March 23, 19 16. 
LAND AND WATER. 
CHAYA. 
A Romance of the South Seas. 
By H. de Vere Stacpoole. 
Syxopsis : Macqnart, an adventurer who has spent 
most of his lije at sea, finds himself in Sydney on his beam ends. 
He has a wonderful story of gold hidden up a river in New 
Guinea and a chance acquaintance, Tillman, a sporting man, 
about town, fond of yachting and racing, offers to introduce him 
to a wealthy woolbroker, Curlewis, with a view to financing the 
scheme. Macqnart also m.akes the acquaintance of Houghton, 
a well-educated Englishman out of a job, who has done a good 
deal of yachting in his time. Curlewis turns down the scheme, 
though Macquart tells his story in a most convincing manner. ■. 
His silent partner Screed believes in it, and unbeknown to 
Curlewis, follows the three men, asks them to his house, and 
agrees to find the ship and the money, on seeing that Macquart's 
hidden treasure map agrees with an Admiralty chart. The 
ship is the yawl " Barracuda." Screed, on the morrow, takes 
the three men over the " Barracuda." with which they are de- 
lighted. Coming away Macquart is overtaken by an old friend, 
one Captain Hidl, who hails him as B — y Joe, and accuses 
Jiim of many mean crimes. Macquart gives Captain Hull 
the slip, but unbeknown to him Hull gets in touch with Screed, 
and enlightens him on the real character of Macquart. Just as 
the " Barracuda " is about to sail Screed takes Hull on board 
and tmexpectedly introduces hint to Macquart as a member of 
the crew. The voyage passed with few adventi^res. Guided by 
Macquart the " Barracuda " arrived at New Guinea, and 
anchoied'in the lagoon. Almost at once they started for the 
place where Macquart declared the cache to be. They dug 
ihrough the night but unearthed nothing. 
CHAPTER XVI. 
The Scorpion and the Centipede. 
THEY were a rather gloomy party at breakfast 
next morning. Not one of them spoke of the 
events of the night before, and even Hull's 
enormous appetite seemed affected. 
After the meal, Houghton led Tillman off for a stroll. 
.The morning sun was shining through the trees, and the 
village folk were all off after I'ubber ; they passed the village 
and just beyond, on the dense border of the forest, Houghton 
sat down on a fallen log, filled his pipe and lit it. He seemed 
to have something on his mind. Tillman sat down beside 
him and began to smoke also. 
" Look here," said Houghton at last, "' I've been think- 
ing." 
'• Yes ? " • 
■' Macquart's not running straight." 
■' How do you mean ? " 
" He's bamboozling us." 
" Over the cache ? " 
" Yes. The stuff's not buried there and never was. The 
Terschelling was never fetched up as far as this and never 
sunk here. That was her we saw in the lagoon." 
" Which ? " 
" That old burnt ship we saw in the lagoon. Lant got 
■all his men in the fo'c'sle and then set alight to her. I'm 
positive." 
" Good God ! " said Tillman. " What are you saying ? " 
" I'm saying what I think. Let's reason it out. Lant 
stole the Terschelling and her cargo of gold. He knew the 
river, he knew the people, he was certain of a safe refuge here. 
But he did not want anyone, of course, to know about the 
treasure, not even the people here. Wh}' should he have 
brought the Terschelling up this distance ? No, he put her 
into the lagoon, he made the crew cache the treasure there, 
then got on board and did for them. He had to keep one man 
to help in the business and to help him to come up here in a 
boat. That man was Macquart." 
" Go on," said Tillman, whose pipe had gone out. 
" He came up here with Macquart and married a native 
woman ; that gave him a position and made him one of the 
tribe. Macquart saw him settling down, saw no chance of 
profiting and did for him. Then Lant's wife suspected, and 
Macquart had to shin out." 
" Wait a moment," said Tillman. ' Macquart told us 
that as having happened to a man named Smith. Well 
haven't you seen that for the last long time Ma'^quart has not 
been even trying to keep up the Smith fiction. He has all 
but acknowledged that he was Smith. Now, if he were a 
murderer, would he act like that ? " 
' To begin with," said Houghton, " there was never any 
evidence of the crime, and it happened fifteen years ago. 
Macquart is absolutely safe. Again, he is not an ordinary 
man ; he seems the most absolutely C3'nical and cold-blooded 
devil I have ever met. I have been watching him closely. 
He doesn't bother about hiding anything the law can't catch 
him for. He doesn't boast of his crimes, but he doesn't 
bother." 
"Wait a moment," said Tillman. ' Now, see here. If 
that was the Terschelling we saw in the lagoon, and if the stuff 
is cached near here, why on earth did Macquart bring us up 
here ? This place is a dangerous place for him. Lant's wife 
is still alive, and if she recognised him, she'd be sure to try 
and work him mischief." 
" Did I not say that Macquart's object was to diddle us 
over the cache," said Houghton. " He has brought us up 
here so that he may play us some beastly trick, of that I'm 
certain. It may be that he plans to steal off some night, slip 
down the river, load up the Barracuda and make off. He's 
very thick with Jacky ; he understands Jacky's lingo, and I'm 
not so sure of Jacky's being straight ; these black fellows, 
most of them, from what I've heard, aren't to be depended 
on much." 
" He might do that," said Tillman, " but I doubt if he 
would be able to get the Barracuda away with only Jacky 
to help." 
" Oh, yes, he would. Two men could do a lot with a 
boat of that size. Look at Slocum — went round the world by 
himself. Macquart would make for Macassar or somewhere 
close." 
" There are two things that knock your idea on the 
head," said Tillman. "The first is, Macquart and Jacky 
would never be able to transport all that gold from the cache 
to the Barracuda before we were on top of them — they could 
only get a five or six hours' start at the most ; the second 
is, that without Screed's help, Macquart would never be able 
to dispose of it." 
Houghton laughed. " I've been thinking the whole of 
this thing out," said he, " and I can answer that. Screed 
was a fool ; we were all fools. Macquart, if he wanted to play us 
false, would not want to take all the stuff in the cache, a couple 
of thousand would do. With that, he'd sail off to Macassar, 
or somewhere else, settle, make a little position for himself 
and then, when he had a house and a banking account, he'd 
come back for the rest pf the stuff — maybe a year from now, 
it's quite simple." 
" Good God ! " said Tillman, suddenly. 
" What ? " 
" Macquart and Jacky slept in the boat last night and we 
in the tent." 
" Yes," said Houghton, " that was the thing that started 
me off thinking last night just as I lay down. I thought to 
myself how easy it would be for those two to slip off. You 
will remember, it was Macquart who suggested that he and 
Jacky should take the boat, as the tent was too small for the 
four of us." 
Tillman said nothing for a moment. He seemed reviewing 
the whole matter carefuUy. Then he spoke. 
" We've got to consult at once with Hull," said he, "over 
this." 
" For goodness sake, no," replied Houghton. " If you 
put Hull on to this business, you will ruin everything." 
" How ? " 
" Because Hull would be in this matter Hke a bull in a 
china shop. He hates Macquart, just as Macquart hates 
him. I honestly believe that Macquart is tricking us in this 
matter, not so much that he may collar all the stuff for him- 
self, as that he may get even vnth Hull. However that may 
be, Hull, if he knew what we are thinking, would go on so 
that Macquart would be on his guard. We want to appear a 
particularly soft lot of fools, so that we may take him off his 
guard and get to know what his plans are. ^ 
" He knows where the stuff is cached and we want to get 
at that knowledge. He will never tell us of his own accord, 
for that would be to enrich Hull ; besides, it would be contrary 
to the man's real nature. It would be agony to Macquart to 
share up and be honest over a huge sum of money like this. 
He is a fox man, or, rather, a wolf man. Well, we must 
turn ourselves into foxes or wolves if we want to share the 
prey." 
One of the properties of Adventure is the power that it 
possesses for the development of character. 
This expedition was already bringing forth the true mental 
properties of the adventurers with astonishing results. 
^9 
