Page:The Gates of Morning - Henry De Vere Stacpoole.pdf/148

 She had never been below. That stairway, even in daylight, had always filled her with fear, the fear of the unknown, the dread of a trap, the claustrophobia of one always used to open spaces.

Lit by the day it frightened her, in its black darkness it appalled her; yet she had to go down, for the life of Taori lay at the bottom of that pit to be saved by her hands and hers alone.

Kanoa, amongst the others, sat watching. The mind of Kanoa so filled with fear when she told him that his death was imminent, the mind of Kanoa that had lusted for her, the mind of this child of eighteen to whom light and laughter had been life and thought, a thing of the moment, was no longer the same mind.

The great heroism he was watching, this attempt to save him and the others, had awakened in him something perhaps of the past, ancestors who had fought, done great deeds and suffered—who knows—but there came to him an elation such as he had felt in the movements of the dance and at the sound of music. Rising and evading Poni who clutched at his leg to hold him back, he came to the rail, stood for a moment as Le Moan vanished from sight and then swift-footed but silent as a shadow, glided to the saloon hatch and stood listening.

Holding the polished banister rail, and moving cautiously, step by step, Le Moan descended, the spear head in her left hand. As she came, a waft from the cabin rose to meet her in the darkness—an odour