April 20, 191(5 
LAND & WATER 
CHAYA 
^ ^^mance of the South Seas 
"By H. 'DE FERE STAC POOLE 
17 
Syxopsis : MacquaH, an adventurer who has spent 
most of his life at sea, finds himself in Sydney on his beam 
ends. He has a wonderful story of gold hidden up a river in 
A'ew Guinea, and makes the acquaintance of Tillman, a sporting 
man about town, fond of ya.hUng and racing, and of Houghton, 
a well-educated Englishman out of a job. Through Tillman's 
influence he is introduced to a wealthy woolbroker. Screed, who, 
having heard Macquart's story, agrees to finance the enterprise. 
Screed purchases a yawl, the " Barracuda. ' Just before ihev 
leave Macquart encounters an old shipmate. Captain Hull, 
who is fully acquainted with his villainies. Hull gets in touch 
with Screed, who engages him and brings him aboard the yacht 
just as they are about to sail. They arrive at New Guinea and 
anchor in a lagoon. They go by boat up a river where they 
make the acquaintance of a drunken Dutchman, Wiart, who 
is in charge of a rubber and camphor station. Here they 
me:t a beautiful Dyak girl. Chaya. According to Macquart's 
story a man named Lant, who had seized this treausure, sunk his 
ship and murdered his crew with the exception of one man, 
" Smith." Lant then settled here, buried the treasure, and married 
a Dvak woman, chief of her tribe. Lant was murdered by 
" Smith," whom Captain Hull and the rest make little doubt 
was no other than Macquart. Chaya, with whom Houghton 
has fallen in love, is Latit's half-caste daughter. Macquart 
guides them to a spot on the river-bank where he declares the 
cache to be. They dig but find nothing. Then he starts the. 
surmise that the Dyaks have moved the treasure to a sacred 
grove in the jungle. Wiart is hfs authority. He persuades 
his shipmates to go in search of if. The ■journey leads them 
through the Great Thorn Hush, which is a vast maze from lehich 
escape is impossible without a clue. Macquart and Wiart 
desert their companions. As night falls 'a woman's voice is 
heard calling, and Chaya, Unsweri'ng their cries, finds them. 
CHAPTER XXV 
Mitu. 
TILLMAN, wlio liad now finished his supper 
began to question Chaya. She described lier 
wanderings amongst the tliorn. She had never 
been here before, always avoiding the mysterious 
place, which had the reputation of being haunted. 
The reason of this reputation lay in the fact, perhaps, 
that some natives who had come in here had never returned. 
One of its names in the Papuan was the Place of Confusion. 
" A jolly good name, too." said Tillman, " but you say 
the Rubber Man has been here several times ; how does he 
know the place so well that he leads us here, yet escapes 
himself ? " 
" He is perhaps known to the evil spirits," said Chaya. 
" I shouldn't wonder," said Tillman. " He's well 
enough known to Gin anyway. Oh, the skunk ! li I ever get 
hold of him !" 
" What I want to get hold of," said Hull, who had lit his 
pipe, " is them whiskers. I wants to sit comfortable on that 
chap's chest and play with them whiskers. I wants a pair of 
tweezers and no help from no razor. I wants to talk to him, 
same as a barber does, between the pulls. Show him each hair 
as I plucks it out ; anyone else may scalp him as wants to, 
I only walits his whiskers." 
" He won't have much hair left if we ever catch him," 
said Tillman. " The thing that gets me is that they are 
most Hkely now at the cache, digging it out like rats. Hull, 
I didn't say anything about it to you before, but you remember 
that old burnt ship Houghton and I told you we saw in the 
lagoon ? 
" Ay, ay," rephed Hull, " what about it ? " . 
" Well, I believe that was the Terschelling." 
" The gold ship ? " 
" The same'.' 
" But the gold ship weren't burnt," said Hull, " Mac said 
she was sunk at her moorings." 
" He lied. She was sunk, but she was burnt first, burnt 
with all aboard her." 1 
Hull pondered on this for a while. Then he burst out : 
" But how the mischief was the stuff cached bv the 
river " 
" It wasn't, it was cached by the lagoon, somewhere on 
the bank. Macquart brought us all up the river for the pur- 
pose of finding a chance to do us in. He can get the Barra- 
cuda out with Jacky." 
" Oh, the swab ! " said Hull. 
The mildness of his language was indicative of the depth, 
below oaths, in him that was stirred. 
" There's one comfort," said Houghton, who was still 
holding Chaya's hand unobserved by the others, " Wiart is 
sure to be done in by Macquart if they manage to get the 
Barracuda awa}'. Tlie only live men of those three to be 
left will be Macquart and Jacky, and Jacky will get his dose 
after he has been paid off at Sydney. I am firmly of opinion 
that Macquart is not a devil, he is the Devil. There's just 
the chance left us that we may get out of this before Mac 
gets off with the yawl." 
" Yes," said Tillman, tapping the ashes out of his pipe, 
" and we won't be able to da anything unless we're fresh." 
He yawned, stretched himself on the ground and in a minute 
his deep breathing told that he was asleep. 
Hull in a few minutes followed his example, lying face 
down and with his head on the crook of his arm. 
Houghton turned to Chaya, her face was close to his, and 
in the vague light of the moon that came across the thorn 
bushes and tree branches her dark eyes gazed at him, thea 
their lips met. 
They had never spoken a word of love one to the other 
yet they had told each other everything. 
They awoke at dawn. Chaya had fallen asleep with her 
head resting on Houghton's shoulder. She was the first 
to awake. Houghton had not slept at all. Holding her 
to him with his arm around her waist, feeling the warmth 
of her body through the warm girdle of brass beneath her 
robe, breathing the perfume of her hair, he did not sleep, 
he dreamt the dream of his life. 
She awoke suddenly, raised her head, saw Hougliton, and 
then raising her hands seized him by the arm, as tliough to 
push him away from her — only for a moment. The remnants 
of sleep still clinging to her had vanished and her eyes, losing 
their wild and bewildered expression, grew soft, human and 
filled with love. The Chaya who had laughed at tlie battle 
between the scorpion and the centipede, the Chaya wlio had 
led him that day into the outskirts of the forest to laugh at 
him and elude him, the Chaya who had tracked them yester- 
day with Saji not knowing in her own heart the real reason of 
her care for Houghton, had vanished. This was a new being, 
a rapturous, warm living woman. The savage liad vanished 
entirely, the beauty of the savage remained, lending a supreme, 
indefinable fascination to the beauty of the woman. 
"Chaya," whispered Houghton, holding her to him, 
" all my life I have been waiting for you — hsten, before the 
others wake up, you are mine and never will I let you go." 
Chaya sighed deeply. Then she put her arms round his 
neck. She did not speak one word. She raised her perfect 
lips to his, and the eyes in whose darkness and depth lay the 
mysteries of the forest and the sea. 
Hull awaking from sleep saw nothing. Whilst he was 
rubbing his eyes tliey had drawn apart ; he touched Tillman 
with his foot and the latter, awaking with a start, sat up. 
" Good Lord ! " said he, '' I dreamt we were out of this 
and back on the Barracuda, what's the time ? " 
" There ain't no time here," said Hull. " It's after sun 
up and time to be niovin'. Oh, cuss that swab ! " 
" Well," said Tillman, " we'd better have breakfast 
before we make a move. It's the biggest mistake to set to 
work on an empty stomach." 
They set to on the provisions, Chaya cut some prickly 
pears and picked some small red fruit from a bush that grew 
low down among the thorns. She would touch nothing else. 
She watched Hull eating. He seemed to fascinate her 
and amuse her at the same time. One of her greatest charms 
was a childishnjgss and gaiety which even their desperate 
position could not destroy. 
They were discussing ways and means of escape as futilely 
as children discussing the meaning of an algebraical problem, 
when Tillman, catching sight of something away down the 
path, lew their attention to it. 
A small dark figure was disporting itself on the ground. 
