The gray god

"The gray god" by J. Allan Dunn is a pulp adventure novelette written in the early 20th century. It follows Bob Stanton, a stranded American in Fiji who is recruited by Cheung Li to find missing pearler Haines and his cache, escort Haines’s daughter Lucy, and race the ruthless Loo Fong to the taboo island of Motutabu, a place of pearls, pirates, and a sinister stone idol.

The opening of the story shows Stanton at rock bottom in Suva, bristling at a public insult, flooring a brutal schooner mate while rescuing a sick Melanesian stowaway (Tiki), and getting drawn into Cheung Li’s plan to investigate Motutabu and Haines’s disappearance. After a failed night attack on Stanton’s lodging, Stanton, Lucy, and a Chinese-manned schooner race south, weather calms and shifting winds, with hints of Loo Fong in pursuit; Tiki proves to be heir to a line of island wizards. On Motutabu they find Haines’s Kanaka crew murdered and Haines missing until Tiki tracks him to a hidden cleft where he lies wounded and starving. As the pirate Lehua arrives, they retreat into a cavern beneath the colossal “gray god,” where Tiki triggers an ancient sacrificial slab that drops Johnson and Loo Fong to their doom and routs the attackers, allowing the crew to recover Haines and the pearls; Tiki elects to remain as the god’s priest while the others sail away.