The Arab bowed his head in
stately reverence. "My brother loved him," he said. "I would have vengeance for my brother
and my brother's master. _Effendi_, let me go with you." "All right." McGrath was afire with impatience. He knew the fanatical
clan-loyalty of the Arabs, knew that Ahmed's one decent trait had been
a fierce devotion for the scoundrel he served. "Follow me." With a last glance at the master of the Manor and the black body
sprawling like a human sacrifice before him, McGrath left the chamber
of torture. Just so, he reflected, one of Ballville's warrior-king
ancestors might have lain in some dim past age, with a slaughtered
slave at his feet to serve his spirit in the land of ghosts. With the Arab at his heels, McGrath emerged into the girdling pines
that slumbered in the still heat of noon. Faintly to his ears a distant
pulse of sound was borne by a vagrant drift of breeze. It sounded like
the throb of a far-away drum. "Come on!" McGrath strode through the cluster of outhouses and plunged
into the woods that rose behind them. Here, too, had once stretched
the fields that builded the wealth of the aristocratic Ballvilles;
but for many years they had been abandoned. Paths straggled aimlessly
through the ragged growth, until presently the growing denseness of the
trees told the invaders that they were in forest that had never known
the woodsman's ax. McGrath looked for a path. Impressions received
in childhood are always enduring. Memory remains, overlaid by later
things, but unerring through the years. McGrath found the path he
sought, a dim trace, twisting through the trees. They were forced to walk single file; the branches scraped their
clothing, their feet sank into the carpet of pine needles. The land
trended gradually lower. Pines gave way to cypresses, choked with
underbrush. Scummy pools of stagnant water glimmered under the trees. Bullfrogs croaked, mosquitoes sang with maddening insistence about
them. Again the distant drum throbbed across the pinelands. McGrath shook the sweat out of his eyes. That drum roused memories
well fitted to these somber surroundings. His thoughts reverted to the
hideous scar seared on Richard Ballville's naked breast. Ballville had
supposed that he, McGrath, knew its meaning; but he did not. That it
portended black horror and madness he knew, but its full significance
he did not know. Only once before had he seen that symbol, in the
horror-haunted country of Zambebwei, into which few white men had ever
ventured, and from which only one white man had ever escaped alive. Bristol McGrath was that man, and he had only penetrated the fringe
of that abysmal land of jungle and black swamp. He had not been able
to plunge deep enough into that forbidden realm either to prove or to
disprove the ghastly tales men whispered of an ancient cult surviving a
prehistoric age, of the worship of a monstrosity whose mold violated an
accepted law of nature. Little enough he had seen; but what he had seen
had filled him with shuddering horror that sometimes returned now in
crimson nightmares. No word had passed between the men since they had left the Manor. McGrath plunged on through the vegetation that choked the path. A fat,
blunt-tailed moccasin slithered from under his feet and vanished. Water
could not be far away; a few more steps revealed it. They stood on
the edge of a dank, slimy marsh from which rose a miasma of rotting
vegetable matter. Cypresses shadowed it. The path ended at its edge. The swamp stretched away and away, lost to sight swiftly in twilight
dimness. *       *       *       *       *

"What now, _effendi_?" asked Ali. "Are we to swim this morass?" "It's full of bottomless quagmires," answered McGrath. "It would be
suicide for a man to plunge into it. Not even the piny woods niggers
have ever tried to cross it. But there _is_ a way to get to the hill
that rises in the middle of it. You can just barely glimpse it, among
the branches of the cypresses, see? Years ago, when Ballville and
I were boys--and friends--we discovered an old, old Indian path, a
secret, submerged road that led to that hill. There's a cave in the
hill, and a woman is imprisoned in that cave. I'm going to it. Do you
want to follow me, or to wait for me here? The path is a dangerous one." "I will go, _effendi_," answered the Arab. McGrath nodded in appreciation, and began to scan the trees about
him. Presently he found what he was looking for--a faint blaze on a
huge cypress, an old mark, almost imperceptible. Confidently then,
he stepped into the marsh beside the tree. He himself had made that
mark, long ago. Scummy water rose over his shoe soles, but no higher. He stood on a flat rock, or rather on a heap of rocks, the topmost of
which was just below the stagnant surface. Locating a certain gnarled
cypress far out in the shadow of the marsh, he began walking directly
toward it, spacing his strides carefully, each carrying him to a
rock-step invisible below the murky water. Ali ibn Suleyman followed
him, imitating his motions. Through the swamp they went, following the marked trees that were their
guide-posts. McGrath wondered anew at the motives that had impelled
the ancient builders of the trail to bring these huge rocks from afar
and sink them like piles into the slush. The work must have been
stupendous, requiring no mean engineering skill. Why had the Indians
built this broken road to Lost Island? Surely that isle and the cave in
it had some religious significance to the red men; or perhaps it was
their refuge against some stronger foe. The going was slow; a misstep meant a plunge into marshy ooze, into
unstable mire that might swallow a man alive. The island grew out of
the trees ahead of them--a small knoll, girdled by a vegetation-choked
beach. Through the foliage was visible the rocky wall that rose sheer
from the beach to a height of fifty or sixty feet. It was almost like
a granite block rising from a flat sandy rim. The pinnacle was almost
bare of growth. McGrath was pale, his breath coming in quick gasps. As they stepped
upon the beach-like strip, Ali, with a glance of commiseration, drew a
flask from his pocket. "Drink a little brandy, _effendi_," he urged, touching the mouth to his
own lips, oriental-fashion. "It will aid you." McGrath knew that Ali thought his evident agitation was a result of
exhaustion. But he was scarcely aware of his recent exertions. It was
the emotions that raged within him--the thought of Constance Brand,
whose beautiful form had haunted his troubled dreams for three dreary
years. He gulped deeply of the liquor, scarcely tasting it, and handed
back the flask. "Come on!" The pounding of his own heart was suffocating, drowning the distant
drum, as he thrust through the choking vegetation at the foot of the
cliff. On the gray rock above the green mask appeared a curious carven
symbol, as he had seen it years ago, when its discovery led him and
Richard Ballville to the hidden cavern.