In the direction of the village and the path there was nothing to be seen; but when I turned inland it’s a wonder to me I didn’t drop.  There, coming right up out of the desert and the bad bush — there, sure enough, was a devil-woman, just as the way I had figured she would look.  I saw the light shine on her bare arms and her bright eyes, and there went out of me a yell so big that I thought it was my death.

“Ah!  No sing out!” says the devil-woman, in a kind of a high whisper.  “Why you talk big voice?  Put out light!  Ese he come.”

“My God Almighty, Uma, is that you?” says I.

“IOE,” (4) says she.  I come quick.  Ese here soon.”

“You come alone?” I asked.  “You no ’fraid?”

“Ah, too much ’fraid!” she whispered, clutching me.  “I think die.”

“Well,” says I, with a kind of a weak grin, “I’m not the one to laugh at you, Mrs. Wiltshire, for I’m about the worst scared man in the South Pacific myself.”

She told me in two words what brought her.  I was scarce gone, it seems, when Fa’avao came in, and the old woman had met Black Jack running as hard as he was fit from our house to Case’s.  Uma neither spoke nor stopped, but lit right out to come and warn me.  She was so close at my heels that the lantern was her guide across the beach, and afterwards, by the glimmer of it in the trees, she got her line up hill.  It was only when I had got to the top or was in the cellar that she wandered Lord knows where! and lost a sight of precious time, afraid to call out lest Case was at the heels of her, and falling in the bush, so that she was all knocked and bruised.  That must have been when she got too far to the southward, and how she came to take me in the flank at last and frighten me beyond what I’ve got the words to tell of.

Well, anything was better than a devil-woman, but I thought her yarn serious enough.  Black Jack had no call to be about my house, unless he was set there to watch; and it looked to me as if my tomfool word about the paint, and perhaps some chatter of Maea’s, had got us all in a clove hitch.  One thing was clear:  Uma and I were here for the night; we daren’t try to go home before day, and even then it would be safer to strike round up the mountain and come in by the back of the village, or we might walk into an ambuscade.  It was plain, too, that the mine should be sprung immediately, or Case might be in time to stop it.

I marched into the tunnel, Uma keeping tight hold of me, opened my lantern and lit the match.  The first length of it burned like a spill of paper, and I stood stupid, watching it burn, and thinking we were going aloft with Tiapolo, which was none of my views.  The second took to a better rate, though faster than I cared about; and at that I got my wits again, hauled Uma clear of the passage, blew out and dropped the lantern, and the pair of us groped our way into the bush until I thought it might be safe, and lay down together by a tree.