burned like a spill
of paper, and I stood stupid, watching it burn, and thinking we were
going aloft with Tiapolo, which was none of my views. The second took to
a better rate, though faster than I cared about; and at that I got my
wits again, hauled Uma clear of the passage, blew out and dropped the
lantern, and the pair of us groped our way into the bush until I thought
it might be safe, and lay down together by a tree.

"Old lady," I said, "I won't forget this night. You're a trump, and
that's what's wrong with you."

She humped herself close up to me. She had run out the way she was, with
nothing on her but her kilt; and she was all wet with the dews and the
sea on the black beach, and shook straight on with cold and the terror
of the dark and the devils.

"Too much 'fraid," was all she said.

The far side of Case's hill goes down near as steep as a precipice into
the next valley. We were on the very edge of it, and I could see the
dead wood shine and hear the sea sound far below. I didn't care about
the position, which left me no retreat, but I was afraid to change. Then
I saw I had made a worse mistake about the lantern, which I should have
left lighted, so that I could have had a crack at Case when he stepped
into the shine of it. And even if I hadn't had the wit to do that, it
seemed a senseless thing to leave the good lantern to blow up with the
graven images. The thing belonged to me, after all, and was worth money,
and might come in handy. If I could have trusted the match, I might have
run in still and rescued it. But who was going to trust the match? You
know what trade is. The stuff was good enough for Kanakas to go fishing
with, where they've got to look lively anyway, and the most they risk is
only to have their hand blown off. But for any one that wanted to fool
around a blow-up like mine that match was rubbish.

Altogether, the best I could do was to lie still, see my shot-gun
handy, and wait for the explosion. But it was a solemn kind of a
business. The blackness of the night was like solid; the only thing you
could see was the nasty bogy glimmer of the dead wood, and that showed
you nothing but itself; and as for sounds, I stretched my ears till I
thought I could have heard the match burn in the tunnel, and that bush
was as silent as a coffin. Now and then there was a bit of a crack; but
whether it was near or far, whether it was Case stubbing his toes within
a few yards of me, or a tree breakin