Unknown by Unknown Page B

not among them.
    Charles turned to the reception desk, but there was no message for them.
    "Your grandmother would send it to the hotel," Elizabeth suggested. "Is there another plane?"
    He shook his head.
    "If she hasn't come on this one there must be something wrong," he said.
    "Would you like me to take a taxi back to the hotel in case there's been a message?" Elizabeth asked.
    He shook his head.
    "There wouldn't be any point, and we'd be wasting time. I had half a notion we'd have to go across." He looked round the busy lounge. "Stay where you are," he commanded. "I have to make some arrangements."
    Did he think she would wander away merely to confuse the issue? Their day was starting badly.
    Worrying about his grandmother was certainly Charles's main preoccupation, however. When he came back he told her that he had chartered a light aircraft to take them to Maui.
    "I've a feeling she's in trouble," he said.
    "Oh, I hope not!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "Surely nothing could have happened to her when she's with friends."
    "Nothing physical," he allowed. "I wasn't thinking of that. My grandmother has a cast-iron constitution which will serve her for a long time. I was thinking of involvement."
    "Lame ducks," Elizabeth murmured. "You thought I might be another one even before you met me," she reminded him.
    "It was an unfortunate figure of speech in your case," he admitted, "but there are others. My grandmother looks on her friends' misfortunes as peculiarly her own."
    "Which is one way of saying that she cares about people."
    He nodded abruptly, not willing to continue the argument.
    "The plane's on the runway," he said. "If you're ready, we'll go."
    They went out into the sunshine together.
    "I wish we had some sort of message," Elizabeth said. "We might have been able to do something at this end."
    "It's no distance to the island," he told her. "Are you warm enough?"
    She had a little woollen coat over her arm which she had brought because of the mist.
    "I don't think I'll need it," she said.
    He helped her into the small inter-island plane which seemed very tiny standing on its own in a corner of the vast airfield, and the pilot got in beside them. He was a short, sturdily-built man in his late thirties with a weatherbeaten face which suggested that he had spent most of his life in the tropics, and he gave them a bright, friendly smile as he welcomed them aboard.
    "Ever been to Maui before?" he asked conversationally. "It's a wonderful island," he went on before either of them could answer, "but, for my money, there's nothing like Hawaii itself. There's life there, and all the tradition you could possibly want. Are you after photographs? I could fly over Molokai and Lanai, if you're keen to see the waterfalls. Just say the word."
    "We'd like to go direct to Maui by the shortest possible route," Charles told him. "We're not photographers."
    The pilot looked disenchanted.
    "Well now, here's me thinking you were a honeymoon pair!" he laughed. "But maybe next time! There's nothing keeping you from looking at the scenery, though."
    Elizabeth was gazing down at what was to be seen of Diamond Head, realising that Charles was deeply absorbed in his own thoughts. They were leaving Oahu behind and the great mass of the headland lay beneath them, the same but different. From the air they could see directly into the heart of the mountain, deep down into the volcanic depth of it, and it was suddenly frightening. The friendly Diamond Head of their moonlit preamble along the beach stood revealed, in daylight, as a cruel and treacherous place of deep defiles and cavities burnished almost blood-red in the morning sun, a place of mystery and terror with all the secrets of the ages buried in its hidden fire. Dark scrolls of lava scarred its sides, running down to the blue ocean where the waves broke and curled on a rock-girt shore.
    Suddenly they were beyond the island, however, and the sun was shining on the sea. There were two other islands on