April 27, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
CHAT A 
17 
^ l^mance of the South Seas 
Xy H. T>E FERE STAC POOLE 
Synopsis : Macquart, an adventurer who has spent most 
of his life at sea, finds him^ielf in Sydney on his beam ends. 
He has a wonderful story of gold hidden up a river in New 
Cuinea, and makes the acquaintance of Tillman, a sporting 
man about town, fond of yachting 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." fust before they 
leak'e 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 {he acquaintance of a drunken Dutchman, Wiart, who 
is in charge of a rubber and camphor station. Here they 
meet a beautiful Dyak girl, Chaya. According to Macquart's 
story a man named Lant, who had seized this treasure, sunk his 
ship and murdered his crew with the exception of one man, 
" Smith." Lant then settled here, buried the treasure, and married 
a Dyak woman, chief of her tribe. Lant was murdered by 
" Smith," xehom Captain Hull and, the rest make little doubt 
was no other than Macquart. Chaya, with whom Houghton 
has fallen in love, is . Lant'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 his authority. He persuades 
his shipmates to go in search of it. The journey leads them 
through the Great Thorn Bush, which is a vast maze from lohich 
escape is impossible without a clue. Macquart and Wiart 
desert their companions. As night falJs a woman's voice is 
heard calling, and Chaya, ansivering their cries, finds them, 
and through her help they at last escape from the maze. 
CHAPTER XXVI 
The Treasure 
THE decision of Macquart to seize the treasure, if 
possible, for himself and to destroy his com- 
panions, had been taken on board of the Barracuda 
long before they reached the river. 
]5efore starting from Sydney, he had not conceived the 
idea. His mind had been taken up entirely with the 
preparations for the expedition, but there had always 
been a reservation in his mind due to the terms which Screed 
and the others had exacted from Iiim. Privately, he held him- 
self open to swindle them if he could, but without the least idea 
of how the thing was to be done. 
On boad the Barracuda his greed, his hatred of Hull, and 
the possibilities that lay in Jacky inspired the first part of 
the plot. 
His original story, as told to 'Screed 'and the others, made 
no mention of the real position of the sunken Terschelling or 
the cache. Indeed, he had purposely put them on the wrong 
scent by stating that the cache was on the river bank and the 
ship sunk in the river. He had determined to keep the real 
position a secret till he was on the spot, and so be master of 
the situation till the last possible minute. 
The wisdom of this plan of action became apparent to 
him on board the Barracuda. When Hull insulted him and 
made him work, he restrained his anger not only by his 
will, but by the thought that having the whip-hand he would 
])erhaps be able to make the whip felt. 
He determined to divulge nothing, to leave the Barracuda 
in the lagoon and to take his companions right up to the Dyak 
village. Once there, means might be found to get rid of them, 
and then, with Jacky's help, all would be plain saihng. He 
had made a study of Jacky and found him to be a black 
negation, a mechanism acting to the strongest will brought 
to bear on it, and Macquart had no doubt as to the strength 
of his own will. 
The only point against the plan lay in the question of the 
safety of it. Was it safe for him to return to that village from 
which he had fled fifteen years ago ? 
Now Macquart was a very clever man, 'but even very clever 
men are subject to delusions. The fifteen years he had spent 
wanderi-.-ir; hither and thither about the world seomcd to bin?- 
fifteen ages. He had learned to forget so many things tha 
lie fancied himself forgotten, not knowing or remembering that 
life in a tiny community is not the same as life in the great 
cities, and that the village has a memory far longer and more 
retentive than the memory of a town. 
Even so, he was not without vague qualms. But the 
strong desire to get even .with Hull, the mad greed to possess 
everything and an indefinable antagonism that lay between 
him and Screed, were factors too powerful to be over-ridden 
by vague cjualms as to personal safety. 
Then there was another very curious factor ; the desire, 
or instinct, to return to the place that was fatal to Lant 
and might be fatal to himself 
It was the homing instinct that carries the murderer to 
the place of his crime, an attraction begotten of repulsion. 
Having made his plan, he stuck to it. Leaving the 
Barracuda in the lagoon, he brought his companions up the 
river, and though the first sight of Wiart upset his ideas and 
made him dread the presence of a white witness, he had not 
been long in that gentleman's company before he recognised in 
him a helper and a tool absolutely as though Satan had placed 
Wiart at his disposal. 
Then to gain time, he prepared the faked treasure-digging 
expedition to the river spit, and then having made sure that 
Wiart was fit for the business and ripe for it, all of a sudden, 
he disclosed the whole thing to him. 
Nothing could have appealed more to Wiart. As over- 
seer of the rubber business he received two thousand dollars 
a year, and the climate was breaking his health. If the 
villainy failed, it would only mesn three dead men in the 
jungle and a return to the rubber business. If it succeeded, 
it would mean unlimited money, and the delights of civilisa- 
tion in the form of women, wine, raiment and ease. 
Wiart was an unspeculative individual, else perhaps he 
would not have endured his life up to this so well. He never 
thought for a moment that this gold for which he was prepared 
to do anything might be a thing more dangerous to touch than 
a live dynamo — when Macquart was the object through which 
he touched it. 
Not a bit. With the gleeful acquiescence of a sclioolboy 
enticed to rob apples, he helped to shoulder the infei"nal 
scheme, and more, he engaged to put it through. 
He knew the forest and its possibilities, and it was his 
ingenious scheme to m.ake the forest a criminal. 
He would not aid in killing. The forest would do all 
that, by the hands of its child, the great Thorn Tangle. 
Now on its northern side the Thorn had only one broad way 
of entrance. Wiart on his first exploration of the place had 
blazed his way, and quite confident of returning on his trail 
had wandered far, coming out on the western side at last by 
the purest accident. He had made another expedition in 
search of beetles only a few weeks before the arrival of 
Macquart and his companions, and he knew that, whilst for 
himself and whoever he might lead, the place was safe, it was 
death to any unfortunate led into it without knowledge of 
the blaze. 
Once he had got far enough, and finding the others some 
way behind, he had waited till a bend in the path helped bv 
the trees hid his actions. Then he had given the word, " Full 
speed." We know the rest, as far as it concerns Hull and 
Houghton and Tillman. 
As for Macquart and his two companions, they did not speak, 
till, led by the rubber man, they were free of the maze. 
It had been debated between them as to whether Jacky 
was to be taken into their confidence by word of mouth. 
Wiart was for telling him the whole thing and making him an 
accomplice ; but Macquart refused. " If we can get rid of 
them as easy as you say, where's the use of telling the nigger." 
said he. " He won't know whether they've stayed b?liind 
from choice or got left, and he has no brains to guess with, I 
reckon ; if any explaining is to be done, we'd better leave 
it till we are at sea." 
Wiart had agreed, and now clear o ' the maze with Jacky 
following them, they struck west kd by Wiart. Wiart was 
very much more than a drunkard, lialf English, half Dutcli, 
his father had been a botanist employed by the Dutch govern- 
ment in forest work in Romeo. Wiart had been born with the 
instinct of the fores'; in his blood. He could not lose himself. 
