“Me not care about that,” he grinned.  “Me catch Soma, that’s all.”

The note was exceedingly brief.  It read: 

  “The mate is following you,—­NEWMARCH.”

Kaipi had returned to the job of sharpening his knife in which I had interrupted him, and at intervals he assured the dead Toni that vengeance was only a matter of a few hours.  As far as I was concerned the captain could not have chosen a better messenger.

“Kaipi,” I said, tearing the note into small pieces, “you have been sent to help me find Leith and the Professor.  See, I have the Professor’s picture maker.  He forgot it this morning, and the captain sent you and me to take it to him.  Do you understand?”

The Fijian grinned, tried the edge of his knife blade with the ball of his thumb, then sprang to his feet.

“And don’t be in too great a hurry to fix Soma,” I cautioned.  “Toni’s spirit can wait a few days till you get a suitable opportunity.  Now, we’ll strike the trail.”

Kaipi grinned again, put his sharpened knife into his belt and plunged into the dense undergrowth.  The snaky, moist lianas made progress next to impossible.  They clung around our legs like live things, and I damned the Professor’s idiotic craving for notoriety as we waded through the clammy creepers in search of the trail made by the party.  The prickly rope-like vines seemed to be in league with the devil who was leading the aged scientist and his daughters into dangers that made my brain dizzy as I attempted to dissect the possibilities which imagination put forward.

At last we found the traces of Soma’s handiwork with an axe, and guided by these signs we hurried forward.  The ground rose gradually toward the centre of the island, where columns of basalt loomed like the towers of feudal castles against the pure Venetian blue of the tropical sky.  But the sky was visible only for moments that were far removed from each other.  The crawling vines that overran the trees made an impenetrable barrier against the sunlight, and most of the time we were stumbling along in a mysterious twilight that increased my nervous agony.  Masses of rock of volcanic origin were thickly strewn around, and anything like fast travelling was impossible.

The sun dropped slowly toward the west, and we had great difficulty in holding to the path.  The axe marks and the branches broken by the carriers were really the only signs that we had to go by, but the eyes of the Fijian were exceedingly sharp in detecting the slightest evidence left by the party.  We passed the spot where they had lunched, and increased our speed in an endeavour to overtake them before nightfall.  The silence and unexplainable mystery of the place made me anxious to catch up with them before the darkness came down, while hunger and revenge made Kaipi move at a speed that was most unusual.

Darkness came down like a suffocating blanket, and we halted.