black cliffs, and the surroundings became moredistinct. We were on the edge of a clearing, and there was somethingvaguely familiar about the trees that our cramped position allowed usto see. We felt certain that we had passed this place on our journeyfrom the yacht, and each minute that passed strengthened the conviction.
"Seems to me that I've seen that tree before," muttered Holman.
"I hold the same impression," I said.
"And those rocks," remarked the youngster. "Why, we're going back to_The Waif!_"
The three natives rose together at that moment and gripped the rope. Wegave a joint groan of agony as our stiffened limbs were jerked forward,and as we were pulled from the fringe of reed-like grass our exactwhereabouts were made known to us. Standing up against the moon, the rimof the orb showing just above the massive top, was the great stone tablethat Holman and I had climbed two nights before!
CHAPTER XVII
BENEATH THE CENTIPEDE
The natives moved at a slow walk across the clearing, and for thislittle indulgence we were exceedingly thankful. There was no grasscovering upon the bed of coral rock in the middle of which the singularstructure stood, and our bleeding bodies could have hardly stood a swiftgallop across the prickly surface. As it was we were immensely glad whenthe trinity halted in front of the edifice.
"Say," murmured Holman, "do you remember what the Professor said aboutthis place the other night when he was speaking about sacrificialaltars?"
I groaned as an intimation that the subject was not a pleasant one, butHolman wanted to make public admission that he had exhibited grossignorance in ridiculing the Professor's assertions.
"I thought he was handing it out too strong, Verslun," he murmured, "butit strikes me now that he had the right dope about this infernal thing.I believe they're going to settle us."
I groaned again. Holman's airy manner of discussing our predicamentannoyed me. I hated the Professor for making the remarks aboutsacrificial stones when he drew comparisons between the table and Aztecaltars, because I now thought that the very fear planted within my brainwould carry a thought suggestion to the three devils who had usprisoners. Under ordinary circumstances I am not deficient in physicalcourage, but our position in front of the strange monument on the Isleof Tears left me with the valour of a jack-rabbit. The terror generatedby the surroundings bit into my system like an acid.
"What I'm wondering at," continued Holman, "is about that guy that wesaw on the top of the place. How he got away was a mystery."
"It was," I replied. I didn't feel disposed to trust myself to make alonger comment at that moment.
"Well, they're going to start operations," said the youngster. "We'regoing to the top, Verslun."
It was plain that we were. Two of the natives had shinned up one of thepillars by means of small notches in one corner, and now the other cutthe bands that tied us together, promptly attached Holman's feet to therope his comrades lowered, and signalled that all was ready by clappinghis hands. The youngster was quickly jerked upward, and in a few minutesI was beside him on the moss-grown sloping surface of the immense stone.
The three dancers were evidently impressed with the importance of thework they had in hand. Their movements on the stone became moredignified and solemn. They moved around us in a manner that would haveprovoked laughter at any other time, and we watched eagerly fordevelopments.
With much care they placed us side by side on the upper part of thestone, but Holman's feet were turned to my head, and as we were placedcrosswise upon the inclined surface, my body was a few inches lower thanhis. That we were to be sacrificed appeared to be a certainty at thatmoment, but the method by which we were to be sent into eternity puzzledus. Not one of the three had a weapon. The surface of the stone was asbare as it was upon the night that we had investigated it, and we beganto think that death by starvation and thirst would probably be our fate.
But thoughts of such an ending were soon put aside. Two of the savagesslipped from the stone while the other dropped upon his stomach and hidhis face. That something was going to happen we felt certain, but wecould not discover the slightest clue that would guide our puzzled witsto a solution. We expected death, but we could not guess in what mannerthe job was to be performed.
"Looks as if something is coming, Verslun," cried Holman. "I was a foolto miss him, old man, but I guess--oh, Gee!"
The final exclamation was caused by a happening immediately beside us. Asection of the moss-grown stone, about eight feet long and eighteeninches in width, started to rise slowly, and when our astonished eyesfell upon it we knew that we had the solution of the strange appearanceof the figure upon the table on the night we camped in its shadow.Holman had seen this movable slab rise above the top of the table, butit had returned to its groove before we had climbed the tree, and it hadfitted so closely into its moss-grown bed that we had been unable todetect a crevice in the moonlight. We had been on the verge of adiscovery, but as we recalled the incident, lying there helpless, wewere doubtful if it would have saved us from the fate we expected. Thenote which Soma had dropped gave full confirmation to all our suspicionsconcerning Leith, yet we had been unable to hold our own against him.
One end of the slab remained stationary after it had risen a few inchesfrom its bed, but the other end, which was nearest us, went up and up,pushed by some screwjack arrangement that lifted it with slow, jerkymovements till it was nearly upright. The moonlight fell upon the undersurface that was turned toward us, and we understood the manner in whichLeith's friends had arranged for us to make our exit from this world.The bottom of the stone slab had been carved into a perfectrepresentation of a centipede, and as the slab remained stationary justbefore it reached the perpendicular, I began to dive into my mentalreticule for the scraps of prayers that had been caught and held througha rather checkered career in places where the efficacy of prayer waslooked upon with a cold eye.
The prostrate savage rose slowly when the movements of the slab hadceased, and very tenderly he rolled Holman and me over the bed fromwhich the stone had been lifted. He pushed our bodies against the woodenpost that, fitting into a sliding groove on the body of the stonecentipede, had lifted the thing upright, and to make certain that wewould be in the exact centre of the depression when the stone came backto its proper resting place, he strapped us carefully to the supportwith pieces of ramie fibre, so that we could not move an inch. Withfaces turned upward we stared at the carved figure above us, and theinsecure tenure we had upon life at that moment was impressed upon ourminds by the extreme caution which the officiating wizard exercised inkeeping his own body clear of the slab lest his brethren, who wereevidently operating the clumsy mechanism from some place nearby, shouldlet the stone centipede return to his home without giving him properwarning.
At last he finished the business to his satisfaction and steppedbackward. My imagination made the thing above me tremble as I looked atit with eyes of fear. The part of my body that spanned the depressionbecame numb, and I breathed with difficulty.
Holman broke the silence. "Good-bye, Verslun," he said cheerfully. "It'smighty tough to go out like this, but it's the fortune of war."
I endeavoured to answer him, but the words, as if afraid of the horrorthat loomed above me, refused to come out of my throat. The fiendishmanner in which we were to be killed unmanned me. The slab paralyzedthought, and it seemed to me that only the inmost kernel of my being, avery pin-point of the refined essence of life, was throbbing within mybody.
The officiating wizard stepped around us for a final survey. He glancedkeenly at the position of our bodies, and, evidently satisfied that thecentipede had every opportunity to make a good job, he flung himselfdown upon his face and started to murmur softly in the strange dialectwhich Leith had spoken when addressing the three earlier in the night,and which the dancer had used in the Cavern of Skulls. I remember that Itried during those few minutes to catch a word or two of the queertongue, and curiously enough, in that moment of extreme peril, Iendeavoured to connec
t it with some of the dialects I had heard duringmy long stay in the islands. The soft muttering seemed to be a threadconnecting us with life itself, and I dreaded the moment it would cease.
I do not know how long the chant continued. It rose and fell, a softrhythmic murmur, and I prayed that it would never end. My ears sucked itin as if it was a life line to which my soul was clinging, and I dimlyunderstood my eagerness to catch the sounds. My ability to do so seemedto be wanted as proof to convince my half-paralyzed body that I wasstill alive.
The low chant ended with a little throaty cry, and I shut my eyes tightto save myself the final moment of agony which the falling of the stonewould bring. For an instant there was absolute silence, then some onegripped me by the legs and pulled madly. The ramie fibre held my body tothe supporting post of the centipede, and
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