capital, they
did not learn.

Raymond cursed heartily and ingeniously, outside the commissioner's
stately residence. He offered Stanton his fare back, but Stanton knew
his friend had little enough left for himself. The lure of the tropics
had gripped Stanton, and he had no doubt but that he could get along.
He had, for twelve weeks of enforced loafing, on fifty dollars.

       *       *       *       *       *

It looked like the bush or the beach for him, living on fruit and fish,
a down-and-outer. It was getting hard to be philosophical, to believe
in such platitudes as "It is always darkest before the dawn," and
"Every cloud has a silver lining."

Nevertheless, after that self-revealing glance at the grim mask that
was his face, Bob Stanton mentally girded up his loins and marched on,
resolved to borrow a pair of scissors from Panakaloa to trim the frayed
edges of his garments and essay a haircut. He was getting morbid. He
whistled as he marched along and looked a sergeant of police squarely
in the eyes. Lately he had been bothering a bit about deportation, or a
request to move on.

Confound that fellow with his T.T.T. What did he know about them?
T.T.T.'s were the salt of the earth, often prosperous, always
efficient, cursed or blessed with the roving heel. The chap had said
Stanton didn't want to work, whereas he had been hunting it high and
low until he could feel the grit working through his shoes at every
step. He whistled the swinging march song:

    _Pack all your troubles in your old kit-bag,_
      _And smile, smile, smile._

Lots of craft in the harbor, freight steamers, sailing ships, the
big passenger boat, native craft, launches shuttling back and forth.
Usually they made him restless, emphasized his marooned condition. Now
he grinned at them. Much magic in a grin, after all. But he didn't get
his haircut.

He reached the wharf and swung south to where Panakaloa's little house
was set among scrubs and papaia trees on the limits of white residency.
A topsail schooner was moored to bollards, her cargo of copra and
turtle shell being discharged.

A black man lay on a bale, shivering in the sun. He was almost a dwarf,
a Melanesian, not a Fijian. His frizzy hair was dull red from lime
bleaching, his dark skin showed tribal weals and other scars. His only
clothing was a scanty loin-cloth. The lobes of his ears were stretched
to flaps of torn leather, a short clap pipe thrust through one of
the convenient holes. A South Sea savage, sick and shuddering, ugly,
ill-shaped, dirty. His ribs showed like those of a starved dog. His
eyes were closed and his limbs were huddled about his emaciated body.

Any blackbirder would have despised him. Stanton wondered how he had
come to Suva, derelict and unhappy as a mangy cur.

A man in a peaked cap, dressed in dungarees and a grimy pyjama top
was directing the last of the unloading, chewing and spitting tobacco
between curses in beach-English. As the file-closer of the Kanakas
he had been bossing disappeared into the warehouse shed, the man,
apparently mate of the schooner, turned and saw the wretched figure
on the bale. He had a rope's end tucked in his belt, a length of coil
ending in a turkshead knot, symbol of authority over his Solomon Island
crew.

He swung it aloft and brought it down on the cowering creature who woke
to his shouted oaths. It curled with a vicious hiss and sounded like a
drum-stroke as it raised a blistering mark.

"You walk along damn' quick out of this, you blasted stowaway monkey,
before I flay you," he cried and swung up his arm again as the man
leaped from the bale and crouched, long apelike arms wrapped about his
head, jabbering something inarticulate. The rope's end writhed around
his ribs with the same hideous strum. The third blow did not fall. The
mate's arm remained aloft as he gazed in astonishment at the sudden
appearance of Stanton between him and his victim.

"Git out of here, you lousy beach bum!" the mate yelled. He started to
say more, but Stanton's fist muzzled him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Indignation at the wanton cruelty had caused Stanton to interfere, but
all the resentment he had swallowed in the sneer of Loo Fong and the
words of the woman's escort outside the hotel, went into that wallop
when the mate called him a bum. He had been hard up, but, thanks to
Cheung and Panakaloa, he had not starved or lacked decent quarters. He
was husky and he knew how to use his fists. The mate didn't. He was a
bucko, a good brawler, and he was tough, inside and out, but he made a
serious first mistake in underestimating his adversary, and rushing him.

Stanton ducked neatly and smote him hard over the liver as the mate's
haymaker swung overhead and the mate swung with it, off balance,
staggering sidewise with a clip on the side of the jaw. He went to one
knee and hand, and Stanton let him up, which was chivalrous but wasted.

"Get up, you coward, and take a licking from a 'bum!'" Stanton snapped,
while the mate spat blood and tobacco from his battered lips, uttered a
roar and rushed again. The seaman got a straight left to his face which
checked him, but he closed in, bellowing and bludgeoning. The Kanakas
had come out of the warehouse and were looking on, eyes rolling,
grinning. The cook came out of the schooner's galley and stood with
folded arms, another spectator who seemed not opposed to the prospects
of the mate's getting trimmed.

They clinched and Stanton appreciated what a bucko might do at close
quarters. The mate got his arms about his ribs and nearly cracked them
as he forged on with the advantage of his weight, using his knee,
trying to trip, cursing constantly, threatening, putting out his full
strength. Stanton beat a tattoo on his kidneys and he didn't like it.
They struck the stringpiece and went down together, rolling over and
over, rebounding as the side of the schooner saved them from the water.

As they rolled the mate made another mistake. Every time Stanton was on
top he slogged at the bucko's head and jaws, and hurt him badly enough
to make the mate try the same tactics. The bucko got home more than
once, but it gave Stanton the chance to get up and away. He intended
to keep away. The mate was as hard as an automobile tire, strong as
a gorilla; he had the weight and superior strength. Stanton had the
science and the better wind. The other was blowing as he got to his
feet and, before he got set, Stanton got in a jolt to the belly and a
second smash over the mouth.

The combination settled it, together with the quid the mate had
neglected to eject. The force of the blow sent it into his windpipe,
choking and half strangling him. Upset muscular control juggled it into
his gullet and Stanton's third and final blow in that rally drove it
deep. His disturbed stomach received and ejected it. His tanned face
turned a sickly green. He heaved violently and was distressingly and
unpleasantly sick, teetering up the gangway, using the scupperway,
weaving down the companionway to his cabin.

Stanton straightened his clothes, felt gingerly a fiery ear and a
bruised cheek, looking for the cause of his interference.

"You did 'm in proper, mister. You 'andled your dukes pretty. It served
the bloody blighter right," said the cook. "I'm quittin' 'ere. 'E ain't
got no idea of decency, 'e ain't. Called my grub 'stinkin' 'ash.' I
'ope the beggar 'eaves up his spotted soul."

The miserable black was clasping Stanton's knees, jabbering at him, his
eyes moist with gratitude. It embarrassed the American. The Kanakas
were gathered in an uncertain knot, but the cook shouted at them and
they went aboard.

"Looks like you 'ad 'im on your 'ands, mister," the cook said to
Stanton. "All syme stray dorg. You'll 'ave a 'ard time gittin' rid of
'im."

"Where did he come from? What's the matter with him?"

"We figger 'e must 'ave swum off and 'id aboard, the time we watered
at Tuimoto. Probably was in wrong with 'is wizard. Thought the ship
'u'd be better than the ovens. I'll bet 'e's changed 'is mind more'n
once. We was glad enough to git clear without trouble. Tuimoto is no
picnic-ground. The skipper was sick--island fever--an' mate run things.
'E kicked the daylights out of that boy. Come night throwin' 'im
overboard to the sharks. 'E ain't 'ad too much to eat. Don't like white
man's _kaikai_ an' the Kanakas wouldn't share theirs with 'im. That's
part of what's the matter with 'im. And 'e's got yaws. You better tyke
my tip and 'and 'im over to the police, mister. 'E belongs in the
'orsepittle, 'e does. Croak on your 'ands if you don't. 'Is nyme's Tiki
and I bet 'e's full of 'em."

A muffled roar came from below and the cook winked at Stanton.

"That's the mate," he said. "Wants a nurse. I'll nurse 'im!" He
sauntered aft.

The miserable devil who seemed to have been wished on Stanton,
ill-treated and frightened by his surroundings, groveled at his feet.
He shivered like a frightened dog when Stanton put a hand on his skinny
shoulder. He didn't quite know what to do with the wretch--he'd die in
the hospital from sheer loneliness. Turn his face to the wall and let
his soul leach out of him.

Stanton could put a meal into him, let him know he had a friend. His
own plight was pleasant compared to that of this spiritless remnant of
humanity. Perhaps Panakaloa would let him stay, give him something he
could assimilate.

"You come with me," he said. "We get _kaikai_."

Tiki understood the meaning and followed him like a black dog, his eyes
shining. Panakaloa was a bit difficult. She wanted no black fellows,
she declared, but at last Stanton persuaded her to let Tiki--who stood
on one bow leg, scratching with the toes of the other at his yaws
while they discussed him--stay in a shed in the little garden on some
old matting. He lay down, curled up, sacking over him and presently
Panakaloa set down beside him a bowl of native _poi_ and some dried
fish. His eyes glittered. His spirit revived. He was in the house of
friends and he ate avidly. Stanton went off to his own meal.




                              CHAPTER II.

                            CHEUNG'S PLAN.


Cheung Li's restaurant did not cater to the social element of Suva,
but it was neat and clean, the food savory, wholesome and cheap, so
that he did a good waterfront business with white skippers, mates and
supercargoes.

He lived above the place, a placid, stout, sphinx-faced Chinaman
with a dignity all his own, getting together his fortune. Some said
the restaurant was a blind for his other affairs, but no one seemed
to definitely know what they might be. He extended credit from time
to time and seemed to find it profitable in the long run. It was he
himself who had suggested to Stanton that he need not worry about his
bill.

"Some time soon, something come along," he told him. "You 'Melican. You
make good bimeby."

He presided over the restaurant at rush hours, leaving its conduct the
rest of the time to two assistants. One of these, Moy, long, sallow,
cadaverous and chary of any speech but his own, set before Stanton
his meal. There was real turtle soup, excellent fish, turtle steak
with boiled _taro_-root and greens, fresh coconut pudding with caramel
sauce, and coffee the Ritz patrons might have envied. All for fifty
cents; a dollar and twenty cents for three daily meals, seven dollars a
week.

When Moy brought the pudding he had a message.

"Cheung Li like speak along of you topside when you finish up," he said.

It spoiled the dessert for Stanton. It must mean that his credit was
over. It had to come. Cheung had been mighty decent. But it looked like
the beach. He couldn't stay at Panakaloa's and not eat. He couldn't
honestly stay there any longer and pile up a debt he saw no means of
paying off. Panakaloa could always rent her rooms. He saw himself for
a moment roaming the beach with Tiki at his heels, adventuring in the
bush with a cannibal. Tiki would know more about making a living there
than he did.

He shrugged his shoulders, his hands steady as he rolled his second
cigarette. There was not enough left for a third, so he made this fat
and smoked it slowly with long inhalations before he got up, unable
to tip Moy. An outside staircase led to a balcony that ran all round
the house, covered and awninged. At the rear it looked over a compound
garden behind a high plank wall where Cheung took his ease with his
family.

Stanton had never mounted before. He was surprised at the signs of
comfort, of taste, even of luxury. There were easy chairs of bamboo,
stands of teak that held flowering plants, big vases of porcelain with
foliage shrubs and ferns in them, rugs, cushions, two Java thrushes
singing in cages, a gorgeous blue macaw in a ring, statuesque,
disdainful.

The front veranda, where Stanton thought the entrance must be, looked
over the harbor and the shipping, and across Kadavu Passage to the
distant isles of Ono and Kadavu, almost sixty miles away. The lure of
the horizon, of the unknown tropics, savage but fascinating, gripped
him hard. Then sliding glass doors opened and Cheung asked him inside.

He had never before seen Cheung except in white clothes, and he was
surprised at the quiet richness of his brocades, the assurance of
his manner, polite, unostentatious. He might have been greeting a
distinguished official rather than a man whose clothing proclaimed his
poverty.

He offered Stanton a deep and cosy seat and a cheroot faintly smelling
of tea, gratifying of flavor. Then he poured out two tiny goblets of
amber fluid that scented the whole room as if with orange groves and
tasted like sublimated Chartreuse.

His English was not perfect, but he spoke without hesitation, straight
to the purpose. It was as if he guessed Stanton's interpretation of the
request for the visit, and wished to relieve him promptly. The shady
chamber had an atmosphere of courtesy. From the interior Stanton heard
the tinkle of a stringed instrument, the sudden laughter of a child.
The Java thrushes were singing madly.

"I tell you some time, soon, something come along," said Cheung in his
mellow tones. "I not know then this come. One time, some one tell me
about one place where there are plenty pearl, on island where nobody
go. No landing there, no loadstead, no lagoon. Leef come up close,
evely place. Native not live that place now. Name Motutabu. Plenty
magic along that place. Bad magic. Maybe you not believe that?"

"I don't know," said Stanton simply. "I've heard a lot of curious
things."

Cheung grunted as if satisfied with the answer.

"This black man's magic," he said. "Not evil to white man, yellow man
unless they too much meddle. You savvy?"

"I savvy," said Stanton. His pulses were quickening, his blood
beginning to tingle. He felt that he was on the threshold of adventure,
mysterious, dangerous.

       *       *       *       *       *

"On that island one big image," Cheung went on. "Not idol, all same
symbol. Symbol of evil spilits native men speak velley soft along, make
gift so he leave alone. Some one meddle along that god, not savvy how,
die velly quick. Suppose you go this place, you leave god alone. I send
white man I know along this Motutabu--that mean fo'bidden island. He is
good man, I tlust him plenty. I send Kanaka with him to dive. No one
come back. Long time now they should come back. Something happen. Maybe
he meddle too much along that god, maybe all get sick, maybe schooner
get on leef. I not know.

"I am li'l' aflaid some one else speak along the Kanaka who tell me
about that place. Li'l' while since he speak with me, they find him
dead along beach. Maybe because he talk, maybe because he no talk.
Nobody savvy who kill him. I no savvy. I think maybe one man, half
Chinaman, he savvy something. Maybe he go along Motutabu, but suppose
he did he not find pearl. If he find pearl he not come back to Suva. He
go to Sigapo'. Belong that place. But I like find out."

Singapore! Stanton had the flash, half intuition, half reasoning,
that is called a hunch. Singapore meant the Malay Peninsula. In his
mind's eye he saw the lithe figure of the Malay-Manchu, swaggering but
furtive, like a stalking panther, trailing the girl. He did not know
then how illuminating his hunch had been. But the name came to his
lips. "Loo Fong!"

Cheung grunted again.

"I always think you smaht," he said. "Li'l' bad luck, maybe, jus' now.
Loo Fong come back. I think he been along that island. Maybe he kill.
But I think he no find pearl. I like send you."

"I'm no sailor," Stanton disclaimed. "I've knocked about in a pleasure
boat or two, yachting, but I'm no navigator."

"I give you ship," Cheung purred on. "Captain and clew all same, they
lun ship. Chinamen. On island you boss. You find out what happen. Man
I send to island is 'Melican, all same you 'Melican. Suppose I send
Chinamen, suppose Loo Fong been that place, my man no tlust any one
but white man. His name Haines. I pay you good. Suppose you bling back
pearls, I give you plenty."

"You don't know anything about me," said Stanton. He was not demurring
to the proposition, but it had taken him off his feet a bit. It sounded
like a large order.

He did not lack confidence in himself, but this was a strange situation
he was asked to take command of. He could not immediately see himself
on a boat manned by Chinese, going to an island where some god, some
symbol of evil, was supposed to reign with malign influence; where
murder might have been done. He wanted to think it over, though he
wanted to go, aside from obliging Cheung.

"I savvy plenty," Cheung went on suavely. "You have bad luck; you live
cheap, not dlink, not lun up big bill at big hotel. You tly all time
find any kind of job. Not easy fo' 'Melican along this place. Li'l'
time ago you fight mate of Lehua. I like 'Melican who not blag, not
dlink, can fight. I like you velly much to go this tlip."

Stanton wondered a little at the other's knowledge of the fight, but it
was not surprising. Such news traveled fast. The restaurant was a sort
of club, in some ways. He was to wonder more how closely Cheung had
studied him.

"To-day steameh come," Cheung went on. "Haines, he had bad luck too,
long time. He tlade in copla, have bad luck. He go fo' shell an' pearl,
have bad luck. Lose schooneh, find shell eaten by oyster worm. His
wife die in United States. Then he catch job with me. He lite back to
his daughteh, pletty soon he make money. She no heah flom him long time
befo'. Now velly glad. She come to Suva. Come to-day. She nice gel. I
tell about her fatheh. She wollied, but she keep up chin all same you,
'Melican fashion. She want to go look fo' him. I say she can go along
with you."

Stanton gasped. Things were developing fast. He knew who the girl was.
She would recognize him when she saw him. He guessed why Loo Fong had
trailed her. Loo Fong knew of the island if he had not been there. It
was likely he had tried to pump the native who had first given Cheung
the information, and killed the poor devil. Why the latter had chosen
to confide in Cheung did not matter now. It was Cheung's affair.
Probably the man was indebted to him.

"I saw Loo Fong following a girl who came in on the Austral, I think,"
he said. Again Cheung gave one of his soft grunts of comprehension.

"Loo Fong plenty slick," he said. "I think he savvy gel ask fo' me. She
go along hotel now she come my place. Mo' betteh she stay this place.
Loo Fong savvy that, savvy you come see me, maybe savvy why. _Maskee!_
I think maybe you have to kill Loo Fong some time."

       *       *       *       *       *

He spoke placidly enough, but, to Stanton, the room seemed suddenly
filled with a mist in which vague, battling figures moved, while in
the background there loomed the statue of a great, gray god and the
suggestion of fantastic cliffs and jungle.

He was looking on, now, but he was about to be involved in this.
Pearls, magic, murder. Mystery and sudden death. Romance. The girl's
face with the big eyes that had changed when they saw him, as if there
had been between them some affinity, was plain before him. He heard
Cheung clap his hands, and then the girl herself was in the room, in
the flesh, gazing at him as he rose.

"Missy Haines," Cheung was saying. "This Misteh Stanton. I think he go
along Motutabu fo' me."

Her hand was in his, cool and firm, her gaze was searching him, frank,
friendly.

"You don't mind if I go along?" she said. "I want to know what has
happened to my father, I want to see him again. He left me in school,
six years ago."

"Mind?" Stanton was filled with an idiotic desire to say the things
that crowded his brain, to give utterance to the impulses that thrilled
him. To acknowledge the joy that surged through him at the prospect of
being her knight-errant, her champion. There was no question now of his
not going. If Cheung had reserved this argument for the last, he had
chosen wisely. Stanton's actual answer was stiff, awkward.

"I shall be glad to serve you, if I can, to help your father, to be of
use to Cheung Li, who has befriended me."

"As he did my father," said the girl. Stanton thought he heard Cheung
chuckle, but his face was immobile.

"That settled," he said. "Now Stanton, talk business along with me.
Much to fix, quick as possible. To-mollow, maybe nex' day, you go."

The girl left and Cheung talked business. His schooner, with the
Chinese skipper and crew, were at Levuka on the island of Ovalau,
former capital of Fiji. It was not far away, less than fifty miles, and
he had sent word to them, expecting them to-morrow. He gave Stanton
money to buy necessary personal things, promising to furnish him
weapons. Motutabu was not on the regulation charts. It lay far to the
south and west, below the Kermadec Islands. Cheung showed its position
on a chart. At the end of the interview he gave certain grave warnings.

"I think Loo Fong go that place," he said. "Not find pearl. If he savvy
I send you I think he go back. Follow you, make plenty tlouble. Much
betteh he stay along that place."

There was a grim note in his voice that more than hinted his meaning.
Cheung had not attempted to dodge the fact that the trip was dangerous.
He seemed at once to value life and consider it of little value, like
the money changer who promptly throws out spurious coin. The crew of
his schooner would be armed. He had not sent Chinese in the first
place because natives were better divers; his own men were unused
to pearling, he used them for inter-island trading. But they were
fighters. They were his men.

Stanton was convinced that those who worked for Cheung were loyal,
bound by a fealty that went beyond pay. He saw depths to this man who
was running a lowly restaurant and living in something close to luxury.
He realized that the restaurant was a clearing house for gossip,
valuable to such a person as Cheung; shrewd, daring, efficient, he bent
his energies toward fortune, but was endowed with philosophy, a mode of
thought and life that raised him far above the ordinary.

"You not meddle along that god," Cheung said, the last thing. "And you
look out along of Loo Fong. You look out along that mate you fight.
Suppose you want take along that Tiki, can do. Maybe he can be useful
along in bush. That mate name Johnson. Schooneh Lehua. Captain Fenwick,
he sick, he stay in Suva. Cook quit too. Loo Fong he hold share in
Lehua. You look out. Take this now."

He took from a drawer in a lacquered cabinet a flat automatic of German
make, a vicious-looking thing of heavy caliber. As it lay cold in
Stanton's palm it seemed like some sort of fetish that was a tangible
link connecting him with the adventure, making it real. Cheung gave him
extra clips.

"Knife betteh," he said. "Make no noise. Suppose you have to shoot, may
make tlouble. But knife need plactice. You take. Johnson got no use fo'
you. Loo Fong may think you savvy where to find pearl. I no savvy that.
I think Haines hide all time, but I not know what place. Suppose he
dead, you tly find pearl. I see you this time to-mollow."

       *       *       *       *       *

Stanton slid the automatic away into his hip pocket, and Cheung shook
his head.

"Pocket no good," he said. "Wait, I find."

He opened a chest and produced a spring clip-holder and leather
shoulder-harness which Stanton fitted then and there, taking off his
coat. The flat weapon lay close to his chest, snug and handy. There
would be other revolvers on board, with belts and holsters for open
use, but this manner was best, when one wore a coat, in Suva.

The police did not like foreigners to swank about with visible weapons.
It was an orderly and peaceful town, but many strange things went on
near by. There was the Rewa River, up which there was said to be a
hidden headquarters for fugitives and outlaws of all kinds and races,
waiting for secret transportation beyond extradition. Back of that,
in the mountains, drums sounded on certain moonlit midnights, and the
natives were still said to practice ancient and horrible rites of
cannibalism and sacrifice.

Suva was civilized. Fiji was pacified. But savagery lurked on every
hand.

Stanton made his purchases unostentatiously. He held the notion that he
was shadowed. He saw nothing of Loo Fong, but that crafty individual
had his following, who might be trailing Stanton for him. Stanton
was barbered, reclothed, reshod, his own man again. His account with
Cheung's restaurant was wiped out. He paid Panakaloa, together with a
present of a vivid scarf which she draped proudly across her ample
bosom, tears in her eyes as she thanked him and applauded his turn of
fortune.

He had native tobacco and a new pipe for Tiki, with cloth for a _sulu_
kilt with which to replace his inadequate G-string. The old pipe had
been smashed on the wharf, he had not tasted the flavor of tobacco or
its smoke for weeks, and his gratitude was inordinate. It was dark by
then, and Stanton left him curled up on his mats, smoking blissfully.

Stanton stayed close that night, sitting in Panakaloa's little garden,
smoking and thinking over the swift changes of chance. He had turned
a sudden corner and he did not know what lay ahead, save that it was
a man's work, savored with excitement and peril, heightened by the
entrance of the girl.

He slept with the automatic on his chest, over his pyjama top. It was
heavy but handy, and he did not take Cheung's warnings lightly. Loo
Fong might well believe, as Cheung had suggested, that Stanton was
going to Motutabu and knew where to find the pearls Cheung was sure
Haines had gathered.

In such a case they might decide to try to force that information out
of him, kidnap and torture him, rather than risk losing a race to the
island.

So Loo Fong had a share in the Lehua. The mate was in actual charge of
the schooner, to all intents and purposes its skipper. Loo Fong and the
mate would almost certainly get together. Johnson had his own grudge
against Stanton, which might materialize on its own account or join
forces with Loo Fong in his plans.

It seemed very likely indeed to Stanton that the Lehua might have been
to Motutabu on the trip from which she had just returned, with Loo Fong
in her. The cargo was more or less of a blind, picked up after the
trail for the pearls had failed.

If Tiki had been able to talk anything but his uncouth dialect Stanton
might have been able to find out from him. The cook would know; he was
probably leaving for some more definite reason than Johnson's slurs
on his cooking. If anything serious had happened on Motutabu the cook
might have decided to draw the line at piracy and quit while his neck
was still unstretched, in which case it was not likely that he would
talk. He had not been very prepossessing, as Stanton recollected. It
was a rough outfit.

       *       *       *       *       *

Cheung would undoubtedly find out all that it was possible to gather.
Stanton felt that Cheung had not fully divulged himself in their talk,
that he knew or suspected far more than he had mentioned. And Stanton
was convinced that there had been grim doings on Motutabu and would be
more. It seemed doubtful if the girl's father was still alive. If he
were not, it would be no easy task to find the pearls. There would be
the girl to comfort and protect. If Loo Fong followed and was again
frustrated of the gems, he might consider the girl a secondary prize,
so much loot for his personal gratification and disposal.

Small doubt of that, Stanton fancied, remembering the way in which the
half-caste had trailed her. This mission was not the sort in which
a girl should be involved, but he knew that she was fully committed
to it, that Cheung was either willing she should go, or had tried to
dissuade her and failed. Tonight she was safe enough at Cheung's.
Cheung's measure of precaution would baffle even Loo Fong, Stanton felt
certain, and took comfort from it.

Panakaloa's house was far from a fortress, built in flimsy, tropic
fashion. It held no treasures, the window fastenings were light, the
doors had no bolts. The one to the back garden did not even have a key,
and the garden fence was easily scaled.

Stanton was a light sleeper. He held a hunch that the night was
breeding some sort of attempt, and he hoped to be ready for it when it
appeared. He dozed in cat-naps, waking intermittently, dropping off
again. Then, a little after midnight, he was roused by some unusual
sound that brought him standing to the floor, gun in hand, listening,
watching. Whatever had wakened him was veiled by sleep, but his
consciousness insisted there had been something.

There was no moon. The garden lay in mellow, tropic starlight, filled
with deep, soft shadows that shifted shape as the land wind moved
fronds and leafage. He saw nothing else; he stole to the door and
listened, opening it suddenly, finger on trigger.

It looked as if a great dog were lying down on the threshold. In the
vague light from the window he saw the faint glint of uprolled eyes. It
was Tiki. From gratitude or fidelity, prompted perhaps by some sense
developed in his savage subconsciousness of impending peril, he had
come in from his shed to get as close to his protector as he could.

"All right, Tiki," Stanton said quietly. "Good boy." It was like
talking to a dog, using tone to convey meaning. Tiki clucked something
in his throat as Stanton closed the door.

It was not easy to doze again after the thorough rousing. The actions
of the day, filmed in his brain, were automatically projected on the
mental screen.

He was no longer a derelict. No one would venture to call him or
describe him as a beach bum now. He had decent clothes, money in his
pocket, had fought and won, acquired a cannibal Man Friday, met a girl
who stirred feelings within him that he had never before experienced,
and he was embarked upon a wild enterprise in a savage setting. At last
the flickering flash-backs died out, and his mind became a blank.

The next thing he knew was a faint draft of air. The door was
open, a dark space where its paint had shown gray. The windows,
opening lengthwise, were apart. He could smell the night blossoms,
_ylang-ylang_, _frangipani_. As he swung off the bed something touched
his arm. It was Tiki, crouching low, hardly visible, pointing an arm,
vaguely silhouetted, at the window. Then he darted off, merging with
the gloom, back toward the open door.

       *       *       *       *       *

The tops of croton bushes came above the sill. The wind moved them,
or was it something else? Stanton sat on the edge of the bed, his gun
ready to cover any intruder, remembering Cheung's caution that shooting
would bring trouble, wondering if he could be plainly seen. He felt
eyes watching him from the shrubbery, thought he could make out some
solid bulk amid the leaves. It was so still, so charged with suspense,
that he could hear the ticking of his watch.

Then there came a scuffle in the passage. Tiki had attacked, or been
attacked. At any rate, fed, and fortified by having a friendly master,
Tiki was fighting fiercely. Two struggling figures, locked in desperate
battle, rolled into the room.

Stanton caught the gleam of steel. Tiki had no weapon. He launched
himself from the edge of the bed, smashing at the hand that held the
blade with the muzzle of his gun, trying to locate the intruder's head.
It was an impossible task in the darkness and the fury of the combat.
He could tell only that the man was far bigger than Tiki, and at that,
like Tiki, he was practically naked. He could smell the rank sweat of
him.

For the moment he had forgotten the window, been forced to leave it
unguarded, suddenly aware of forms rising, writhing over the sill as he
whirled.

One of them was clothed and burly, the other a stinking savage, rancid
with palm oil, slippery as an eel. A sleeved arm was flung in front of
Stanton, thrust hard against his throat to cut off his wind. He broke
into tumultuous action, grasping the thick wrist with both hands,
turning, stooping, putting all he had into a heaving pull of his back
and shoulders. The weight of his adversary bore him down to one knee,
but Stanton flung him heels over head, crashing into the flimsy bureau;
then Stanton dived for the legs of the third man, and brought him
down across the bed, close to the foot of it, bounding on the springs
beneath the mattress.

Stanton leaped on him before he could get up or free the knife he
surely carried in his loin-cloth. The native's hands clawed for
Stanton's throat, lacerating the flesh. Stanton gripped one arm, bent
it backward on the iron railing of the bed, bent it until it cracked.
The savage yelled, leaping convulsively in his pain, and rolled to the
floor.

Tiki and his man were in the doorway again. Stanton heard their panting
grunts, and marveled at Tiki's resistance. The big man he had thrown
was getting up. There was electricity in Suva, and Panakaloa had bulbs
in her house. Stanton had no chance to get at his switch, but suddenly
the passage was illumined and an Amazonian voice angrily demanded what
was going on.

Panakaloa appeared, a shawl over her voluminous nightgown. She was
brandishing a club that had been part of her skipper husband's
collection of island weapons. The man had Tiki by the throat, squeezing
him until his eyes bulged from their sockets, his tongue protruding.
Panakaloa's club thudded down, and the seeming victor collapsed.
Stanton saw the other native scramble over the sill dangling his broken
arm. The clothed man rose from the ruins of the bureau and flung a
chair at Stanton before he followed. It came legs first, hard enough to
check Stanton's leap.

The two were gone, smashing through the shrubbery, up to the roof of
Tiki's shed by means of the rain-barrel Panakaloa used for watering her
garden, and over the fence.

       *       *       *       *       *

Panakaloa and the light had routed them, aside from her by no means to
be despised club. They had no desire for the publicity her indignant
voice and arm might evoke. Stanton did not get a clear look at the face
of the man who had thrown the chair, the room was still in partial
shadow, but he was almost certain it had been Johnson, mate of the
Lehua, and the other two were Solomon Islanders, members of the crew.

The one still lay senseless from the blow of the hardwood club. He was
as black as Tiki, but bigger; his sharp filed teeth showing in the
relaxed jaw. For a moment Stanton thought Panakaloa had killed him, and
said so. She shook her head.

"Too much thick, that skull," she answered. "Maybe I crack it li'l.
Serve him right. You want I call police, Sanatoni?" she asked shrewdly.

"I'd rather not," he answered; and she nodded.

"We take that trash outside, then," she said. "A fine cheek they got to
come along my house."

"It's my fault," he told her. "They were after me."

Whether the mate had been bent on private reprisal or was in league
with Loo Fong to knock him senseless and take him prisoner was
uncertain, and not pertinent now they were foiled. Tiki had balked
their attempt in the beginning; Panakaloa, with her unexpected sortie,
had completed the rout.

Tiki was massaging his throat, but he grinned. The fight had not
exhausted him. Now that he had become attached to some one, he had shed
much of his misery like an old garment. He helped the two of them bear
the sagging body of the still unconscious man out into the deserted
street and set it down in the lee of a cereus hedge that topped a stone
wall. There was no one in sight, no sound of the other two, and they
left him there.

"I owe you a bureau, Panakaloa," said Stanton. "I owe you more than
that. You came just in time."

"Ugh!" grunted Panakaloa contemptuously. "That bureau not much good.
I pay four dollar for that along of junkman." She sat down and began
to laugh, her stout body shaking like a jelly, her eyes rolling upward
while Tiki surveyed her in awe and amazement. "Too much I fool that
_kaikanaka_. My old man, the _kapitani_, one time he hit me with that
club. This time I get even. When that black trash wake up he think the
house fall in on him."

Tiki did not understand what she said, but he grinned widely at her
tone. She insisted upon opening beer for herself and Stanton, and she
gave Tiki a glass, which he tasted suspiciously and then swallowed it
with a comical grimace of surprised delight as he rubbed his stomach.
Native fashion, Panakaloa had strengthened the brew with a slug of
Hollands gin.

It was beginning to get light when she left them, still chuckling over
her prowess, vastly pleased with herself. Tiki was too proud at what
Stanton said to him, patting his shoulder the while. It was Greek to
the islander, but he knew it for praise.




                             CHAPTER III.

                         THE RACE TO MOTUTABU.


Cheung's schooner arrived from Levuka early the next morning, mooring
in the stream at first, then, as the tide served, going to a wharf
remote from the main one where the Lehua still lay. Stanton did not
go near her, but stayed at Cheung's house after breakfast, at the
latter's suggestion, talking with Lucy Haines. From behind the tatties
of split bamboo they saw Loo Fong pass by and glance up, later to
return again.

Stanton said nothing of what had happened the night before. It did
not seem necessary. Cheung had gone to see about getting the schooner
ready. Tiki was in his shed, waiting to be called for, smoking his new
pipe, a stray no longer.

Stanton and the girl told each other something of their early life.
Mention of the impending trip made her grave, brought worry to her
eyes. He could tell that she was fighting off doubts of finding her
father. Several times they sat silent, but not out of accord.

Cheung came back at noon and said they would leave on the ebb after
nightfall. He too had seen Loo Fong. A scout he had sent out reported
that they were taking stores aboard the Lehua. The skipper had gone to
the hospital, Johnson was in command, and the cook had left.

"They savvy Fahine, my ship," said Cheung. "They savvy she come in.
They watch all same we watch along of them. Maybe we get staht. Long
way to Motutabu; Fahine mo' fast than Lehua. My captain good man.
Suppose wind blow light, you leach island befo' them."

It was dark when they went on board. The Chinese skipper talked
"pidgin" that was comprehensible. He found a few words of dialect that
Tiki understood, to the black's delight, and sent him forward. The
Chinese sailors, naked above the waist, their feet bare, their heads
bound with bright bandannas, were a piratical-looking lot though their
ordinary occupation was peaceful trading. But they were efficient,
getting the schooner under way to singsong orders from mate and
boatswain, with his whistle, as the captain showed the girl and Stanton
to their quarters.

The schooner was plainly fitted up, and it smelled of ancient cargoes
of copra, of _bêche-de-mer_, sharks' fins, turtle shell and pearl
shell, but Cheung had evidently been at some pains to make them
comfortable. There were two cabins aft for them, and the girl's,
especially, had been brightened with rugs and cushions.

In the main cabin there was a rack for rifles, filled with well oiled
weapons. Stanton had noted appreciatively the tall masts, the narrow
beam, the clean entry and fine lines of the ship. Speed evidently
counted in Cheung's business. In a rush for competitive trade or to be
the first at a new pearling ground, the Fahine would not be a laggard.

She was well-found, decks clear and clean of litter, ropes coiled, the
ends seized and the rigging well set up. He could hear the quick tread
of the yellow-skinned sailors as they went about the familiar tasks.
Soon she was under way, the wharf sliding past, the lights of Suva
gleaming through the ports.

The captain came below, deferential.

"Suppose you likee go topside?" he said. "Can do."

He was in Chinese clothes, his feet shod; a muscular man with a
typically Mongolian face, sure of himself and authoritative, but
plainly considering them as allies, friends of Cheung Li.

The wind was fresh from the land, striking them a little abaft the
beam, and they slipped fast through the water, with sheets well
started. Stanton, watching the way she answered helm, surmised that
her bottom was clean. She showed no lights anywhere. The captain took
night-glasses from a hook in the companionway and surveyed the reach
behind them. They were well out of the shipping.

"No one come," he said laconically. "You like look-see?"

Stanton took the binoculars, focused them, swept the water between them
and the land. There was nothing moving there. They had got a start, at
least.

He wondered if the Chinese skipper had been to Motutabu before.
Probably not. But he would have its position, and the Lehua's previous
trip would not advantage them much.

Their direct course was southeast, the distance something over six
hundred miles. It might take them anywhere from a week to a fortnight
to cover it, for the winds were variable, there were tantalizing calms
and strong currents set up by the action of the tides over the varying
depths and contour of the bottom, where vast expanses of shallows
suddenly changed to vast abysses cleft by submarine peaks and ranges.
Neither schooner had an engine. Luck or fate was going to enter largely
into the affair.

They lost the land wind and ran into a calm inside of two hours,
working through it at last to strike the southeast trade. The Fahine
was close-hauled and clawed into it, making eight knots, slogging
along at a lively clip with the sheer bows buried at every plunge. It
stiffened to a squall, and the schooner leaned against it, the mainsail
reefed two points, and only a small staysail forward.

Stanton was a good sailor, and the next morning proved Lucy Haines
was another. All that day they sailed fast under a bright sky, the
crested seas dark sapphires, save where the foam creamed or was blown
in spindrift, and the sun flashed back golden from the facets of the
waves. All day the horizon stayed clear of smoke or sail. The girl's
spirits rose. It began to look as if the Lehua had not got away. Flying
fish rose from the brine, pursued by rushing dolphins; frigate birds
soared free.

       *       *       *       *       *

The trade set them down, and they regained their easting with short
legs. They had crossed the Kadavu Passage north of the Astrolabe Reefs,
passing between Totoya and Matuku. Now there was no land in sight,
would not be if they kept anywhere near their true course until they
sighted the island of their quest. The Tongas were far to the north
as they headed to cross the Tropic of Capricorn. The wide expanse of
ocean, the run of sparkling water, the clean wind blowing between sea
and sky--it was all physically exhilarating, mentally stimulating, a
tonic for doubt, strengthened by the lonely horizon.

The two of them had their own mess. The rest ate Chinese food, but they
were served a menu to suit their occidental tastes. Cheung's orders, no
doubt. It was excellently cooked and served. Things aboard the Fahine
ran like clockwork. There was never any confusion. The yellow men went
about their tasks with a will the moment an order was given, without
fumbling, knowing what was wanted.

It blew harder, the seas mounted, still under the blue sky and bright
sun. They had to lower the mainsail at last and mount a storm staysail
between the two masts, balanced by a rag of a jib. They made more
leeway now. The wind remained southeast, blowing from the quarter they
sought to penetrate as if it was determined to hold them off. It might
have been the breath of the great gray god defending his _tabu_. But
any wind was better than no wind, unless they had to run before it, and
it did not come to that.

The weather modified swiftly with a blazing sunset. Stanton came on
deck at midnight to find a heavy swell running, the schooner under
full sail but with only a few flaws of wind that sent her forward
spasmodically. The captain was aft by the starboard rail, motionless.
Stanton offered him one of the cheroots with which Cheung had supplied
him, and the other took it silently.

He lit it before he spoke.

"Lil time ago we see ship," he said. "All same this. Gone now. Long way
off."

"You think it was the Lehua?"

"No can tell. Maybe. _Maskee._"

It was not indifference. Only the tacit acceptance of conditions, the
Oriental touch of fatalism. He pointed to where a new moon hung like a
nail-paring.

"Wind go soon. Maybe they get, maybe we catch. _Maskee._"

The word summed up Chinese philosophy. The equivalent of the Russian
_nitchevo_. It was not the time for direct action, save for the
handling of the ship, which was the plaything of the weather. But later
in the night Stanton, restless, unable to share the _maskee_-ism of the
skipper, smelled incense. The captain was burning punk sticks before
the joss in the gilded shrine in the cabin. He had his superstitions,
or his faiths.

The next three days saw them almost motionless. The sea had gone down
and was like glass, reflecting the fiery glare of the sun. Now and then
they saw distant squalls, bursts of rain, ruffled patches of sea, but
they got no breath of wind.

The horizon was clear again. The Lehua--Stanton held no doubt that the
vessel they had sighted was that schooner, with Loo Fong aboard--might
be experiencing the same conditions, or she might be bowling along out
of the baffling strip.

A current was steadily setting them east. He envied the
imperturbability of the Chinese; they were used to the vagaries of
the sea, and accepted what they could not alter; but he chafed with
impatience. Lucy Haines kept to her cabin, her meals served there.
Stanton did not disturb her. She was sick, not of body, but of heart.
The punk sticks burned constantly.

On the fourth morning trade clouds appeared aft, in the northwest. It
was the time of the monsoon changes of wind caused by the difference
in temperature between air and water. There was wind in those vaporous
heights. It revealed itself in a dark line on the water that came fast
toward them as the skipper gave an order and they swung out the booms
in readiness. The breeze caught them, urged them on, sailing wing and
wing, the canvas bellying taut as drums, the lively sea seething all
about them, a broad wake behind, on their course once more, headed
straight for Motutabu.

       *       *       *       *       *

Stanton noticed Tiki at his usual post, far forward, his eyes always
turned south. He was a different looking savage from the sick creature
curled up on the bale. His skin was glossy and his eyes were bright.
His broad nostrils dilated as if he smelled familiar odors. Stanton
wondered what he was thinking about. If the cook of the Lehua had
spoken truly, his own island held peril for him, but there was no fear
in his eyes. Whenever they looked at Stanton they held gratitude, but
there was a difference, a measure of pride.

That afternoon the captain cast a light on Tiki.

"I speak with Tiki," he said, "No savvy too much, but he say one time
he live along Motutabu. His father _tahunga_, all same wiza'd. Tiki all
same _tahunga_ himself. He speak Motutabu velly bad place stop along.
All time too much bad magic along of big god live that place."

There was more than that that the skipper had found out by signs and
certain words they both understood. Stanton retailed it later to the
girl, who was again on deck.

Apparently Tiki's father had run the tribe. Tiki seemed to have been
trained to take his place. Then the god had turned malignant. It was
one of the deities of the South Sea pantheon that had to be placated,
and the sacrifices had failed. There had been an earthquake--"Velly
much shake that island," was the way the captain interpreted it. The
top of a mountain had fallen off and a cape had slid into the sea. The
wizard was blamed. The population escaped in canoes, after killing the
man whose magic had gone wrong. Tiki had been spared for some reason
which was obscure, perhaps because of his youth or because the women
hid him.

On the tribe's new home he had been suffered to live. A new wizard
manifested himself. There was no god on this island. All went well
save that Tiki was in bad odor. He was an hereditary _tahunga_, of an
ancient line of wizards, and the new one feared him. Tiki had lived by
himself in the bush, periodically hunted and sought for a sacrifice,
blamed by the new _tahunga_ for every sickness and death. So Tiki had
stolen aboard the Lehua, hoping to escape to some friendlier place at
which they might touch, not knowing what sort of man was in command or
what kind of men were on the ship.

The curious thing was that he did not seem alarmed because they were
going to Motutabu. The god was an evil god, but he believed fully in
the magic of his dead father. It was the plotting of the man who later
set himself up as _tahunga_ that had annoyed the deity. His father had
understood the god, had taught Tiki secrets concerning it. None but the
ancient line of wizards dared approach it. Its shadow was death to all
others.

Stanton could see no particular bearing in all this concerning the
finding of Haines and the pearls. But he remembered the warnings of
Cheung not to meddle with the god, and it was evident that the skipper
had gone to much pains to talk with Tiki. Tiki seemed to be acquiring
importance, a card whose value Stanton could not judge, though he
sensed that he might have done something far more significant than
he guessed when he rescued him from the cruelty of the mate. He had
much to learn about Motutabu, much to learn about the god. Even now he
could not quite shake off the feeling that Cheung had not spoken idly.
Strange things happened in the South Seas.

He understood it a little better with his first close glimpse of
Motutabu.




                              CHAPTER IV.

                           THE JUNGLE TRAIL.


They sighted it at dawn. It revealed itself in the growing light,
before the sun rose above the sea-line, like an image developing on a
negative in the dark room, somber, gradually acquiring definite shape,
a blot against the purple-black of the sky where the stars were winking
out.

The skipper had found it unerringly; he told them he expected to pick
it up at daylight, and here it was, darkly sinister, spray booming
along iron-bound cliffs, heights veiled in mist. The sound of the surf
rolled back to them as they skirted the coast to the east, seeking for
some place to land. It was not going to be easy, and they held off
until the light strengthened.

It came with a rush as the disk of the sun rolled up from the tumbling
sea rim, day instantly proclaimed. The island woke to life. Myriads of
birds rose from the cliffs and from tiny, outlying islets; gulls and
gannets, squas and boobies, whirling and screeching, then winging out
to sea to some shoal where they would find good fishing.

There were other birds, of the land, squawking parrots above the thick
forest that verged the iron walls rising sheer from the spouting sea.
Above the bush lofted three torn pinnacles, fangs that tore the vapors
writhing about them. There were deep cañons here and there, dark in
shadow; small coves; waterfalls, leaping to the beach over sheer
precipices.

Then they saw the god. A cliff was sharply set back, and they only saw
the upper part of the image, flaring livid red in the sunrise, carved,
it seemed, from the living rock. It was of gigantic proportions, the
art primitive, so primitive it might have been the work of some
futurist, striving to simplify curves and lines, to crystallize
expressions.

The face was long, a long nose, flattened, bridgeless, but with flaring
nostrils. A wide mouth, thin-lipped, austere, yet subtly sensual, with
the hint of a cruel sneer at the corners. The eyes were carved so that
they suggested a malignant glance as the crimson light blazed full upon
them. The ears touched the narrow shoulders.

The body, what they saw of it, was misshapen, out of all proportion,
small arms, with the hands resting on knees far apart, deep shadow
between them. It stood out of the cliff in full and startling relief,
infinitely evil, leering. It had a sort of crown, hewn from the summit
of the cliff and the foliage back of this looked like plumes. The whole
aspect was baleful, brooding, gazing out to sea like the old gods at
Easter Island, whose origin and purpose no man has yet discovered.

The Chinese gazed at it stolidly. The man at the helm paid no attention
and the captain was occupied with the shore line, looking for some spot
where he could send a boat ashore. There was no indication of a lagoon.
The island rose straight from the waves that ravened all about it.

Tiki's attitude was curious. He squatted on deck and bowed his head to
the planks, in deference rather than fealty. This was his fetish, but
he did not seem to be afraid. The priests of Moloch may have felt no
terror at their horrible, blood-demanding image.

The girl shuddered, and Stanton had to tell himself sharply that here
was only a thing hewn from lifeless stone. It glared at them and, as
the morning clouds dissolved under the sun, its lips seem to quiver
scornfully.

"Lifeless, I am," it seemed to say, "yet man-made from things he
sensed, the brooding influences of this solitary isle, born of fire and
smoke, delivered in water. Influences that may still be conjured from
the sea, the sky, the core of the earth. I represent them and I bid you
beware."

Bizarre and fantastic thoughts these; but the image itself was only
concrete thought. It seemed to proclaim the place dangerous, cynically
warning the intruder. It appeared to hold many tragic secrets, reaching
back through the centuries.

       *       *       *       *       *

A spur of land, a cape like a high fin, reached out far into the sea.
As they passed it a putrid smell enveloped them. It was like the odor
of a glue factory and it pursued them on the breeze until distance made
it bearable. This was the stench from piles of shell set out long since
to rot so that the shells might be more readily searched for pearls.
The shell itself was valuable.

Here there was a deep indentation in the island, and placid water
showed behind a foaming barrier of lava reef, not coral, that
paralleled the shore. This must have been the diving ground for the
precious bivalves. The skipper surveyed it narrowly, seeking an
entrance. The reef ended presently, and he came about, hugging the
land, one man casting the lead from the bobstay and chanting out the
depth. It was satisfactory and the tide was with them as they glided
along between the barrier and the shore, once more encountering the
foul odor of decay until they tacked into the cleft and made slowly up
it, foresail down and mainsail peaked, with the current.

       *       *       *       *       *

They were in a somber water cañon, still in shadow, though, higher up
the fanged peaks glowed in the sunrise and the timber on the loftier
slopes took on vivid coloring. The ravine turned sharply and they saw
a narrow beach lined with dark-green mangroves from which a stream
issued. There were signs of habitation here, a long shed of thatched
roof and wattled walls, two houses of the same type. But there was no
indication of life, no hail. The place lay wrapped in silence as the
Fahine glided slowly on.

The masts of a vessel showed their tops above water a hundred yards
out--a sunken schooner. It was a depressing sight, but Stanton twisted
a measure of hope from it which he handed to the girl.

"Loo Fong didn't find the pearls," he said. "I think this means that
your father is still on the island. They sank his ship to prevent his
leaving."

He tried to make it convincing, and Lucy Haines essayed a pitiful smile.

"I hope so," she replied, "but why doesn't he show himself? Why doesn't
some one answer?"

"They may be asleep," he said, and shouted. The echo came back from
the cliff, rebounded from the opposing one. The Chinese captain found
bottom to his liking, the cable slipped out to twelve fathoms, and a
boat was lowered. It was impossible to tell from those yellow faces
what they thought of the situation, but the rowers took rifles with
them, pistols holstered at their belts. Stanton took his automatic and
another revolver. He had shortened a belt for the girl and she also
carried a gun at her hip.

She had dressed for the landing in breeches and high-laced boots, and
she looked like a tight-lipped boy, her expression much as Stanton
had seen it on the street in Suva. Tiki slid down the fall rope and
squatted in the bows. The captain had given him a knife and a leather
belt in which he thrust it above his _sulu_ kilt.

The silence was profound. The sea birds had gone, the land birds
settled down. The only sound was the melancholy cooing of doves. In the
water appeared the scything fins of sharks on some mysterious patrol.

The boat grounded and the rowers hauled it beyond the rise of the
flooding tide. Crabs scuttled along the shingle. Blocks of lava
protruded here and there. Beach vines straggled over black sand.

Stanton tried to save the girl the sight of the skeletons. There were
six of them, the bones scattered, picked clean by crabs, in front of
the long shed. They lay in plain view, and she uttered a low cry and
halted, then started to hurry forward, checked by Stanton's hand on her
arm.

"There's no clothing," he said. "Your father's not there." It was scant
comfort. There were a few lengths of cloth, but he thought these the
loin coverings of the men Haines had with him. The grisly objects were
separated as if they had fallen making a stand against invaders. The
yellow men investigated as Stanton led the girl aside. Tiki looked at
the skeletons incuriously.

The captain reported briefly:

"They all Kanaka. Some got hole in head. Bullet make. No white man
there."

Nor anywhere else, it seemed, as they searched the shed, half full of
lustrous shells; the two houses, one of which held some of Haines's
belongings that brought tears to the girl's eyes, though she strove
to check them. Both huts showed signs of search. The winds had erased
all footprints. The shell was valuable, but it had been disdained. It
looked as if the dead men had been wantonly shot down at the first
encounter.

"He got away," said Stanton. "We'll find him somewhere." But he held
faint hope of finding Haines alive. The atmosphere of murder and sudden
death possessed the place.

"We'll stay here until we've searched the island," he said to the
captain.

"Can do," the skipper answered. It seemed a stupendous, futile task.
Towering cliffs, dense jungle and barren, precipitous crags, deep
clefts, hidden valleys, caverns: a myriad places where a man might stow
himself away, or lie dead.

They spread out, hallooing, looking in all likely spots. The captain
made Tiki understand what they were seeking and he nodded, came to
Stanton, took his hand and set it on his breast, starting off on a
quest of his own, trotting along the beach, disappearing up a ravine
choked with guava scrub. They saw no more of him that day as they
searched without finding any trace of Haines, living or dead. Night
fell with tropic swiftness on their utter lack of success.

       *       *       *       *       *

The skipper, at least, looked also for the pearls. He had his own
instructions. To Stanton, the discovery of Haines was more important,
even aside from thought of the girl, who had stayed beside him all day
as they tried in vain to solve the riddle of what had happened to her
father. Let them find Haines and, if he was alive, the pearls would be
forthcoming.

The fear grew on him--he knew it grew on the girl also--that Haines had
been killed by the raiders because he refused to give them up or tell
where he kept them. Only the lack of a body offset this dread and a
body was easily disposed of. He did not try to comfort Lucy Haines; to
do that would be practically an acknowledgment there was no hope. He
got her to eat on the plea that she must keep her strength for renewal
of search the next day.

They slept aboard. No sail had been in sight up to nightfall. A lookout
had been maintained on a cliff and, since the search had extended to
the crags, they had seen the whole circle of the horizon. They had won
the race down, but their advantage was checked by the search. When Loo
Fong arrived, with Johnson, there was going to be trouble.

Stanton was up at dawn. He dressed swiftly, going on deck. The girl
was already there, pale from a sleepless night. She was gazing at the
island with an expression of hopelessness that she tried to banish as
she saw Stanton.

"I'm not going to leave here until I know what has happened to him,"
she said, her voice firm, her mouth and chin resolute as she finished
the determined sentence. He did not answer her. There was nothing
to say. He was not going to let her stay alone. The question of
conventions did not enter into the matter. Conventions vanished in
these latitudes.

"He's all I have," she said. It was in his mind, his heart, to deny
this, but it was not the time for it. Complications were likely to
settle matters, not as they would have them, but as the fates willed.
Motutabu lay in sunshine, but it was emphatically a savage place. The
Chinese had buried the skeletons, but they were not to be forgotten.
Tragedy brooded over the island.

"We'll have to arrange some sort of systematic search," he said,
foreseeing how impossible was the task. An army, seeking for weeks,
might not hope to unearth the secrets of the wild jungle, impenetrable
in most places. The seabirds were winging out, others shrilling their
morning ecstasy; fish leaped in the water while, up and down, two
sharks roved as if they had tasted blood and scented more.

"We've got to eat," he said. "It's just a question of fuel."

"I suppose so," she answered wearily.

They went below and breakfast was served. Overhead the crew padded
about their tasks, washing down the decks, ordinary duties that they
carried on. Stanton saw two tears on her cheeks as she tried to drink
the strong coffee. She wiped them away, but the drink choked her.

There was a singsong cry on deck that had a stirring note in it.
Stanton thought that the Lehua must have been sighted.

"Something's happened," he said. "I'll see what it is." The girl looked
at him, startled. For a moment hope flashed in her eyes and died out
at the sight of his grim face. The captain came hurrying down the
companionway.

"Tiki!" he said. "He come along beach. I think he find something."

They raced on deck. The shore boat was ready, the armed rowers in it.
Tiki was at the water's edge, gesticulating, pointing to the heights.
The girl was trembling as the oars bent to the short, sturdy strokes.
She set her hand on Stanton's arm, and he laid his own over it. Her
lips moved silently. He knew that she was praying that her father was
still alive, fighting off the thought of other news.

"Call to him, please," she asked the skipper, "Ask him if--if--"

The captain stood up in the stern, handling the steering sweep, and
shouted a few syllables. Tiki shouted back.

"He alive," said the skipper, and the girl broke down as Stanton put
his arm about her and she set her head against his shoulder and wept in
the revulsion of relief.

Tiki had found him, with his knowledge of jungle craft, looking for
sign by instinct, finding it where others would have sought in vain. He
pointed out certain places as they trailed him up the ravine in which
he had vanished the night before. Stanton could see little. A fragment
of broken lava, a snapped stem, but the savage had read all unerringly.

       *       *       *       *       *

They climbed high, following an ancient path hacked through the
bush, the ground hard-beaten, a relic of the time when Tiki lived on
Motutabu. The trees, matted and bound together with undergrowth and
vines, rose on either side like walls. Great orchids swung, brilliant
butterflies hovered about them like living flowers.

They came to where the trail forked and here was a pyramid of
crumbling skulls. Tiki took the right-hand path. It led to a deserted,
half-ruined village back of walls of coral, in which bamboos grew along
the top. There was a heavy gateway, sagging now, stilted houses, whose
roofs had decayed, the wattled walls torn by the weather, rotting from
the rains.

There was a sing-sing ground with a great banyan tree, whose boughs
were decked with strings of skulls. One great building had collapsed.
Two stone images had fallen on their faces, tall drumlogs, carven like
totem poles, lay prone. The earthquake had flung them down. The place
was littered with signs of hasty, frenzied flight.

Tiki led them through this abandoned capital of Motutabu, pressing
on ever upward by paths that the jungle was already reclaiming. They
climbed above the forest and crossed a plateau of high yellow grass
that terminated at a great rift, at the bottom of which was a lake of
dark water, divided into unequal parts by a sharp ridge that led to the
other side. There the crags began.

It was a narrow and perilous crossing. The volcanic rock was badly
decomposed and it scaled and broke as they passed, the fragments
bounding down to the still water, far below.

On the other side they came to a ledge and Tiki turned and made
gestures, nodding at them, talking in excited gutturals.

"He speak we soon find," the captain interpreted.

They had to go in single file along that narrow way. Once Tiki pointed
to some dark marks on the rock.

"That blood," said the captain. The girl shuddered and Stanton steadied
her. It was the dry season. Such stains would linger. Haines had been
wounded. Suddenly Tiki stopped where a tangle of vines cascaded down
the cliff that backed the ledge. He drew them aside and disclosed a
narrow cleft, a fissure made ages past in some upheaval.

It led to a little glen that was merely an oval enlargement of the
fissure. Its sides were thick with moss. Water trickled down and formed
a pool. There was shrubbery, a few trees, guava scrub. The sun never
reached this hidden place in which Haines had found sanctuary. They saw
a little shelter of boughs by the pool and saw him lying there, gaunt,
haggard, his face covered with a beard, his eyes deep sunken, but with
light in them, as the girl gave a cry and ran forward to kneel beside
him.

He was reduced almost to skin and bone. One shoulder and a foot were
crudely bandaged. His voice was barely audible.

Stanton had brought along a first-aid kit and a flask of brandy. Lucy
gave some to her father and a faint flush came into his hollow cheeks.

"I thought you were a ghost," he said faintly. "How did you come here?
It was just in time. I wouldn't have lasted--much longer--my dear."

He closed his eyes and Stanton thought he was gone, but the pulse still
fluttered feebly. The girl gave him more brandy.

"He's starved," she said. "We must get him down to the boat. Thank God
he's still alive!" The pearls were forgotten. The Chinese captain had
got a fire started. One of the crew put on some water to heat.

"We'll have to be careful how we feed him," said Stanton. "I've got
some beef cubes. We'll have to make a litter, and those wounds should
be looked to. He doesn't seem to have any fever."

In the hope of Tiki's discovery they had brought up certain equipment,
including the utensil in which the water was warming. The girl
dissolved the cubes and added a little brandy, while Stanton unbound
the foot. A bullet had gone through the small bones. The wound showed
in a purple pucker. There had been inflammation, but, with the fever,
it had been starved out of him. The lead had passed through and there
was no infection. It was the same with the shoulder. Haines was
terribly weak, but he had been a strong man and he had survived.

He managed to swallow the beef tea. It was all they dared allow him.
Stanton cleansed the wounds and temporarily dressed and bandaged them.
The litter was being made by the sailors. Haines insisted upon talking.
Stanton thought it might be better for him than repression.

       *       *       *       *       *

"They nearly got me," he said. "They got my men. They'd have had me but
for chance. They came early in the morning expecting to catch us all
asleep, and they butchered my boys, without giving them a chance. I saw
it and could do nothing. They were after the pearls. They couldn't have
found them. They tortured two of my men to find out, but they didn't
know. It was the Lehua. They were all in it, but it was Loo Fong who
brought them. I nearly got him. It was this way--let me talk, Lucy, I
haven't talked for days, not since I went out of my head.

"I wanted meat. There are goats up here in the crags and I came up
overnight to get a kid or two. We were running short of grub, you see,
and were pretty well fed up on fish. We were going back in a few days.
We cleaned the patches and were rotting out the last of the shell. A
lot of pearls. We're rich, Lucy. Luck's turned, after all.

"I saw the schooner coming in. I didn't recognize it. Thought at first
Cheung had sent it. I didn't suspect anything, but started down the
mountain. There's a place across the grass where you can see the beach.
Time I got there, they had anchored and were sending a boat ashore.
They were all like ants from the height. I saw my men come out of their
hut and run back again. Those devils were armed, of course, and they
didn't even wait to parley. Some of them went to my house. Then the
butchery started. My boys were not armed. I had my rifle with me. I had
one extra clip along. It was all over in a few minutes and I couldn't
help them. They'd have got me if I had been there. I ran down the trail
when I saw what was happening and then they started up after me. I
suppose they got out of one of my men that I was up here after goats.
They burned the men's feet in the fire, damn them.

"One has to keep to the trails. I started back for the crags. They
beat all through the grass and then they started to cross the big gap.
I fired at them, hit one of them. He fell into the lake. That was a
mistake, I suppose; it gave me away; but I was seeing red. On the
next shot my rifle jammed. They came over and they hunted me all day,
spreading out. The crew were black men and it was easy work for them.
They sighted me three times. Once they hit me, in the shoulder.

"I saw they'd get me sooner or later. I couldn't stay in the crags.
They had me nearly surrounded, but I got past them, down to the ledge
just below here. My only chance was to bolt across the ridge. But they
spotted me. They had me on the ledge. I knew who they were then. It
was Loo Fong who hit me in the foot as I bolted for cover. I didn't
feel it for the moment, though I had a shoeful of blood. I was bleeding
from the shoulder, weak. I dodged out of sight and then I saw my last
chance. I knew the cleft, though I had never been up it. A wounded dove
flew into it one day and I had gone after it. I thought the vines might
hide me. There was a loose bowlder on the ledge and I shoved it over
and dodged into the crevice. The rock went crashing down to the lake
and they thought it was my body.

"They came down to the ledge and looked at the place. I heard Loo Fong
cursing. They stayed there for a little while and then went away,
swearing. I suppose they tried to find the pearls, but they couldn't
get down to the lake. I crawled up to this place presently, bandaged
my foot at the pool, and my shoulder. They both got pretty bad after
awhile. I made this shelter, I got some guavas, and lived off them and
the _olehau_ berries. I couldn't walk, and fever set in. I don't know
how long I've been here; I was delirious."

The litter was ready. They set Haines in it, a light weight for all
his big frame, and he lay there exhausted as two of the crew swung him
up and they started down, Lucy as close to her father as the trail
permitted.

They crossed the ridge and the grassy plain, coming to the place he had
spoken of where they could see the beach and their schooner. There was
another ship coming round the bend--the Lehua! They saw the two men
left on board the Fahine jump into a small boat and row ashore. They
were fired at from the Lehua. The reports came up in tiny cracks of
sound, but the two reached the beach and bolted for the jungle.

A boat crammed with men put off from the raiding vessel.

They were hampered with the wounded Haines. They had to get him into
safety. Stanton's blood boiled at sight of the invaders.

"We fight them," said the skipper. "Can do. If not, they sink ship, all
same his." Tiki was jabbering.

"He say take him along god," said the captain. "He speak it safe place.
He speak God fixee. Cave along that place."

Tiki nodded emphatically. Stanton thought of Cheung's warning, spoke of
it to the captain.

"I savvy. All same I think Tiki talk plopeh."




                              CHAPTER V.

                        THE SHADOW OF THE GOD.


There was no time for delay. They had to do something. To take the
offensive was the best plan. Tiki pointed out the opening of an almost
closed jungle trail. They went into it, going as fast as they dared,
working toward the far side of the promontory, making for the image.

They came out beneath it at last, at the foot of the towering
sculpture. It stood facing a paved terrace, set with flat stones. Great
stones had been piled in two walls that left a passageway to the feet
of the god. There was a space between his knees. Tiki led the way in.

It was a high chamber into which light filtered down from some opening
above where growth masked it. The sides were roughly hewn here and
there into dim shapes. There was a flat rock near the entrance on which
was set another one from which protruded long timbers, capstan fashion.
Tiki pointed to these.

"He say can fixee tlap so no one come in," said the skipper.

Tiki nodded, gesturing. Stanton thought he grasped his meaning.

"All right," he said. "Better send out your men to try and flank that
outfit. I'll stay here with Miss Haines and her father. We'll keep
Tiki."

They went out, going along the terrace, disappearing in the trees,
yellow men intent on battle. The litter was set down on the cavern
floor.

Tiki caught hold of one of the timbers set in the stone, motioning to
Stanton who set his chest against one opposite. The girl did the same
thing with a third. They heaved, without result, put out all their
strength in straining effort. The stone began to turn, more readily
after the first movement. There was a grating sound beneath their feet.

Tiki stepped back, grinning. Sweat covered him. Stanton and the girl
were panting with their efforts, their clothing wet with perspiration.
Tiki beckoned Stanton to come to the mouth of the cave and he followed
him. There was nothing to see but the empty terrace, the waving woods.
But Tiki was satisfied. He pointed at the great slabs before them,
gesturing.

Doves cooed. The girl was ministering to her father who was saying
something. Then there came the sound of shots, close at hand. Report
after report, singly and scattering volleys. They were quite a distance
off, but they came nearer. Then died away. Again they broke out, down
by the beach, it seemed.

Then the two Chinese who had come ashore bolted out of the bush,
carrying their rifles, glancing back. They looked toward the image and
sped on without seeing Stanton or Tiki. Tiki grasped him by the arm
and drew him in the shadows. He did not want the Chinese to enter the
cavern. The girl came and stood beside Stanton.

"Father is sleeping," she said. "I heard the shots."

"We're safe, so far," he said. "Tiki and the god have set some sort of
a trap. The trouble is, it may work both ways." Whatever the device
was he could see that they might be besieged, held there, without
provisions, without water, unless the yellow men conquered.

The Chinese were willing enough, capable enough, he fancied, though he
had never seen them shoot. On the other hand, the crew of the Lehua
were Solomon Islanders, used to brush warfare, trained fighters, a
savage and blood-thirsty outfit, though the Chinese might match them
there. When they took to piracy or banditry they were ruthless enough.
He imagined the forces might be about evenly matched, but the nature
of the ground would break the fighting up more or less into individual
skirmishes.

There was silence again. Haines was resting. With care there would be
no question of his recovery, but if Loo Fong got the best of it their
fates would all be sealed. What would happen to Lucy he dared not
consider. They could put up a desperate fight at the last, if they got
a chance. There was no exit to the cave, no possible way to climb to
the rift.

Doves cooed. The shadows shifted. Once in awhile they heard a distant
shot. The forces were split up now, it seemed. Stanton thought of the
captain's fear their schooner might be sunk, as Haines's had been. It
was a very real peril. He wanted to be out in the vessel, but he could
not leave the girl or Haines alone.

Tiki was complacent. He seemed assured that the god in whose belly they
were hidden, would properly protect them. He had gone inside, to squat
in front of one of the carved figures, passing from that to another.
They could hear him chanting monotonously. He had come back to his old
home again and he was renewing fealty. This had been the fetish of his
father, the wizard, and Tiki was a born _tahunga_, in his veins the
blood of generations of sorcerers who had served a weird priesthood to
this ancient statue which far antedated their own original migration to
this island.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was cool inside. Without, the sun blazed down fiercely. The shadows
retreated as the fiery orb mounted toward the zenith. It wheeled out of
their sight and the shadow of the cliff, the shadow of the image, began
to stretch out over the paving between the walls of stone that shut out
much of their view.

Tiki came back to the entrance, hunkering down. From some place known
to him he had taken weird paraphernalia. He had daubed himself with
white and yellow and black, there was an apron about his middle that
was made of human hair. He wore a necklace of knuckle-bones, a skullpan
hung upon his chest and his arms and legs were decked with circlets
of shell and bone and fiber. He had been in his father's make-up
repository, Stanton thought.

With him he had brought something that looked like a queer-shaped
basket of plaited strips of pliable cane, like matting. He took no
notice of them apart, remote, droning out some incantations, watching
the creeping shadow.

Stanton remembered something Cheung had said about the shadow of the
god. The shadows of all sacred things, even of chiefs, were _tabu_. To
walk in them was death. Yet the shadow of the god fell only at certain
hours. Tiki could not have timed any attack that might take place. The
combatants seemed to have lost sight of each other, hunting along the
trails, hiding in the bush. But Tiki seemed waiting for something with
a curious certainty. To him the god was infallible.

Stanton told himself that it was only a barbaric, colossal carving, but
even as he held the thought, another came, suggesting that he should
have faith. Civilization seemed now to be an unreal thing. They were
back in the stone age, to which the island and its departed inhabitants
belonged. A superstitious feeling possessed him, not one of fear. The
shadow lengthened and still the island was wrapped in silence.

Suddenly he thought he saw the solid forest waver to and fro. The legs
of the god, portals to the cave, appeared to move. A tremor ran through
the ground and there was a low muttering as of thunder, a hollow
rumbling from inside the cave. The girl started up and would have gone
inside to her father, but he restrained her. The place might fall in.

Motutabu had once flamed, been thrust up with its riven crags in smoke
and steam. Lava had flowed. Now those fires were clogged, the craters
choked, but, far below, the interior wrath still raged. This was a
_temblor_, one of the earthquakes that intermittently shook the peaks
that had been lifted from the sea. This was a slight shock. No other
followed and he let her enter. Haines was still sleeping.

Tiki had risen. To him it was a manifestation that the god was pleased
that a faithful believer had returned. He stood erect with the dignity
of an oracle. As Stanton watched him he took the strange basketry and
placed it over his head. It was a hood that fell below his shoulders.
It had trunklike appendages, two holes for eyes that were glazed by
fish bladders. It turned him to a grotesque and terrible figure, like a
great squid. As he moved, the wicker tentacles writhed.

Something was going to happen. Stanton felt it in his bones. Not
another quake. He saw the shadow vanish, melt away, as if the sun had
been veiled. Then it appeared again, sharp and distinct. Tiki's chant
grew louder, ceased as there came the sound of a brisk fusillade.

Men were coming from the woods, firing back at enemies still hidden.
They came into view between the walls. The Chinese captain and his
men--fewer now--retreating, kneeling to take aim, then running to kneel
again. They passed and, with savage yells, the black men from the Lehua
burst into view, charging, Johnson and Loo Fong at their head.

[Illustration: _With savage yells, the black men from the pirate
schooner burst into view._]

Tiki sent out a yell of defiance, ululating, weird and shrill as it
issued from a reeded mouthpiece in the mask. Loo Fong halted and
turned, Johnson with him. They stared for a moment and then they saw
the girl, who had come, unnoticed by Stanton, to the entrance. Stanton
swept her aside, flattening her against the curve of the image's
colossal leg, taking place himself on the opposite side as bullets came
whining toward them. Tiki had seemingly betrayed them.

He had not moved. He was untouched and again he sent out that piercing
challenge as Loo Fong cried out an order and the savage outfit came
racing up between the walls, firing their pistols. Now Tiki stepped
inside, unhit.

       *       *       *       *       *

Stanton fired back to stem the stampede. They came leaping on. Lucy
Haines fired with him and a black staggered and fell. Johnson was
struck, but it did not check him. Their bullets were entering the
cave, splaying gray streaks on the rock. Stanton pulled trigger on his
last cartridge, missing Loo Fong whose evil face was lit with triumph.
They were on the last great slab when Tiki reappeared, sounding his
whistling howl.

Stanton saw the rear half of the big slab tilt upward. The whole stone
was balanced and it rose smoothly, inexorably. A gulf opened and out of
it came a moaning sound like the wash of the sea, far below.

Johnson and Loo Fong were pitched forward, their faces twisted with
sudden terror. The angle became acute, and they slid down, dropping
their weapons, crouching, clawing uselessly. The mate pitched forward,
plunged into the gap. Loo Fong made a desperate spring as he squatted
there like a toad. His fingers clutched the nigh edge, the sill of the
cave entrance, clung there.

The stone swung on, up and over in a complete revolution. Its edge
smashed the fingers of the half-caste and the slab closed him in,
leaving bloody smears and remnants on the threshold. There were only
the black men left and they stood in a huddled mob before they broke
and ran, some trying to climb the walls, appalled at this manifestation
of the god.

It was the slab of sacrifice, used on ceremonial occasions where
victims were demanded; set as a trap for the unwary, for meddlers.

Tiki had lured them on. He had provided sacrifice. He had appeased the
long, unsated appetite of his god, and thus established his priesthood.
He had saved Haines, his daughter and Stanton, but they had been bait
for the victims.

He had won the day.

The yellow men were coming back, firing at the terrified blacks. The
fight had gone out of the islanders. They could not battle with gods.
Man after man went down, and then the slaughter swept past and out of
view.

Tiki touched Stanton on the shoulder. He had taken off the mask and he
went back to the moving capstan stone that had triggered the trap. They
took hold of the pole and revolved it.

The grating sound died away and Tiki walked through the entrance, out
on the slab, now firm again, turning to crouch and lower his head to
the rock in salutation and obeisance.

A hail came from the end of the causeway. It was the Chinese skipper
with two of his men. Stanton advanced to meet them.

"They all dead!" he said complacently. There was blood on his clothes
and his hands, but his face was clear of all emotion. "Tiki, he fixee.
All samee stone give way, I think."

It was over. Two of the Chinese were wounded, one seriously. A third
was dead. The captain mentioned it casually. It was all in the day's
work.

"Now we catch pearl and go," he said. "Mo' good we sink Lehua. No can
take. Too muchee talk, too muchee bobbely that make."

Stanton had forgotten all about the pearls. It had probably been the
prime issue in the mind of the skipper. Haines was an incident. He
possessed a share if he lived, but that was Cheung's private business.
Bringing back the pearls was the captain's affair, whether he found
Haines or not. Stanton and the girl, Haines and Tiki, were pawns to the
captain.

Cheung, Stanton fancied, was not so cold-blooded, but Cheung was an
exceptional Chinaman.

They took up the litter as the rest arrived and marched back, past the
out-sprawled corpses of the black men, more sacrifices to the great,
gray god. Haines awakened from his semi-stupor, seemingly refreshed. He
would recover, though he would probably be lame. Stanton ordered him
sent off immediately to the ship with Lucy, to occupy Stanton's own
cabin.

"Catch pearl first," said the captain.

Haines smiled for the first time.

"I think they're safe," he said. "There in that pool over there. It is
only half-filled at high tide. Moisture wouldn't hurt them, anyway. But
there's a crevice near the top, on this side. They're in there, in an
oilskin sack. The hole is plugged with seaweed."

They were safe, a bag half-filled with softly shimmering gems of the
sea, slightly iridescent, oval, round, pear-shaped, symmetrical, a few
of them pink in luster. Stanton could not estimate them, but he knew
they represented a fortune. Haines fingered them.

"You can keep some of them, my dear," he said to Lucy. "A third of them
are mine. We'll sell what you don't want."

"Sell all of them," she said. "They have cost too much. I couldn't wear
them."

The skipper talked with Tiki, who stood apart. Then he came to Stanton.

"Tiki speak he stay along this place," he said. "He like we set up
those dlum and those image topside along sing-sing glound."

Stanton looked at Tiki who walked toward him and once more took
Stanton's hand and placed it over his heart. Then he pointed to the
mountain, toward the god, now hidden by the cape.

The gesture, the desire, were unmistakable. He had come home. Solitude
did not bother him. Later he might adventure, bring back a woman, or a
dusky harem, but this was his land, his god.

He did not belong in Suva, nor on the other island from which he had
fled. Motutabu was his abidingplace, as priest to the graven image.

They left him later, his wishes carried out, standing on the beach,
motionless. Stanton felt that they owed him much, but he had owed a
debt to Stanton for his rescue. He would have died in Suva. And he had
paid his debt. He and the god.

The sunset was flaming back of the island when they made out to sea,
two sunken schooners in the bay. Tiki had been presented with the
stores of the Lehua, all that he selected.

The face of the image was no longer flaming as they had first seen it.
It was gray now, somber but serene. From the mountain came the deep
sound of a reverberating drum.

       *       *       *       *       *

"What you going to do now?" Cheung asked Stanton as they sat in the
chamber over the restaurant. Haines was under medical care, a rich man,
content to limp, since he could well afford to ride.

"I don't know," Stanton answered. "I'm at a loose end." Cheung smiled,
nodded toward the inside rooms where Lucy Haines was talking with
Cheung's wife.

"Suppose you ask missy?" he said. "These belong along you. If you like
I buy them flom you. Give good plice."

He took a leather sack from his capacious sleeve and poured out pearls
into a lacquered bowl. They filled a third of it with milky radiance.

"You, me, Haines, all same divide," said Cheung. "These velly fine
pearl. Fifty-sixty thousan' dollah. Why you not ask missy?"

"I think I'll take your advice," said Stanton. The trip back had been a
happy one. He was not without foundation for the hope that Lucy might
be interested in what he did and where he went.

He was no longer a derelict, no longer in danger of being a beach bum.
He was a man of substance.

"You ask now," said Cheung. "I call my wife. I wish you plenty luckee."


                               THE END.



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