One of these skewers fell upon a ledge of stone some few yards in front of the spot where we were standing, and Holman stepped toward it.

“Stay where you are,” he said.  “If I get lost I’ll whistle softly and you can signal back to me.”

He moved away and I was left standing in the opening.  A bat banged heavily against my face, and the odour from the dusty floor irritated my nostrils so that I had difficulty in restraining myself from sneezing.

It was about twenty minutes before Holman returned.  He whistled ever so softly, and when I replied he came toward me hurriedly.

“Just walk out to that spot of moonlight,” he whispered.  “I’ll keep guard on the door.  Feel around there and tell me what you think of it.”

I did as he directed.  I walked forward to the spot and felt around with my hands.  My fingers came in contact with round, smooth objects that filled every available inch of a stone table in front of me, and with a feeling of revulsion I hurried back to the mouth of the corridor.  Holman gripped my arm and put a question.

“Gave you a shock, eh?”

“Why, they’re skulls!” I breathed hoarsely.

“Yes, hundreds of ’em,” he said.  “The place is chock full of them.  This island must have been the burying ground of all the adjoining groups, and it’s the atmosphere of the place that keeps the niggers away from it.  Leith has been wise to that.  The present generation of islanders know nothing of the things that happened here hundreds of years back, but they’ve got an inborn horror of the place, and they keep away.”

“Well, what are we to do?”

“Wait here.”

“But if he doesn’t come this way?”

“He must,” he answered.  “It’s the only way out, I think.  We can’t go across this wilderness, so it’s safer to await developments here.”

We hadn’t long to wait.  From a point directly opposite our position, and at a distance that we judged to be two hundred yards away, a bobbing light broke into the wall of darkness and moved directly toward us.  Holman gripped my arm and pulled me forward to the stone tables upon which the skulls were laid, and side by side we crouched and waited.

It was the ship’s lantern that Soma had carried in front of Leith that was now moving upon us.  Its yellow light showed the parrot-feather mat and headdress of the big Kanaka, while the hum of voices, which drifted across the vast space of the cavern, informed us that the dancers who had assisted at the ceremony were returning with Leith and the one-eyed white man.

Holman’s breath came hot upon my cheek.  There was no necessity for speech.  I knew that he intended to seize the first opportunity to attack, and that opportunity was at hand.  Behind the bobbing lamp that was approaching us by an irregular trail, as if Soma was winding in and out amidst stone supports similar to the one that sheltered us, was the brute who held us in his grip, and after the events we had witnessed it seemed impossible to reconcile his actions with anything that smacked of decency or honesty.