That swim whipped the blood into every fiber and sinew of the being. Thinking little of sharks or devil-fish, I crossed the ruffled Bay of Traitors, and within an hour, a bit sore of thews-J confess, I touched the sand on the southern end of the island.
Rarely have I seen such tropical beauty as on Taoha — cool white sands, strewn with sea-weed and curious shells; forests of mangoes, cocoanut-palms and bread-fruit; towering basalt rocks, honeycombed with caves and seeming riven with bronze as countless cascades and waterfalls caught the tarnished argent of the moon.
Following the Polynesian's instructions, I walked several rods down the beach and found the nearly obliterated trail that he had described, a path leading into a dark hollow.
Across valleys and ridges I sprinted, in the shadow of dripping rocks where the atmosphere was saturated with moisture, beneath feis-plants and the crimson-flowered hutu-tree, not infrequently passing ruined paepaes, meager evidence of the gradual death of the little island.
After a trot of about a mile I gained the summit of a hill where red jasmine and orchids bloomed in profusion, and halted, breathless, looking upon what I knew to be the mist-laden Vale Where Dead Men Walk.
Here the stars seemed to hang lower, so low that the smell of them was in the atmosphere. Across the earth depression, stone ledges rose from the deep-sunken valley and the moonlight struck the bare rocks, transforming them from dead matter into living sheets of light.
The Vale Where Dead Men Walk; well named; for a vague Something made me aware of its presence in the air by an imaginary, nevertheless ponderous, weight upon the lungs… as if the souls of the perished sea-robbers surged back upon the valley.
As I slowly descended the ridge — slowly because of a strange reluctance to hurry — I had the uncanny feeling of one invading the dominion of the dead. Even the rank odors of the flowers suggested death.
The ascent of the ledges was not without difficulty; footholds were treacherous and more than once the roots of vines yielded to my weight, leaving me swinging at dizzy heights; but after ten minutes of breathless climbing, I dragged my full six feet over the edge of the High Altar and stood upright beside the Altar of Po.
Evidently Cleaves had not arrived. The decaying altar was bare.
The High Place of Taoha crowned a gorge — a wound that gaped in the stomach of the earth like the heel-mark of a giant conqueror. At the bottom of a sheer drop of ten feet a narrow ledge clung to the stone walls, winding down into the orchid and fern-grown canon where the monster boulders threw their shadows across the rushing stream. On the side of the gorge opposite where I stood, a cave leered blackly from the rocks, and not far away was the lagoon, flanked with palm-fronds, a connecting link between river and sea. A mild roar insinuated itself upon the air — the combined booming of the gorge stream and the not distant surf.
The savage, lawless splendor exerted over me an awesome spell and my imagination, ever eager to slip its leash, painted sinister figures in the gorge, ghostly shapes that materialized in the maw of the black cave.
Of a sudden the blood began to throb through my head — for no conjuring of the fancy had created those forms; they were real, moving as phantoms upon the background of creepers that sprawled over the walls.
I dropped flat on my stomach, the touch of my skin upon the moist, cold stone sending a quick thrill trickling along my sensory nerves.
The figures, five in number, all lithe of body with the exception of one, crawled stealthily out of the gorge, and when they attained the top of the opposite side were swallowed by the breadfruit and cocoanut-palms.
I continued to stare at the trees where they vanished. Men — islanders from the color of their naked skins — coming from the cave. It was rather intriguing, even insidious, and I immediately determined to penetrate the cave whose jaws had spewn them.
As I swung down from the High Place, dropping on the narrow ledge, I regretted my hasty action. The wiser plan would have been to wait for Cleaves, but I had started without him, and being young, which is to say stubborn, too, I decided to finish it alone.
More than once during that perilous descent into the gorge did I wish I had abandoned my purpose on the narrow trail below the High Place.
At length, a bit bruised and smarting from contact with the rocks, I found myself before the cave. Its mouth breathed damp, foul odors — the smell of fish and stale salt. A gradual incline went down into its throat, vanishing in somber darkness.
I felt a queer dread of the place as I entered and before I had advanced many yards this aversion increased to terror. In the dank, foul air was an element that inspired in me a sensation similar to the one I had experienced as I crossed the Vale Where Dead Men Walk — the ponderous weight upon the chest.
I wondered if by chance I was exploring a hiding place of the old Tahatian pirates, and if, in this gullet of darkness, I would stumble upon chests of loot — green with the rust and mould of ages. These thoughts, fanciful though they were, lured me on, drew me as in response to a magnet, deeper into the bowels of the earth.
I could hear a distant booming — like the surf upon the rocks. Other than that, and a drip-drip-drip of water somewhere in the unseen cavity, it ached with the stillness of a sepulchre.
After fully three minutes of groping forward my outstretched hands came into contact with a fungi-grown wall and as I turned to the left, my fingers slipping over the damp surface, I saw a broad strip of anaemic light streaking the darkness. It was very singular, such an illumination, apparently born of itself in the cavern, and I stood motionless, trying to discover its source.
It was a noise that moved me — a groan — such as I once heard from the throat of a wounded devil-fish — a sound thrice hideous in the darksome cave. Had I coughed the following moment my heart would have Iain upon the floor.
From the vague light the groan had come, causing me to take an involuntary step — and not in the direction of the streak of illumination. I wanted to bolt it, but instead I forced myself to wait for a repetition of the noise, and when a moment had passed in silence, emboldened by the hush, I moved toward the strange glow.
As I reached it I almost laughed. In the ceiling of the cave was a gap of great depth and breadth which admitted the moonlight, thus creating the singular and startling pillar of light. Stars were visible, too — no longer low-hung, but seeming at distances illimitable.
I had almost forgotten the terrible groan in my discovery when it was repeated, weaker, nevertheless stirring the hair on my scalp.
My eyes swept the shadows that hugged the pillar of light, and now, somewhat accustomed to the gloom, I could make out many square shapes beyond the glow — objects that I perceived to be nothing less than sea-chests.
The sight of them quickened my pulse. Iron-bound sea-chests; rusty locks; doubloons…
I could not reach the nearest chest quick enough and as my fingers found the lock they trembled violently. To my surprise the lid yielded — but not without a shrill of protest from the ancient hinges. Empty.
I moved to the next one. Following the shriek of the unoiled iron, sheer horror drove its rapier the length of my body. I drew back, terrified, yet fascinated.
In the huge sea-chest, face upturned, was a man.
II
I can not adequately define my emotions. I was filled with a craven desire to run, to shut the lid upon the body, to do anything to escape the horrid cavern. How long I stood there, stiff with fright, I do not know, but it was some time, and the third groan aroused me from the fear-stupor.