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the path she came across a half-hidden, breathtakingly beautiful white orchid and longed to sketch it, but the weight of the watch pinned to her breast filled her with an uncomfortable awareness of the passage of time, and she kept walking.
    Something like halfway up the slope, she stopped beside a rocky stream to rest and make some quick notes in her book. Before she left, she reached down cupped hands to bathe her face and found the water surprisingly warm, hot even. Continuing on her way, she wasn't surprised when, a few minutes farther up the trail, she came upon a bubbling hot springs, and as she neared the summit, she found another spring, the water in the small pond beside it percolating as if at a low boil. The unmistakable odor of cooking meat impregnated the warm, moist air. India stopped short, her gaze riveted on the flat stones lining the water's edge where, half obscured by the steam that floated in drifting wisps over the churning surface, someone had placed what she realized must be some kind of flesh, wrapped in leaves.
    Cannibals. The word leapt immediately into her head, bringing with it a stomach-wrenching, blood-chilling, finger-tingling wave of primitive terror that swept through her body and left her winded and trembling.
    "Don't be ridiculous," she told herself out loud. One hand pressed to her heaving chest, she deliberately straightened her spine. A visitor to the South Seas was in far more danger of being gored by a wild pig than of being eaten by cannibals, and she certainly wouldn't allow the presence of a few pigs to dissuade her from her inspection of the Faces of Futapu. In fact, it was probably nothing more than a side of pork steaming by the hot springs right now. She remembered with another sick twist of her stomach that a cooked human being was cavalierly referred to in this area as "long pork," but she thrust that thought from her mind. She was not some fainthearted miss, forever shrieking and going into hysterics. She was India McKnight, travel writer, and it was just this sort of experience that added spice—another unfortunate word, given its associations with cooking—to her writing.
    She glanced about the clearing, but it appeared peaceful and deserted, and she told herself cannibals normally roasted their victims, anyway. Reassured by this thought, India adjusted the straps of her knapsack and canteen, straightened her pith helmet, and continued on her way.

    "It's the Barracuda, all right," said Jack, lowering his spyglass. "Of all the bloody luck."
    Patu leaned his elbows on the rail, his gaze on the brilliant white sails in the distance, and shrugged. "They should be long gone by the time we leave here."
    "They should be." Jack raised the glass again. "Although if I didn't know better, I'd say they were headed right this way."
    "That corvette, she's too big to fit through the passage."
    "Mmhhmm." Jack watched the British ship plunge through the swells, and knew a deep, disturbing sense of uneasiness. "But her jolly boat isn't."
    Patu's eyebrows drew together in a quick, worried frown. "Why would the Barracuda want to come here?"
    "I don't know." Jack swung around to stare up at the steep, jungle-clad slopes of Mount Futapu, and swore under his breath. If it weren't for that bloody writer, he would weigh anchor right now and sail away, just to be safe. But however much of a pain in the ass India McKnight might be, Jack wasn't the kind of man to abandon a woman on a cannibal-infested island.
    Swearing again, he raised the glass to his eye and watched the sails of the Barracuda grow larger, and larger, and larger.

    There was no doubt about it, India decided, her heart soaring with excitement: the so-called Faces of Futapu were an entirely natural rock formation, not the work of long-vanished Polynesian stonecutters at all.
    She worked her way around the massive twin pillars of stone, analyzing them from every angle and carefully studying their surfaces for signs that shapes