The morning's action had been
settled the night before. Tudor
was to stay behind in his banyan
refuge and gather strength while
the expedition proceeded. On
the far chance that they might
rescue even one solitary survivor
of Tudor's party, Joan was fixed
in her determination to push
on; and neither Sheldon nor Tudor
could persuade her to remain
quietly at the banyan tree while
Sheldon went on and searched.
With Tudor, Adamu Adam and Arahu
were to stop as guards, the latter
Tahitian being selected to remain
because of a bad foot which had
been brought about by stepping
on one of the thorns concealed
by the bushmen. It was evidently
a slow poison, and not too strong,
that the bushmen used, for the
wounded Poonga-Poonga man was
still alive, and though his swollen
shoulder was enormous, the inflammation
had already begun to go down.
He, too, remained with Tudor.
Binu Charley led the way, by
proxy, however, for, by means
of the poisoned spear, he drove
the captive bushman ahead. The
run-way still ran through the
dank and rotten jungle, and they
knew no villages would be encountered
till rising ground was gained.
They plodded on, panting and
sweating in the humid, stagnant
air. They were immersed in a
sea of wanton, prodigal vegetation.
All about them the huge-rooted
trees blocked their footing,
while coiled and knotted climbers,
of the girth of a man's arm,
were thrown from lofty branch
to lofty branch, or hung in tangled
masses like so many monstrous
snakes. Lush-stalked plants,
larger-leaved than the body of
a man, exuded a sweaty moisture
from all their surfaces. Here
and there, banyan trees, like
rocky islands, shouldered aside
the streaming riot of vegetation
between their crowded columns,
showing portals and passages
wherein all daylight was lost
and only midnight gloom remained.
Tree-ferns and mosses and a myriad
other parasitic forms jostled
with gay-coloured fungoid growths
for room to live, and the very
atmosphere itself seemed to afford
clinging space to airy fairy
creepers, light and delicate
as gem-dust, tremulous with microscopic
blooms. Pale-golden and vermilion
orchids flaunted their unhealthy
blossoms in the golden, dripping
sunshine that filtered through
the matted roof. It was the mysterious,
evil forest, a charnel house
of silence, wherein naught moved
save strange tiny birds--the
strangeness of them making the
mystery more profound, for they
flitted on noiseless wings, emitting
neither song nor chirp, and they
were mottled with morbid colours,
having all the seeming of orchids,
flying blossoms of sickness and
decay.
He was caught by surprise,
fifteen feet in the air above
the path, in the forks of a many-branched
tree. All saw him as he dropped
like a shadow, naked as on his
natal morn, landing springily
on his bent knees, and like a
shadow leaping along the run-way.
It was hard for them to realize
that it was a man, for he seemed
a weird jungle spirit, a goblin
of the forest. Only Binu Charley
was not perturbed. He flung his
poisoned spear over the head
of the captive at the flitting
form. It was a mighty cast, well
intended, but the shadow, leaping,
received the spear harmlessly
between the legs, and, tripping
upon it, was flung sprawling.
Before he could get away, Binu
Charley was upon him, clutching
him by his snow- white hair.
He was only a young man, and
a dandy at that, his face blackened
with charcoal, his hair whitened
with wood-ashes, with the freshly
severed tail of a wild pig thrust
through his perforated nose,
and two more thrust through his
ears. His only other ornament
was a necklace of human finger-bones.
At sight of their other prisoner
he chattered in a high querulous
falsetto, with puckered brows
and troubled, wild-animal eyes.
He was disposed of along the
middle of the line, one of the
Poonga-Poonga men leading him
at the end of a length of bark-rope.
The trail began to rise out
of the jungle, dipping at times
into festering hollows of unwholesome
vegetation, but rising more and
more over swelling, unseen hill-slopes
or climbing steep hog-backs and
rocky hummocks where the forest
thinned and blue patches of sky
appeared overhead.
"Close up he stop," Binu
Charley warned them in a whisper.
Even as he spoke, from high
overhead came the deep resonant
boom of a village drum. But the
beat was slow, there was no panic
in the sound. They were directly
beneath the village, and they
could hear the crowing of roosters,
two women's voices raised in
brief dispute, and, once, the
crying of a child. The run-way
now became a deeply worn path,
rising so steeply that several
times the party paused for breath.
The path never widened, and in
places the feet and the rains
of generations had scoured it
till it was sunken twenty feet
beneath the surface.
"One man with a rifle could
hold it against a thousand," Sheldon
whispered to Joan. "And twenty
men could hold it with spears
and arrows."
They came out on the village,
situated on a small, upland plateau,
grass-covered, and with only
occasional trees. There was a
wild chorus of warning cries
from the women, who scurried
out of the grass houses, and
like frightened quail dived over
the opposite edge of the clearing,
gathering up their babies and
children as they ran. At the
same time spears and arrows began
to fall among the invaders. At
Sheldon's command, the Tahitians
and Poonga- Poonga men got into
action with their rifles. The
spears and arrows ceased, the
last bushman disappeared, and
the fight was over almost as
soon as it had begun. On their
own side no one had been hurt,
while half a dozen bushmen had
been killed. These alone remained,
the wounded having been carried
off. The Tahitians and Poonga-Poonga
men had warmed up and were for
pursuit, but this Sheldon would
not permit. To his pleased surprise,
Joan backed him up in the decision;
for, glancing at her once during
the firing, he had seen her white
face, like a glittering sword
in its fighting intensity, the
nostrils dilated, the eyes bright
and steady and shining.
"Poor brutes," she said. "They
act only according to their natures.
To eat their kind and take heads
is good morality for them."
"But they should be taught
not to take white men's heads," Sheldon
argued.
She nodded
approval, and said, "If
we find one head we'll burn the
village. Hey, you, Charley! What
fella place head he stop?"
"S'pose he stop along devil-devil
house," was the answer. "That
big fella house, he devil-devil."
It was the largest house in
the village, ambitiously ornamented
with fancy-plaited mats and king-posts
carved into obscene and monstrous
forms half-human and half-animal.
Into it they went, in the obscure
light stumbling across the sleeping-logs
of the village bachelors and
knocking their heads against
strings of weird votive- offerings,
dried and shrivelled, that hung
from the roof-beams. On either
side were rude gods, some grotesquely
carved, others no more than shapeless
logs swathed in rotten and indescribably
filthy matting. The air was mouldy
and heavy with decay, while strings
of fish-tails and of half-cleaned
dog and crocodile skulls did
not add to the wholesomeness
of the place.
In the centre, crouched before
a slow-smoking fire, in the littered
ashes of a thousand fires, was
an old man who blinked apathetically
at the invaders. He was extremely
old--so old that his withered
skin hung about him in loose
folds and did not look like skin.
His hands were bony claws, his
emaciated face a sheer death's-head.
His task, it seemed, was to tend
the fire, and while he blinked
at them he added to it a handful
of dead and mouldy wood. And
hung in the smoke they found
the object of their search. Joan
turned and stumbled out hastily,
deathly sick, reeling into the
sunshine and clutching at the
air for support.
"See if all are there," she
called back faintly, and tottered
aimlessly on for a few steps,
breathing the air in great draughts
and trying to forget the sight
she had seen.
Upon Sheldon fell the unpleasant
task of tallying the heads. They
were all there, nine of them,
white men's heads, the faces
of which he had been familiar
with when their owners had camped
in Berande compound and set up
the poling-boats. Binu Charley,
hugely interested, lent a hand,
turning the heads around for
identification, noting the hatchet-strokes,
and remarking the distorted expressions.
The Poonga-Poonga men gloated
as usual, and as usual the Tahitians
were shocked and angry, several
of them cursing and muttering
in undertones. So angry was Matapuu,
that he strode suddenly over
to the fire-tender and kicked
him in the ribs, whereupon the
old savage emitted an appalling
squeal, pig-like in its wild-animal
fear, and fell face downward
in the ashes and lay quivering
in momentary expectation of death.
Other heads, thoroughly sun-dried
and smoke-cured, were found in
abundance, but, with two exceptions,
they were the heads of blacks.
So this was the manner of hunting
that went on in the dark and
evil forest, Sheldon thought,
as he regarded them. The atmosphere
of the place was sickening, yet
he could not forbear to pause
before one of Binu Charley's
finds.
"Me savvee black Mary, me savvee
white Mary," quoth Binu Charley. "Me
no savvee that fella Mary. What
name belong him?"
Sheldon looked. Ancient and
withered, blackened by many years
of the smoke of the devil-devil
house, nevertheless the shrunken,
mummy-like face was unmistakably
Chinese. How it had come there
was the mystery. It was a woman's
head, and he had never heard
of a Chinese woman in the history
of the Solomons. From the ears
hung two-inch-long ear-rings,
and at Sheldon's direction the
Binu man rubbed away the accretions
of smoke and dirt, and from under
his fingers appeared the polished
green of jade, the sheen of pearl,
and the warm red of Oriental
gold. The other head, equally
ancient, was a white man's, as
the heavy blond moustache, twisted
and askew on the shrivelled upper
lip, gave sufficient advertisement;
and Sheldon wondered what forgotten
beche-de-mer fisherman or sandalwood
trader had gone to furnish that
ghastly trophy.
Telling Binu Charley to remove
the ear-rings, and directing
the Poonga-Poonga men to carry
out the old fire-tender, Sheldon
cleared the devil-devil house
and set fire to it. Soon every
house was blazing merrily, while
the ancient fire-tender sat upright
in the sunshine blinking at the
destruction of his village. From
the heights above, where were
evidently other villages, came
the booming of drums and a wild
blowing of war-conchs; but Sheldon
had dared all he cared to with
his small following. Besides,
his mission was accomplished.
Every member of Tudor's expedition
was accounted for; and it was
a long, dark way out of the head-hunters'
country. Releasing their two
prisoners, who leaped away like
startled deer, they plunged down
the steep path into the steaming
jungle.
Joan, still shocked by what
she had seen, walked on in front
of Sheldon, subdued and silent.
At the end of half an hour she
turned to him with a wan smile
and said, -
"I don't think
I care to visit the head-hunters
any more. It's
adventure, I know; but there
is such a thing as having too
much of a good thing. Riding
around the plantation will henceforth
be good enough for me, or perhaps
salving another Martha; but the
bushmen of Guadalcanar need never
worry for fear that I shall visit
them again. I shall have nightmares
for months to come, I know I
shall. Ugh!--the horrid beasts!"
That night found them back
in camp with Tudor, who, while
improved, would still have to
be carried down on a stretcher.
The swelling of the Poonga-Poonga
man's shoulder was going down
slowly, but Arahu still limped
on his thorn-poisoned foot.
Two days later they rejoined
the boats at Carli; and at high
noon of the third day, travelling
with the current and shooting
the rapids, the expedition arrived
at Berande. Joan, with a sigh,
unbuckled her revolver-belt and
hung it on the nail in the living-
room, while Sheldon, who had
been lurking about for the sheer
joy of seeing her perform that
particular home-coming act, sighed,
too, with satisfaction. But the
home-coming was not all joy to
him, for Joan set about nursing
Tudor, and spent much time on
the veranda where he lay in the
hammock under the mosquito-netting.
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