“He kick up plentee big row,” explained Kaipi.  “He kick porter men an’ make damn big noise outside missee tent.  They come out speakee him, he slap big missee in face, drive ’em off.”

Holman was crashing through the bushes before Kaipi had finished his recital, and I followed him, with the excited Fijian bringing up the rear.  Leith was rushing the Professor and his daughters toward the black hills and we had to do something immediately.

For over an hour we stumbled along the track, making no effort to keep under cover in case Leith should have prepared an ambush.  It was useless to argue with Holman, and my own feelings were such that I preferred to take the risks of the route which Soma’s axe had cut, to the delays which the task of forcing our own passage through the labyrinth would bring upon us.  Prudence was thrust into the background by the intense hate we entertained for the devil who had entrapped us.

It was near midday when our pursuit met with an interruption.  A revolver cracked in a clump of wild ginger directly in front, and we took cover immediately.  The bullet had whizzed close to Holman’s head, and as we lay panting in the ribbon-grass we congratulated ourselves on the fact that we had been met with a single shot instead of a volley.  We had taken a big chance and had come off lucky.  It was impossible for Leith’s party to be very far ahead, and as we watched the ginger clump we wondered how we could circumvent the sharpshooter.

After about five minutes of absolute quiet Kaipi turned his head and pointed to the rear, and Holman and I listened intently.  The Fijian’s sharper ears had detected slight sounds behind us, and as we strained the silence we came to the conclusion that the enemy had stealthily worked their way around us, and were now creeping like snakes through the maze with the hope that they would take us unawares.

We started to worm our way to the right, and our hatred of the infernal island, where we were reduced to the condition of burrowing moles, increased.  Our eyes were practically useless.  We had to depend upon hearing alone, and when a white man pits his ears against those of a native he finds that he has been suffering from partial deafness without being aware of the fact.  A dozen times we shifted ground on a signal from Kaipi, whose head was continually to the earth, and that game of hide and seek drove us frantic.  Leith was hurrying toward the hills while we were crawling backward and forward through the undergrowth to escape a few natives who pursued their tactics with a persistency that was maddening.  The fact that the pursuers had the advantage put a raw edge upon our tempers, and after an hour spent upon hands and knees Holman resolutely refused to shift his ground in response to Kaipi’s signals.  I was just as tired of the wormlike attitude that we were compelled to adopt, and I waited beside Holman while the Fijian slipped away through the creepers after warning us by many eloquent signals that one of the search party was creeping toward us.