20 
LAND & WATER 
April 13, 1916 
river runs north and south ; well, we must strike west, or at 
least take the most westerly paths we can find." 
" Well, I'm blest if I didn't forget the compass," said 
Hull. 
He opened the box containing it, got it level and found 
the west. 
The path directly opposite to where he was standing 
led due west, and with a load removed from their minds, they 
started down it. It was only now, with safety in sight, that 
they began fully to realise the horrible situation from which 
they were escaping. The thorn tangle had a personality all 
its own, wicked and malevolent, its intricacy seemed the 
intricacy of an evil mind set on their destruction. 
The path they were on led them in a straight hne for 
some few hundred yards, and then bent to the right leading 
due north. 
" Fitchered, b'gosh ! " said tlie Captain. " We're done ! " 
" Come on," said Tillman. " There's no use stopping, 
and the light won't last long." 
They hurried ahead to a point where the path broke up 
into three ways, one leading due west. 
They struck down the westerly path, and it led them 
bravely till a curve came in it and they found themselves 
facing due south. 
Tillman felt the sweat standing out on the palms of his hands. 
The most terrible result of a maze Uke this is its de- 
n^-^ralising effect. 
Hull, with a movement of exasperation, flung away the 
compass ; it fell into the thorn wall on the right of them and 
stuck there. 
Then he folded his arms. 
Tillman and Houghton glanced at one another ; then 
Tillman recovered the compass and put it in his pocket. 
" I ain't used to it," said Hull, as though he were address- 
ing some fourth and viewless party. " I ain't used to it. 
It ain't fair on a man, a lee shore ain't in it — cuss the carciss 
of that onholy blighter ; and to think I had him in reach 
of the grip of my fist — an' let him go ! " 
Tillman took him by the arm. 
" €ome on." he said. " There's no use in talking. Our 
only chance is to keep moving. We'll get out somehow, and 
then we'll deal with Macquart." 
This latter idea seemed to restore the Captain to his 
senses, and they started off. 
But now, with the suddenness of the tropics, night was 
on them. 
It seemed to rise up from the earth like a mist, and then 
the stars were shining abo\e. 
They kept blindly on ; there was sufficient light to let 
them see their way, but a terrible tiredness was coming on 
them. Since morning they had been travelling, with only a 
break for the midday meal, and the excitement which had 
made them fight their tiredness was now having its own effect. 
Tillman stopped where a tree had fallen lengthways in 
their path. 
" We'd better stop and rest," said he. "Here's stuff for 
a fire, it'll be company ; lend us a hand to break some of the 
branches." 
The tree had been dead long enough to make the branches 
brittle without rotting them, and in a few minutes they had 
collected enough sticks. Houghton produced a box of matches 
from his pocket ; the flame of the first match caught, and in a 
moment the fire was crackling and blazing. 
Then they sat down round it. 
It is not till you are in the wilderness that you know 
the value of a fire. 
A fire holds much more than brilliancy and warmth ; 
to men and to dogs it recalls in the subconscious mind the 
camp cooking and evening rests from the million years when 
we were nomads. The dead Past lives in a fire, just as it 
Kves in music. It was not round a tent pole, but round a fire 
that the first home was built. 
The effect of the fire was greatest on Hull, who, producing 
his pipe, filled it and lit it. Houghton by the firelight had 
perceiveid a prickly pear growing amongst the thorn, and he 
was engaged in cutting some of the fruit ofi with hb knife, 
taking care to avoid the prickles. 
" See here," said he, " we won't starve nor die of thirst ; 
there's lots of this stuff about, I saw several bushes as we came 
along. It's the only thing that seems to grow here beside 
this beastly bramble stuff ; have some ? " 
Tillman took one, and having got rid of the prickles 
ate it and found it very good, but Hull refused food just at 
present ; he was content with tobacco and he was busy in his 
mind with Macquart. His extraordinary intellect seemed 
to have eliminated Tillman and Houghton from its purview ; 
it was as though all this Inisiness concerned him alone, ard 
he seemed to be reviling Fate as well as Macquart, though he 
never named the lady. 
" It's cruel hard," said he, " cruel hard. No, I don't 
want none of that prickly stuff ; if I can't get man's food 
I'll leave it be ; I'm not goin' to fill my inside with sich gar- 
bige — it's cruel hard to be laid be the heels like this with a 
d — d bramble hedge givin' one the turn at every p'int. It's 
playin' it pretty low down on a sailorman to set reefs before 
him like that a" shore. And to think I had a good gun in me 
hand and didn't put a bullet through the skin of that blighted 
scarecrow when I had the chanst. It's the same trick he 
served me outside the 'baccy shop in Sydney. In I went to 
get a seegar, and out I come to find him gone. Saw him 
through the winder as I was lightin' the seegar, and before 
I'd blown the match out he'd gone. I ought to a' known the 
chap wasn't a man ; he's a conjurin' trick on legs worked by 
the devil, that's what he is, and I ought to a' spoiled him 
when I had the chanst. It was the same fower years ago ; 
left me doped in a pub, he did, and slid off with me money." 
" Did he take much ? " asked Houghton, more for the 
sake of saying something than from any interest in the question. 
" It's not s'much what he took," said the Captain, 
evasively, " as the way he took it ; left me on a mud bank 
stranded, he did. Never clapped eyes on him again till I 
sighted him at Sydney." 
He had let his pipe go out, and he was relighting it now 
when, of a sudden, he dropped the match and started to his 
feet. 
Someone was hailing them. 
The very same voice that Houghton and Tillman had 
heard that afternoon came again clearer this time and closer. 
•' Hi— hi— hi 1 " 
Hull made answer. 
" Hullo ! " he roared. " Where are you ? — who are vou ? 
Hullo ! " 
Again came the hail, closer now, and away down the path 
shown by the stai light amidst the trees, they beheld a 
figure, white, like a ghost. 
CHAPTER XXIII 
Chaya 
ALL through that day Macquart and the party he was 
leading to their destruction had been followed by 
Saji, intent on Macquart and his doings, and with 
Saji had been Chaya. 
It was nothing to them to pursue without being seen, 
and it was indicative of the mentality of Saji that on a business 
like this Chaya. his main desire in Ufe, although she was at his 
side, was obliterated for him by the immediate objective. 
As I have said his mind wore blinkers, when he was 
hunting he was a huntsman pure and simple and he had no 
view of anything else but the quarry. Chaya might have been 
a dog for all the attention he paid her on this business. 
At noon, when the expedition paused for the mid-day 
meal, Saji and Chaya kept watch through the trees, and when 
the expedition started again they followed. 
Saji had quite a clear understanding of the fact that 
Macquart was in partnership with the Rubber Man for th= 
purpose of destroying his companions. Had you sifted 
Saji's evidence before a court of justice, or rather had you 
sifted the evidence that satisfied Saji about the murderous 
intentions of Macquart, you would not have obtained a con- 
viction. All the same from what he had observed, from what 
he had heard, Saji, with his unerring dog instinct, was con- 
vinced of Macquart 's intentions. 
But he did not know how Macquart was going to carry 
them out. He thought at first that Macquart, relying on 
Wiart's knowledge of the forest, was going to lead his com- 
panions into one of the pit-traps dug by natives for wild 
animals, but when they arrived at the great thorn maze 
everything became clear to him. Wiart had explored this 
place and been through it twice with perfect s'^curitv owing 
to the fact that he had blazed his way. Wiart, when the 
drink was not on him, was an enthusiastic forester and his 
knowledge of the rubber plant and its habitats was equalled 
by few. He was also a naturalist. The thorn maze had 
interested him as it could not fail to do and Saji, now faced 
with it, perceived at once the gist and meaning of this ex- 
pedition. But he would not enter it. He had no need to for 
one thing. Instinct told him to get back to the river at once, 
to hide near Wiart's house and to await the return of Wiart 
and Macquart. They would come back alone —of that he was 
certain. The 1 he could continue his tracking of them, for it 
was no part of his scheme, laid down by the mother of Chaya, 
to deal with Macquart till that person arrived at the end of 
his tether and disclosed the place where John Lant's treasure 
was really hidden. 
" I go back," said Saji, when the party had disappeared 
into the thorn bush. " The Rubber Man and the other are 
leading them there to lose them, then they will come back ; 
I go to meet them quicker than you can follow." 
" Go," said Chaya, " I can return alone." 
Next moment he was gone. 
Chaya knew all about the thorn maze, though she had 
