the Australian black fellow or theAmerican Indian in his knowledge of the forest, but Maru was anexception. His sight and hearing were abnormally keen, and he examinedthe grass carefully.
"One man go by here pretty short time ago," he whispered.
"Native?" I asked.
"No, him wear shoes."
The Raretongan crawled forward on his knees, his face close to thegrass. The tracks upon the soft grass showed that the person was movingin the direction we were going, and for about twenty yards we followedcautiously. Leith, the one-eyed white man, and the Professor were theonly three men on the Isle of Tears, outside Holman and myself, whowould be wearing shoes. It was hard to think that the Professor or Leithwould be alone at that moment, so I concluded, as we crawled along inthe shadow of the cliff, that the tracks were made by One Eye.
Maru suddenly sprang to his feet and stood listening. I listened too.Into the awful silence came a tremendous rumbling that increased eachsecond till I pictured it as a cancer of noise growing with appallingrapidity within the encompassing stillness.
"What is it?" I gasped. "Why it's----"
I understood at that moment, and I sprang toward the jungle, but thebig hand of the Raretongan gripped my shoulder and dragged me close tothe cliff beneath an overhanging ledge.
"Stay here!" he yelled, raising his voice above the tumult that seemedto be coming out of the heavens. "Keep close much!"
The noise was deafening. The black cliff seemed to rock behind us, andas Maru pulled me down on my knees five hundred tons of rock shot fromthe heights and flattened ten square yards of the packed shrubsimmediately in front of us!
"Now!" screamed Maru, as the dust swept in under the ledge and nearlychoked us; "we get away quick, plenty dust, they can't see!"
The dirt and small rocks had rolled back upon us till we stood ankledeep, but the native's advice was good. Hugging the wall of the cliff,we ran back on our tracks till we had passed the area devastated by thelandslide; then we sprang into the bushes and peered up at the cliff.High above the cloud of dust that was still rising from the ground, andleaning forward so that he could view the extent of the avalanche, wasthe one-eyed white man!
"Maru," I whispered, "go back and get Holman. I'll wait here till youcome."
CHAPTER XIX
LEITH SCORES
The one-eyed man stood for a long time contemplating his handiwork. Fromhis point of observation he watched the pile of rocks and thesurrounding bushes, and the absence of movement convinced him that thejob had been well done. He commenced to make facial contortions as anoutlet for the mirth he was generating inside, and at intervals hemanaged to produce a peculiar noise that reminded one of the bubbling ofa camel. I began to think that One Eye, besides being deaf and dumb, wassuffering from a shortage of gray matter inside his ugly-shaped head. Hestrutted up and down, and narrowly escaped toppling over the ledgethrough attempting a cake dance as a grand finale to the insane actionsprompted by the successful manner in which he had engineered thelandslide.
The afternoon had lengthened out before Maru returned with Holman andKaipi, and we hurriedly considered the best course to pursue. One Eyehad been with Leith when Maru deserted, so it was obvious that we werenot far from the ruffian's hiding place.
"If we could catch this lunatic on the cliff?" muttered Holman. "Gee! wecould tickle him with Kaipi's old knife blade till he ran us right intothe haunt."
"He's deaf," I said; "there's a good chance of roping him in if we couldscale the cliff."
"Me climb!" said Maru. "Him not hear. Me climb all alonga track, dropdown, breakem him neck."
"No, don't break his neck!" growled Holman. "We want him as a guide. Doyou understand? He knows where Leith is hiding, and if we could get holdof him it would be clear sailing."
Maru borrowed Kaipi's knife, nodded confidently as we adjured him to usecaution, and then slipped back along the track so that he could climb tothe level of the one-eyed person's perch before attempting to creep uponhim. We sat down to await developments. The witless one was evidently alookout, and it was advisable to wait and see the success of Maru'sexpedition before we attempted to move.
It was a long wait. Maru didn't intend to take any chances by closing inhurriedly, and it was nearly two hours after his departure before we sawhis head rise above a boulder high up over the spot where One Eye waskeeping his vigil. It was evidently not the first time that the nativehad stalked a human being, and his fine tactics, which should havecalled forth praise, severely tried the small amount of patience that wepossessed. Holman cursed softly beneath his breath as Maru sat for tenminutes at a time studying the route before attempting to move from asheltering rock, and my own nails burrowed into the palms of my hands asI watched. The Raretongan was a genius in his own particular line, and Ithink he took more than ordinary precautions so that his success wouldprove to Holman that Barbara Herndon had not overpaid him when shepresented him with the emerald ring as a reward for his desertion fromLeith. Maru had no idea of the sentimental view of the matter which theyoungster took; and he thought that Holman's objections against thebargain were caused by the thought that no services could be renderedthat would be half as valuable as the trinket. The unsentimental savagecould not imagine that the unstrung lover wanted the ring as a keepsakeof the girl who had won his heart on board _The Waif_.
"Caesar's Ghost! Why doesn't he hurry?" cried Holman. "That madman looksas if he's going to change his camping ground!"
It looked as if the witless one was really going to move, and Maru hadstill some fifty yards to cover before he would be directly above theother's head. Our nerves were in such a state that we felt inclined toscream out to the patient stalker. If we could grab the scout we couldprobably induce him by gentle persuasion to act as guide, but if heescaped us, we pictured ourselves stumbling over precipices and throughdark caverns with the same lack of results as had marked our trip to theplace of skulls.
Maru was decreasing the distance by inches. Slowly, very slowly, withall the serpentlike cunning of the savage, he advanced till he wasalmost above the spot where the other stood taking a survey of thejungle. But it was a farewell glance for One Eye. If Leith had placedhim there to keep watch till he had reached a safe position, the watcherevidently considered that the time was up. He hopped to another ledgewith the agility of a goat, and Holman groaned.
Maru noticed the retreat, and quickened his movements. Droppingcautiously from ledge to ledge he crept upon the other with theswiftness of a leopard creeping upon its prey. One Eye's deafness lefthim at the mercy of the shadow in his rear. Swiftly taking coverwhenever the white man's head moved to the right or the left, the nativedecreased the distance, and we rose to our knees.
Then Maru sprang. His muscular right arm went round the neck of thewhite, and we were rushing toward the cliff without waiting to see theoutcome of the struggle. The Raretongan's strength was immense, and weknew that the other could not break the strangle hold that had been putupon him. We were more afraid that One Eye would be choked intoinsensibility before we reached the post.
The big native was sitting astride his captive when we gained the ledge,and the prisoner was blinking his one good eye as he stared up at him.We dropped down beside him and took a look at the sun-tanned face. Heexhibited no fear, and the weak, watery eye showed no glint ofintelligence. It was plain that his brain was slightly deranged.
Holman jerked him into a sitting position, and with signs and gestureswe endeavoured to explain what we wanted him to do. Neither of usunderstood the deaf and dumb alphabet, but the alphabet was hardlynecessary. With much pantomimic action we described Leith, theProfessor, and the two girls, and Kaipi enjoyed himself immensely bywaving his knife in front of One Eye's face to signify the fate thatawaited him if he did not immediately guide us to the spot. The Fijianwas so proud of the blade that he could hardly be prevented from buryingan inch of the steel in the prisoner's body.
One Eye, although obviously half-witted, saw that Kaipi was only lookingfor an excuse t
o send him to a more undesirable place than the Isle ofTears, and he made eager signs that he would act as our guide. Holmanrelieved him of the revolver and cartridges he had in his pockets,strapped his arms behind him, and with Maru's hand clutching the collarof his coat, we signalled to him to step forward and step lively if hewished to delay his journey to the other world till his soul was in abetter condition. The sun was close to the high ridges in the west, andwe wished to close with Leith before nightfall.
One Eye taxed our climbing powers in the next ten minutes. With theagility of a chamois he scurried along the narrow ledges, and severaltimes Maru was forced to check his speed so that we could keep pace withhim. Holman's face showed the joy he felt at receiving anotheropportunity to retrieve the