We can't go
across this wilderness, so it's safer to await developments here."
We hadn't long to wait. From a point directly opposite our position, and
at a distance that we judged to be two hundred yards away, a bobbing
light broke into the wall of darkness and moved directly toward us.
Holman gripped my arm and pulled me forward to the stone tables upon
which the skulls were laid, and side by side we crouched and waited.
It was the ship's lantern that Soma had carried in front of Leith that
was now moving upon us. Its yellow light showed the parrot-feather mat
and headdress of the big Kanaka, while the hum of voices, which drifted
across the vast space of the cavern, informed us that the dancers who
had assisted at the ceremony were returning with Leith and the one-eyed
white man.
Holman's breath came hot upon my cheek. There was no necessity for
speech. I knew that he intended to seize the first opportunity to
attack, and that opportunity was at hand. Behind the bobbing lamp that
was approaching us by an irregular trail, as if Soma was winding in and
out amidst stone supports similar to the one that sheltered us, was the
brute who held us in his grip, and after the events we had witnessed it
seemed impossible to reconcile his actions with anything that smacked of
decency or honesty.
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