The Wings of the Morning Part 9

"Dyaks!" he growled fiercely. "A ship's officer, an Englishman probably, murdered by head-hunting Dyak pirates!"

If they came once they would come again.

Five hundred yards away Iris Deane was sleeping. He ought not to have left her alone. And then, with the devilish ingenuity of coincidence, a revolver shot awoke the echoes, and sent all manner of wildfowl hurtling through the trees with clamorous outcry.

Panting and wild-eyed, Jenks was at the girl's side in an inconceivably short s.p.a.ce of time. She was not beneath the shelter of the grove, but on the sands, gazing, pallid in cheek and lip, at the group of rocks on the edge of the lagoon.

"What is the matter?" he gasped.

"Oh, I don't know," she wailed brokenly. "I had a dream, such a horrible dream. You were struggling with some awful thing down there."

She pointed to the rocks.

"I was not near the place," he said laboriously. It cost him an effort to breathe. His broad chest expanded inches with each respiration.

"Yes, yes, I understand. But I awoke and ran to save you. When I got here I saw something, a thing with waving arms, and fired. It vanished, and then you came."

The sailor walked slowly to the rocks. A fresh chip out of the stone showed where the bullet struck. One huge boulder was wet, as if water had been splashed over it. He halted and looked intently into the water. Not a fish was to be seen, but small spirals of sand were eddying up from the bottom, where it shelved steeply from the sh.o.r.e.

Iris followed him. "See," she cried excitedly. "I was not mistaken.

There _was_ something here."

A creepy sensation ran up the man's spine and pa.s.sed behind his ears.

At this spot the drowned Lascars were lying. Like an inspiration came the knowledge that the cuttlefish, the dreaded octopus, abounds in the China Sea.

His face was livid when he turned to Iris. "You are over-wrought by fatigue, Miss Deane," he said. "What you saw was probably a seal;" he knew the ludicrous subst.i.tution would not be questioned. "Please go and lie down again."

"I cannot," she protested. "I am too frightened."

"Frightened! By a dream! In broad daylight!"

"But why are _you_ so pale? What has alarmed you?"

"Can you ask? Did you not give the agreed signal?"

"Yes, but--"

Her inquiring glance fell. He was breathless from agitation rather than running. He was perturbed on her account. For an instant she had looked into his soul.

"I will go back," she said quietly, "though I would rather accompany you. What are you doing?"

"Seeking a place to lay our heads," he answered, with gruff carelessness. "You really must rest, Miss Deane. Otherwise you will be broken up by fatigue and become ill."

So Iris again sought her couch of sand, and the sailor returned to the skeleton. They separated unwillingly, each thinking only of the other's safety and comfort. The girl knew she was not wanted because the man wished to spare her some unpleasant experience. She obeyed him with a sigh, and sat down, not to sleep, but to muse, as girls will, round-eyed, wistful, with the angelic fantasy of youth and innocence.

CHAPTER IV

RAINBOW ISLAND

Across the parched bones lay the stick discarded by Jenks in his alarm.

He picked it up and resumed his progress along the pathway. So closely did he now examine the ground that he hardly noted his direction. The track led straight towards the wall of rock. The distance was not great--about forty yards. At first the brushwood impeded him, but soon even this hindrance disappeared, and a well-defined pa.s.sage meandered through a belt of trees, some strong and lofty, others quite immature.

More bushes gathered at the foot of the cliff. Behind them he could see the mouth of a cave; the six months' old growth of vegetation about the entrance gave clear indication as to the time which had elapsed since a human foot last disturbed the solitude.

A few vigorous blows with the stick cleared away obstructing plants and leafy branches. The sailor stooped and looked into the cavern, for the opening was barely five feet high. He perceived instantly that the excavation was man's handiwork, applied to a fault in the hard rock. A sort of natural shaft existed, and this had been extended by manual labor. Beyond the entrance the cave became more lofty. Owing to its position with reference to the sun at that hour Jenks imagined that sufficient light would be obtainable when the tropical luxuriance of foliage outside was dispensed with.

At present the interior was dark. With the stick he tapped the walls and roof. A startled cluck and the rush of wings heralded the flight of two birds, alarmed by the noise. Soon his eyes, more accustomed to the gloom, made out that the place was about thirty feet deep, ten feet wide in the center, and seven or eight feet high.

At the further end was a collection of objects inviting prompt attention. Each moment he could see with greater distinctness. Kneeling on one side of the little pile he discerned that on a large stone, serving as a rude bench, were some tin utensils, some knives, a s.e.xtant, and a quant.i.ty of empty cartridge cases. Between the stone and what a miner terms the "face" of the rock was a four-foot s.p.a.ce. Here, half imbedded in the sand which covered the floor, were two pickaxes, a shovel, a sledge-hammer, a fine timber-felling axe, and three crowbars.

In the darkest corner of the cave's extremity the "wall" appeared to be very smooth. He prodded with the stick, and there was a sharp clang of tin. He discovered six square kerosene-oil cases carefully stacked up.

Three were empty, one seemed to be half full, and the contents of two were untouched. With almost feverish haste he ascertained that the half-filled tin did really contain oil.

"What a find!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed aloud. Another pair of birds dashed from a ledge near the roof.

"Confound you!" shouted the sailor. He sprang back and whacked the walls viciously, but all the feathered intruders had gone.

So far as he could judge the cave harbored no further surprises.

Returning towards the exit his boots dislodged more empty cartridges from the sand. They were sh.e.l.ls adapted to a revolver of heavy caliber.

At a short distance from the doorway they were present in dozens.

"The remnants of a fight," he thought. "The man was attacked, and defended himself here. Not expecting the arrival of enemies he provided no store of food or water. He was killed whilst trying to reach the well, probably at night."

He vividly pictured the scene--a brave, hardy European keeping at bay a boatload of Dyak savages, enduring manfully the agonies of hunger, thirst, perhaps wounds. Then the siege, followed by a wild effort to gain the life-giving well, the hiss of a Malay parang wielded by a lurking foe, and the last despairing struggle before death came.

He might be mistaken. Perchance there was a less dramatic explanation.

But he could not shake off his, first impressions. They were garnered from dumb evidence and developed by some occult but overwhelming sense of certainty.

"What was the poor devil doing here?" he asked. "Why did he bury himself in this rock, with mining utensils and a few rough stores? He could not be a castaway. There is the indication of purpose, of preparation, of method combined with ignorance, for none who knew the ways of Dyaks and Chinese pirates would venture to live here alone, if he could help it, and if he really were alone." The thing was a mystery, would probably remain a mystery for ever.

"Be it steel or be it lead, Anyhow the man is dead."

There was relief in hearing his own voice. He could hum, and think, and act. Arming himself with the axe he attacked the bushes and branches of trees in front of the cave. He cut a fresh approach to the well, and threw the litter over the skeleton. At first he was inclined to bury it where it lay, but he disliked the idea of Iris walking unconsciously over the place. No time could be wasted that day. He would seize an early opportunity to act as grave-digger.

After an absence of little more than an hour he rejoined the girl. She saw him from afar, and wondered whence he obtained the axe he shouldered.

"You are a successful explorer," she cried when he drew near.

"Yes, Miss Deane. I have found water, implements, a shelter, even light."

"What sort of light--spiritual, or material?"

"Oil."

"Oh!"