Just why he had to “lurk” at this particular juncture Grant could not probably have told.  There was not the slightest necessity for lurking.  There were no windows in the side of the house toward him, and no one was visible about the place, but he knew what he had read, and he knew that the savages of the South Sea islands were always addicted to lurking just previous to springing upon their unsuspecting victims, and he was bound to lurk and do it thoroughly.  His manner of lurking consisted, before he reached the clearing fence, in crouching very low and creeping along in a most constrained and uncomfortable manner, occasionally dropping to the ground slowly and with utter noiselessness and rising again with equal caution.  All this time the face of the young man wore what he conceived to be an expression of most bloody purpose craftily concealed.  Upon reaching the fence, he shot his head above it, and withdrew it with lightning-like rapidity, frightening almost into convulsions, in her nest, a robin whose home was between the rails in the immediate vicinity.  Of course he could have looked through the fence with greater ease, but that would have involved no such dramatic effect.  His sudden view of the landscape taken, the boy climbed the fence, ran to the dry ditch, parted the overhanging weeds and leaped down.  Once in the dry waterway, he was utterly concealed from view, even had any one been near; but that made no difference with his precautions.  He knew that after savages had lurked, they always glided, and that what the writers describe as “a snake-like motion” was something absolutely essential.

Spear in hand and creeping on his hands and knees, the destroyer advanced along the drain, lying flat and wriggling with much patience wherever a particularly clear stretch of sand presented itself.  Half way across the field he raised his head with a movement so slow that a full minute was occupied in the performance, parted the weeds gently and peered out to get his bearings and ascertain if any foemen were in sight.  There were no foemen, and his progress had been satisfactory.  The remainder of the desperate advance was made with no less adroitness and success.  At last there fell upon the ear of the avenger the sound of a human voice.  He was close to the house, and the morning exercises had begun!

Here was the moment for the exhibition of all South Sea island craft, and the moment was about at hand, too, for exhibition of the full measure of a South Sea islander’s ferocity!  The islander glided from the ditch, crept to the house and slowly put forth his head until he could see around the corner.  There, within three feet of him, back to the window, kneeling beside his chair, was Alf, ostensibly paying deep attention to his father’s unctuous and sonorous sentences, though really, as Grant could see, engaged in flicking kernels of corn at his brother in another corner.  His jeans trousers were, as a result of his present attitude, drawn tightly across that portion of his body nearest to the window, and never fairer mark was offered savage spear!  Not a moment did the avenger hesitate.  He poised his weapon, took deadly aim, and lunged!