vee, me. Too much fright--walk along salt water--get to hell along
beach, along tree. Me fright like hell!"

* * * * *

His account tallied with our own theory of the massacre, but he had seen
no bodies brought ashore, could not identify the murderers, could not
say where the native village lay or how to reach it, would not guide any
one into that bush on any consideration. For the rest--this was a "good
fella place" to get away from quickly.

"Ah," said Jeckol, sympathizing. "And that's a true word."

So indeed it seemed, and it is odd to think how close we were to giving
up then. Aye, we were that close. We drifted out toward the anchorage
and looked helplessly around us. The place was so huge, so baffling.
Hopeless to search further among empty swamps and forests, to grope at
large in this hushed wilderness, to coerce a jungle. The cruisers that
have bombarded these same coasts on many a punitive expedition have
learned how hopeless--against Papua, who keeps her secrets.

We must have been halfway back to the _Aurora Bird_ when Bartlet,
sitting thoughtful in the stern, made the sign that brought us up all
sharp.

"He's lying," he said quietly.

Jeckol's nerves jumped in protest.

"Eh--what? The black? He's only scared half to death. You wouldn't blame
him for wanting to get out of this trap, would you? I do myself."

"He couldn't have lived overhead the whole nest o' them all this time
without learning something," declared Bartlet.

"Why should he lie?"

But Peters had risen to snatch around that weazened face, blank as a
mummy's--his own was alight. "By Joe, and a timely reminder. When you've
got to ask why a Papuan nigger should lie you've gone pretty wide! As
for scare--what d'y' suppose he must ha' seen to scare him so?"

Here he bent our monkey man over a thwart and introduced him
affectionately to the Webley....

"You fella Kakwe," he said, "my survivin' jewel--I forgot your breed. I
should ha' begun by bang'm black head b'long you. Now don't stop to
gammon. Whatever you're holdin' back you _show_--savee? S'pose you no
show'm straight, me finish 'long you close up altogether!"

And Kakwe showed. Dominated by superior wickedness, with all the black
man's docility under the instant threat, he collapsed quite simply at
the touch of steel, and he showed--the nook where a tiny, hidden creek
flowed down among the mangroves, the winding course that led by the
swamp's edg