I8 
LAND cS: \V A T E k 
April 20, 1916 
approaching tlieni yet liiding itself as it came behind the tree 
boles. 
" It's a monkey! " cried Hull. 
Chaya, who had sprung to her feet and who was standing 
shading her eyes, laughed. 
" It's mine," said she, " it is Mitu." Saji a long time 
ago had killed a monkey on one of his hunting expeditions. 
Now monkeys are not indigenous to New Guinea, but as 
Macquart had told them a race of monkeys introduced by 
the early Dutch traders infested the forest on the left bank 
and lagoon edge, this tribe had never spread, nowhere else 
in New Guinea were they to be found. The monkey killed 
by Saji had been carrying a baby in its arms, and Chaya, 
who had been with Saji, rescued the baby and brought it 
up. It was her pet and it followed her always at a distance, 
mostly sj^ringing along the branches of the trees under 
which she walked. 
On starting with Saji yesterday morning she had tied Mitu up. 
It must have escaped, and picking up her traces pursued her. 
She told her companions this in a few words and then 
went forward to meet her follower. But Mitu was shy. The 
sight of the white men evidently did not please him. He 
took to a tree, and Chaya standing beneath it began to talk 
to him in the native. 
" Blest if she ain't talkin' to it same s'if it was a human," 
said Hull. 
" Leave her alone," said Tillman. " It may be that the 
beast can lead us out. It followed her all the way from the 
village and it has found her. If it did that it can find its 
way back." 
They saw the monkey under the blandishments of Chaya 
drop from branch to branch. Then it dropped on her shoulder 
and sat with one arm round her head and its melancholy 
eyes fixed on Hull and his companions. 
Chaya continued talking to it as if explaining things, 
slowh' approaching the others as she did so. 
" lie may lead us," said she. " I do not know. It may 
be. But I have nothing to tie him with." 
Mitu had on a grass collar and he had evidently broken or 
bitten through the cord that had tethered him. Tillman 
understood her meaning at once, and searcliing in his i)ockets 
foimd six or seven feet of lanyard. 
He produced it and Chaya, sitting down and taking Mitu 
in her lap, fastened one end. of the lanyard to his collar. 
Then she let him play about for a while to accustom him 
^o the constraint of the string, and then, standing up, spoke 
to him again. 
Mitu, looking preternaturally wise, listened and then 
started off, taking the way he had come by. Chaya followed 
him, and the others, picking up their bundles, followed Chaya. 
" Well," said Hull. " I never did think I'd be condimiied 
to foUow a monkey. We only wants a barrel organ to make 
the show complete. Look at the brute. It's for all the world 
as if it had five legs." 
Mitu's legs were not unlike his tail. He w-as going on all 
fours and his progress was not rapid. He would stop to sniff 
at the leaves and every now and then he would whisk up a 
tree bole as far as the lead would permit. 
Chaya, recognising that he would lead them more swiftly 
if he were released and allowed to take to his own element — • 
the air, untied tlie lanyard from his collar and let him loose. 
Next moment lie was swaying from branch to branch ; 
where the trees were too sparsely set he would take to the 
ground, and though the progress was slow it was sure. 
On one of the paths along which he led them they came 
on a strange thing, the skeleton of a man half overgrown 
with ground vines. Some native trapped long ago in this 
tangle and dying of starvation or perhaps simply from fright, 
had left these bones. 
" I don't like mcetin' that skillington," said Hull. " It 
ain't lucky." 
" Nonsense," said Tillman. " There's no .such tiling as luck." 
" Ain't there," replied the Captain. " Well, if there 
ain't, there's such a thing as bad luck and it seems to me 
we've struck it. No .such thing as Luck ! Why, I've seen it. 
You take a ship and alter her name and you'll see it loo if 
you go for a cruise in her. Why, there's- notliin' else but luck 
in this here world and you'll know it, me son, when you've 
seen as much as I have." 
An hour later, after Mitu had led them hither and thither 
.and seemingly in all directions, they came on the aslics of 
the camp fire. The monkey had brought tlieni liack to the 
very point they had started from. 
Chaya sat down and buried her face .in her hands, the 
others stood by speechless, and paralysed for the moment. 
It was only now, really, that they began to recognise the 
appalUng effect of the maze upon the mind. The feeUng of 
being held— by Nothing, baffled — by Nothing. 
Here they had air, light, liberty and speech, yet they 
were tied and bound by a viewless conjurer as surely as 
though he had tied them witli visible ropes and thong.-^. 
Hull, the pessimist, was the first to break silence. 
" Well, we've got to get out," said he. " I reckon that 
skillington has spent itself now we've come back to the 
place we started from. There's no use in the gal takin' on, 
she did her best, but I'd like to put a bullet into thatdumed 
monkey. I didn't put no store by that monkey." 
" Yes," said Tillman. " There's no use in complaining. 
Let's make a new .start and trust to chance." 
Houghton was kneeling by Chaya and talking to her in a 
low tone. Then she rose uj). She had been crying, but now 
she dried her tears, put her hand in Houghton's and followed 
the otliers on the new start off. 
They had not been an hour on the new endeavour when 
they were startled by a cry from Chaya. 
They turned and found her kneeling by a tree. Houghton 
was standing beside her and she was pointing to something on 
the bark. 
On the bark, about four feet up from the roots was the 
mark of an axe blow. A j)iece of bark had been cut right 
oht. It was an old injury inflicted on the tree possibly months 
ago, but it was definite and purposeful and Chaya knew 
at once its meaning. She rose up and hurried along to the 
next tree ahead. It showed nothing. She examined tree 
after tree and then again she cried out. 
. When they reached her she was pointing to another 
mark similar to the first, only shghtly higher up. Tillman saw 
the whole thing at a glance. 
" She's struck the blaze," said he. " Can't you see, 
Wiart or maj'be some native has made it — she's saved us." 
They followed her as she hurried along. Her keen eyes 
trained to observation required only one glance at a tree 
to tell whether it was blazed or not. 
She had no difficulty at all at cross roads, for here every 
tree was blazed till the right direction was indicated. On 
straight paths the blaze was rare, it was not really required, 
yet it was there sometimes as though the man who had made 
it was so iini)iessed by the ])ossibilities of this terrible place 
that he determined to leave his mark as often as possible. 
The depression and anguish of spirit that had ridden 
them up to this now completely vanished, and the renewed 
leeling of life and elevation of spirit showed itself in each man 
according to his temperament. 
They had not far to go, less than a mile the blaze led theni 
and then vanished where the path of a sudden broke up and 
delivered them to the forest. 
To find the thorn no longer' on either side of one was to 
experience the feehngs of a man who escapes from the clutches 
of a male\olent giant. The atmosphere of the forest was quite 
different from the atmosphere of the maze, a blind man could 
have told the difference. There the air seemed stagnant and 
hke a prisoner. The hfe of the forest avoided the place, all 
but the insect hfe that buzzed and droned amidst the thorn. 
Here the parrots were shrieking and chattering and the 
cUmbing kangaroos astir in the branches and the wind 
moving the leaves and bringing with it the perfume of the 
camphor and cutch trees, and a faint fresh something that was 
perhaps the breath of the sea. 
" Thank God ! " said Houghton. 
Chaya, with the faithful Mitu on her shoulder, looked 
around her. She was now in her own home, she could find 
her way in the forest by instinct, possessing that unerring 
sense' of direction more sure than the pointing of the compass. 
She led the way now, Houghton beside her and the 
others following. It was half an hour after noon, and they 
had still almost a day's journey before them ere they could 
reach the river. 
It was now a race for the gold ; but just as in the maze 
they were the prisoners of Confusion, so here in the forest 
they were the prisoners of Distance. They could not run. 
n<jr cuuld they advance fast, the journey required that they 
should husband all their energies. Barrier lianas sometimes 
lay in their ])atli so thickly that they had to be cut through, 
aiid it was absolutely necessary for them to halt every now 
and then for a short rest. 
They flung away their bundles, retaiaiiig only in their 
pockets a few morsels of food, and they would have flung 
away their guns and ammunition had it been possible. 
Sometimes when they rested they talked. Hull grumbled. 
"If them two blighters went back to the river," said he, 
" they'll have taken the boat sure, to reach the lagoon, and 
then wliere'll we be ? 
" We'll have to tramp it," said Tillman. " Make down 
the river bank as hard as we. can pelt, but the chances arc 
they'll have struck for the lagoon through the forest. Wiart 
seems to know the forest pretty well." 
" How long will it take them to unload the cache, I 
wonder?" said Houghton. "God! It makes me boil to 
think that we may reach the lagoon only to find the Barracuda 
gone, and we stranded here, and those two and that infernal 
Jacky making for Sydney." 
(To be cotttiitufi) 
