Chapter 24 - Page 2

silence.

"Bushmen he no stop," Binu Charley called out, the sound of his
voice startling more than one of them. "Allee same damn funny
business. That fella Koogoo no look 'm eye belong him. He no
savvee little bit."

Koogoo's arms had crumpled under him, and he lay quivering where he
had fallen. Even as Binu Charley came to the front the stricken
black's breath passed from him, and with a final convulsive stir he
lay still.

"Right through the heart," Sheldon said, straightening up from the
stooping examination. "It must have been a trap of some sort."

He noticed Joan's white, tense face, and the wide eyes with which
she stared at the wreck of what had been a man the minute before.

"I recruited that boy myself," she said in a whisper. "He came
down out of the bush at Poonga-Poonga and right on board the Martha
and offered himself. And I was proud. He was my very first
recruit--"

"My word! Look 'm that fella," Binu Charley interrupted, brushing
aside the leafy wall of the run-way and exposing a bow so massive
that no one bushman could have bent it.

The Binu man traced out the mechanics of the trap, and exposed the
hidden fibre in the tangled undergrowth that at contact with
Koogoo's foot had released the taut bow.

They were deep in the primeval forest. A dim twilight prevailed,
for no random shaft of sunlight broke through the thick roof of
leaves and creepers overhead. The Tahitians were plainly awed by
the silence and gloom and mystery of the place and happening, but
they showed themselves doggedly unafraid, and were for pushing on.
The Poonga-Poonga men, on the contrary, were not awed. They were
bushmen themselves, and they were used to this silent warfare,
though the devices were different from those employed by them in
their own bush. Most awed of all were Joan and Sheldon, but, being
whites, they were not supposed to be subject to such commonplace
emotions, and their task was to carry the situation off with
careless bravado as befitted "big fella marsters" of the dominant
breed.

Binu Charley took the lead as they pushed on, and trap after trap
yielded its secret lurking-place to his keen scrutiny. The way was
beset with a thousand annoyances, chiefest among which were thorns,
cunningly concealed, that penetrated the bare feet of the invaders.
Once, during the afternoon, Binu Charley barely missed being
impaled in a staked pit that undermined the trail. There were
times when all stood still and waited for half an hour or more
while Binu Charley prospected suspicious parts of the trail.
Sometimes he was compelled to leave the trail and creep and climb
through the jungle so as to approach the man-traps from behind; and
on one