party dropped to our places in the big whaleboat.

"You're not to follow us in whatever happens--mind that. If you sight
more'n three canoes at a time, knock out the shackles and run for open
sea. I'm leaving you Obadiah--he's a goodish shot--and four of the best
boys."

The young mate nodded. He hated not coming with us, but Bartlet knew.
This was Papua, where wise men take no chance and fools seldom live long
enough to take a second.

We took none ourselves as we rowed slowly shoreward and sheered off
out of spear throw, watching the wall of jungle. There is no beach
inside Barange, only the mangrove roots that writhe down to the water's
edge like tangled pythons through the oozy bank of salt marsh. It was
very still and very clear in the afternoon sunlight, though the heat
pouring out over us seemed the exhalation of a great steam bath, choked
with stewing vegetation. Now and then our crew of clean-limbed Tonga
boys rested on their oars, with timid, limpid gaze turned askance. We
heard their quick breathing and the drip from the oar blades--nothing
else. At such times we floated in a mirage where each leaf and frond and
webbed liana with its mirrored image had an unnatural brilliance and
precision, like a labored canvas or a view seen through a stereoscope.

* * * * *

And there stole upon us again the oppressive solicitation of the land,
subtle and perilous. Behind the beauty and wonder of it, beyond those
bright shores and the first low foot-hills of the range--what? Nobody
knows, that is the charm and the lure. Peoples, religions, empires
untouched since the birth of time--fabulous wealth, mountains of gold,
cliffs of ruby, "cataracts of adamant," any marvel that fantasy still
dares to dream in a prosaic century. They may be; no man has ever drawn
the map to deny them. They must be: why else should the sphinx smile?...

"I suppose a hundred woolly-heads are spying on us now," whispered
Jeckol suddenly. "Why don't they do something?" He fiddled nervously
with his rifle and sniffed. "What a place! This air is deadly--rotten
with fever. Faugh! It's animal. It's like--it's like a tiger's throat!"

I blinked at the little chap and with the same glance was aware of
Peters standing up in the bow. The trader was just lighting a
short-fused stick of dynamite from his cigar. Before I could cry murder
he had lobbed it in and shot the bush.

It struck with the smash of all calamity in th