e slab paralyzed
thought, and it seemed to me that only the inmost kernel of my being, a
very pin-point of the refined essence of life, was throbbing within my
body.

The officiating wizard stepped around us for a final survey. He glanced
keenly at the position of our bodies, and, evidently satisfied that the
centipede had every opportunity to make a good job, he flung himself
down upon his face and started to murmur softly in the strange dialect
which Leith had spoken when addressing the three earlier in the night,
and which the dancer had used in the Cavern of Skulls. I remember that I
tried during those few minutes to catch a word or two of the queer
tongue, and curiously enough, in that moment of extreme peril, I
endeavoured to connect it with some of the dialects I had heard during
my long stay in the islands. The soft muttering seemed to be a thread
connecting us with life itself, and I dreaded the moment it would cease.

I do not know how long the chant continued. It rose and fell, a soft
rhythmic murmur, and I prayed that it would never end. My ears sucked it
in as if it was a life line to which my soul was clinging, and I dimly
understood my eagerness to catch the sounds. My ability to do so seemed
to be wanted as proof to convince my half-paralyzed body that I was
still alive.

The low chant ended with a little throaty cry, and I shut my eyes tight
to save myself the final moment of agony which the falling of the stone
would bring. For an instant there was absolute silence, then some one
gripped me by the legs and pulled madly. The ramie fibre held my body to
the supporting post of the centipede, and I heard Holman give a muttered
order. A knife sawed the cords, a pair of hands gripped my heels and
flung me forward, and as I fell clear of the groove the stone horror
crashed back into its bed with a jolt that shook the huge table! I
opened my eyes to see Kaipi looking at the face of the dancer he had
stabbed in the back as the brute was muttering his prayer!

"Oh hell!" said the Fijian. "Me thought him Soma. Me made mistake! Me
going kill Soma, he kill Toni, Toni all same my brother, work long time
with me at Suva!"

"Hurry up and cut these ropes," cried Holman. "There are two more of
those devils and they'll be back before we get the cramp out of our
muscles."

Kaipi sprang to obey, but when our bonds were cut away, we found that we
could not get to our feet. Legs and arms were completely numbed, and th