The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 6 - September 1920) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: detective
Publisher: Pro-distributors Publishing Company
Published: 1920-06-01T21:00:00+00:00

III

Tue sleep that followed was not calm — nor can I hardly call it sleep, for during the whole period I had a peculiar awareness of things, of movement and a sound like unleashed thunder. And with the advent of full consciousness I was not, as I expected, in the water, although it was damp and I could feel a cool spray upon my body.

I sat upright on cold stone, my head aching dreadfully. Something close at hand was roaring and in a hazy way I realized that the noise was responsible for the spray; but as my vision cleared I saw only dimness broken on one side by a glimmering sheet that was a shade lighter than the surrounding gloom.

Gradually I comprehended. I was under the waterfall, in a dark recess in the rocks; the shifting curtain was nothing less than the cascading water.

Then I was startled by a voice almost at my elbow, speaking in Marquesan — "Menike, you are awake — at last?"

I knew her instantly, though she was little more than a blot in the dimness. Tahaiupehii — that exquisite young creature whose face I had seen momentarily as I fought the islander.

"I am glad you have come back, Menike," she said, creeping closer to me and slipping her small spray-wet hand in mine. Her nearness made me conscious of a pleasant odor — that of red jasmine. "Your head hit a rock — and I was afraid…"

"You saved me, Tahaiupehii?" I asked.

"I saw you as you dived from above — knew that you had done it to save me from Habuhamo's men. After you were hurt I swam with you to this cave under the waterfall."

I looked about me. A grim, loathsome place. I imagined there were creeping things upon the rock floor. But it was sanctuary.

"You were very brave," I commended, wondering how I was going to acquaint her with the truth.

My vision was becoming better regulated now, and with the aid of the pale light that filtered through the liquid curtain I could see her tawny face. Daughter of the Pigeon — less than seventeen, I knew, a symphony of the world's sorrow, a living symbol of that tragic isle to which she belonged.

"How did you happen here, Menike?" she questioned. "White men rarely come to Taoha any more…"

So I told her then — told her of my swim to the island and the discovery of Red Moon in the sea-chest in the Cave of the Laughing Lepers; told her of the death of her boy-lover near the paepae of Mahuma, and the finding of her father's body in the bamboo room.

Man is ever crude in the presence of bereavement, and my words must have been dagger-thrusts. She wept… of course. Father and lover in a night. And as she sat there, drenched with spray, clad only in the dripping pareu, a tragically lovely figure, she recalled to me a field of lilies that I had once seen… just before the dawn, when the dew was upon their chaste petals.

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