“Come on!” cried Holman.  “If we don’t catch up with him I’ll go mad!”

He turned to hurry along the narrow path, but out of the silence behind us came a shout that caused us to dive promptly into the bushes.  The whoop came from the direction of the camping ground, and we had hardly crouched in the undergrowth when a nude native crashed through the vines and raced past our hiding place.  He was followed by two more, the three running at top speed, heads forward, and their chests heaving in a manner that suggested they had come some distance.

In the glimpse we caught of them as they dashed past we came to the conclusion that they were three of the “tivo” dancers, and as we watched their bare brown backs disappear in the creepers we observed something which our position on the previous evening had prevented us from seeing.  The backs of the three were tattooed, not with the common line tattooing, but with short scars that ran down the spine, making a ridged representation of a centipede, and as they passed I remembered that the Professor, when taking a photograph of the stone table on the previous morning, had commented on the same peculiar pattern which he had discovered upon one of the huge supporting pillars.

“They’ve come to tell Leith that we have escaped,” whispered Holman.

“And they’ll be on our trail the moment they give him the news.”

“All right, we’ll be ready for them.  How much ammunition have you?

“Three cartridges,” I replied.

“And I have four.  We must make those seven—­look out!  There’s another beggar coming!”

We dropped quickly out of sight and peered through the leaves.  Holman was right.  Some one else was coming along the path, but the newcomer was exercising much more prudence than the three dancers.  Judging by the little intervals of silence that followed the slight noises made by the breaking of twigs, he was investigating each yard of the way.

A woolly head at last appeared through the network, and our nerves relaxed at the big brown eyes that rolled fearfully.  The timorous stranger was Kaipi!

The Fijian was shaking with fear when we dragged him into the bushes.  In halting words he told the story of his experiences of the night, and Holman and I listened.  Kaipi had waited upon the ledge till a few hours before the dawn, and then he had made for the camp.  With much better luck than we had struck, he reached there before daylight, but fearful of the happenings which would follow in the wake of the devil dance, he had taken up a post of observation in a neighbouring tree and awaited events.

Leith, according to the Fijian, had arrived at dawn, accompanied by Soma and the one-eyed white man, and the big brute had immediately interviewed the Professor.  Kaipi’s actions, as he mimicked the elderly scientist, convinced us that the interview was not pleasant to the archaeologist, and it was evident that it was at that moment Leith had declared himself as Barbara Herndon stated in her note.