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Not counting the carriers, we reckoned that the active opposition comprised Leith, Soma, the one-eyed white man, and either two or three of the "tivo" dancers, and these made a formidable batch. The dancers were huge natives, possessing all the characteristics of the Tongans, while Leith, Soma, and the one-eyed white man possessed more than ordinary strength.
In a wild bedlam of oaths and shouts we fought and struggled. The "tivo" dancers had followed upon our track through the long afternoon, and the time that we had lost in locating Leith had given them an opportunity to come up with us. In the gloom we threshed backward and forward, but our efforts to escape were vain.
As we crawled along the platform we found that we had landed not more than twenty feet from the crevice through which we had witnessed the blood-curdling "tivo," and we hurried toward the spot where we had left the Fijian, whose nerves had been upset by the glimpse he had had of the strange antics of the dancers. But Kaipi was not at the spot where we had left him.
"Well, you wait here," ordered Holman. "We're going back, but we'll return in a few hours and pick you up. Don't move from this ledge." Kaipi would promise anything if he was not forced to witness the performance, and we left him huddled up in the darkness, and returned to the spyhole in the wall. The "tivo," as the Fijian called it, was still in progress.
The strange rites connected with the "tivo" in the long cave had laid a foundation upon which my imagination piled skyscrapers of horror. If I could have fixed my mind upon a definite fate that would be theirs if they were not rescued from the big brute's clutches, I would have found relief, but my inability to do that left me a victim to thoughts that were enough to deprive one of his reason.
He was stretched full length on the ground, listening as only a native can listen, and we waited for his report. We had much respect for Kaipi's hearing after checking the signals he made concerning the approaching "tivo" dancer on the previous afternoon. "What is it?" asked Holman. "Some one go by, much hurry," murmured the Fijian. We crouched in the bushes and listened.
In the glimpse we caught of them as they dashed past we came to the conclusion that they were three of the "tivo" dancers, and as we watched their bare brown backs disappear in the creepers we observed something which our position on the previous evening had prevented us from seeing.
We caught up to the deserter on the ledge to which Holman and the Fijian had dragged me a short time before, and the youngster abused the frightened native as he endeavoured to turn him back. "No, no!" shrieked the Fijian. "Me no see dance like that. Me die if I stay." "Why?" I asked. "It is 'tivo' death dance," gasped Kaipi. "Wizard men dance it. Something going happen, damn bad."
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