Iena Sinana

By Rev. Harold Short.

I STOOD waiting for another shriek to cut the dark silence. It, at least, gave me a sense of purpose.

For nearly an hour I had dragged my feet erratically through reeds. I had been on an indistinct jungle track since noon; but, toward evening, I got on to swishing grassland.

As the sun set, a glow far before me had taken its place. Smoke had been visible; now the reflection of fire could be seen. Natives probably were burning grass, or garden land. Possibly a village was aflame.

Foolishly, I had walked ahead of my carriers and they, evidently, had not realised how easy it is for a stranger to drift into places of hunger and thirst. I did not feel very hungry, but I wanted water more than ever before. I yearned to hear a human voice, too—but not one trembling with terror, as this that came from the shroud of night.

Without consciousness of the impulse, I shouted; just a powerless sound which could not carry far and, of course, no answer came.

But soon, again, ran through the dim starlight that plea from a horrified mind.

It was terrifying, yet it seemed to draw me. Anyhow, where could one run, through trackless dark, from the cry?

Like a moth drawn on light-waves, I rushed among tangled grass and poison ous things, toward the unknown terror.

A belt of trees and low jungle loomed before me. I threaded a way through it.

Then, suddenly, was revealed a shadowy clearing with shapeless grass huts on low piles. There was no sound or trace of men, save lines of light in one woven wall. Shadows flitted across those gleams, like beckoning ghostly fingers. Yet even they appealed as something preferable to the utter loneliness of hidden Papua by night. Until another scream came echo ing on the still air.

As I drew back tensely, the frail wall of the hut burst asunder. From the spread light a big white man, bare between his waist and his wildly whiskered face, yel ling frantically, sprang almost on to me.

I stood as though paralysed, expecting a death blow, but the shape stopped with hot breath beating on my brow.

Wild eyes glared down to mine, and an Irish voice screamed, “What are ye? Who are ye?”

The civilised sound, although so dis cordant, was like dance music dispelling a night-mare. Fear meeting fear, dis solved mine. The man wanted to flee, not to fight.

“I’m a traveller, lost,” I gasped. “What’s behind you?”

The stranger swung around toward the hut. Its light seemed hospitable to me; but to him ... I I began to feel fit to face, with the old man, whatever danger there was. I touched a trembling shoulder. “Friend,”

I said . . .

He turned again, peering at me.

“Friend,” he replied, “you are a friend, not a fiend?”

“Just an ordinary white,” I answered, with a forced laugh. “What’s in there?”

“Something from Hell,” my new com panion whispered, hoarsely. “Lord, what a land to have things like that! And it’s sitting on my gun . . . have you got one?”

“I have a pistol,” I replied, “but there are no big animals here. What’s this thing like?”

The man peered at me again as if to make sure that I was human, then he spoke slowly. “It has one leg like a man’s, and an eye, but no face ... it has

little arms and big hands, and running sores . , . Help! It’s coming!” He had again turned, while speaking, toward the hut.

Shadows were falling across the lighted place, fantastic shapes changing into the silhouette of a crouching thing rising with ghastly slowness. The stranger leaned back toward me; we watched, fascinated, the dark reflection of one leg appearing, and bulk above it, with things like fins flapping. We heard a croaking sound, that was near human.

My neighbour muttered in a shaking voice: “Hold yer gun!”

It was in my hand but I felt that I must not fire at the thing—must not— then that I must fire into the air. We could spare three shots and still be pre pared for danger. Perhaps my carriers would hear and come to us.

I suggested this to my friend. “Yes, yes, fire,” he hissed. “We want help, and my boys can’t be very far.”

Three shots whizzed toward the stars; the shadow in the hut collapsed, and vanished.

“It’s hiding in a corner. It can’t get out, except past the light,” the other man murmured. “If help comes, we must sur round it.”

“How did you get here?” I asked.

The man seemed anxious to talk. “I have just come from prospecting in the Renty Range,” he said. “I found this deserted village. One house looked clean and I camped there. After my boys had cooked a bit of wallaby I let them go, and lay resting with the lamp burning.

I dozed, and a jump woke me to see this thing glaring at me from one eye. It was like nothing on earth. I had to scream. Then it hopped with its one leg into a corner ... I hadn’t realised before how frayed my nerves are. Ye gods, I screamed and screamed again. I couldn’t help it. Had it been something I knew, the worst animal from another land, I could have faced it calmly—but this is neither jungle thing nor human creature.

It’s ghastly to see, and foul ...”

I felt that there must be some ordinary explanation: that the man’s nervous state had caused him to imagine more than he saw; yet, there was that weird shadow!

I never expected the terrible revelation that was to come.

We stood there waiting, until I urged that we go forward and investigate. My companion refused. He sat and covered his face with his hands. I felt it was better not to interrupt his struggle with the fear, and stood silently.

A stick snapped behind me; something brushed lightly among branches, and grass swished. There was a faint smell, like burnt flesh.

Many voices and heavy movements would have filled me with satisfaction; those low sounds made me tremble. I looked around but could see nothing mov ing. My companion had raised his head and was listening intently. Neither spoke.

A soft crooning call came easily out of the dark behind. The other man leapr to his feet. “That’s human, or devilisn," he whispered. “It is no bird!”

It came again. My mate peered right and left, then screamed out: “Come on, ye fiend. Let us see yer!”

No sign came from behind us; but, in front, was that vile croaking once more We stood powerless, and shivered, as the crooning cry was resumed.

Then, out of the shadows of the hut, as on to a lighted stage, hopped that awful thing! The other man and I fell together, gripping each other and staring fixedly.

It crouched. We saw its one eye gleam

ing wildly; a receding bare skull; an open, hideous mouth; a bulky neckless body. There were little bony arms and large human hands waving. Then it rose up and we saw it had but one leg. Its croaking call sounded forth, and the odor of death seemed to fall around us. There, too, was the unmistakable smell of burnt flesh.

That crooning call came nearer. It was soothing, and drawing nearer . . .

A brown female in a half-burned grass skirt dashed past us. Shouts came faintly from the rear. The awful thing in front sprang from the hut floor toward the woman. We saw her hand grasp a flapper of the creature as it touched the ground, and the two figures vanished into the jungle.

Calling voices and lantern light came around us. Strange words sounded clearly, and a shout of “Taubada, Taubada!”

“Come here!” I managed to call, and the chill in my blood thawed as familiar forms came near.

There was one big man of Niue, alert in manner, dressed in a khaki rami. I recognised him as a mission teacher from a village we had passed through.

“Did you see the sick man, sir?” he asked.

“We have seen no man,” I answered; “only a woman and a horrible shape that went with her.”

“It was a man,” said the teacher, slowly, “and the woman is iena sinana (his mother). She has hid him in her house since his birth, taking him out only by night. Few have seen him. The village was burned down to-day. The man just escaped from his blazing hut, and his mother after him. She was badly burned, but for hours she and I have been search ing for her son.”

“Only you two searching?” I queried.

“Would no others help?”

“All the villagers now are hunting for the mother,” the teacher said sadly. “They say she set her house on fire!”

“What?” I ejaculated. “Do you think that is true?”

I hope it is not,” he said, “but who knows what a woman will not do for love?”

The whiskered white looked with new interest at the Niuean. I put a couple of sticks of tobacco into the brown hand before I lit my pipe. But the prospector pushed his worn leather pouch toward the teacher, saying: “You must have some of mine!”