rom time to
time.

"I do not know."

"Call out, then."

"I am afraid."

A savage poke with the cane, a war whoop from Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar.
No answer.

"We'll get him," Colonel Glinka would say. "Oh, my, yes."

But an hour had passed and still they had encountered no living thing
upon the path.

At last Abdul stopped abruptly. They were in a little, narrow ravine,
high above the sea, with looming red cliffs all about them, and the
booming of the surf upon the distant, windward shore of the island
plainly audible.

"Why have we stopped here?" Colonel Glinka said, bumping into him.

"Look there, Effendi!" Abdul whispered, gesturing toward a ledge not ten
yards above their heads, where a burnoosed figure stood looking down
upon them.

"And there--and there--and there!" Abdul pointed at other little ledges
where similar ghostly sentries stood, barely visible in the gloom.

Colonel Glinka looked behind him and saw that there were others that
they had passed within a very few feet of, standing upon every shelf and
ledge that afforded a foot-hold above the trail. Dozens and dozens of
them.

"Maybe we had better scram out of here, Joe," Abdul suggested.

"I perceive that you are trying to frighten me," Colonel Glinka said.
"It won't work."

A stone rattled behind them.

"What was that?" Colonel Glinka demanded, turning around quickly. "Who's
there?"

* * * * *

Something moved in the shadows, edging into the deeper shadows of the
rocks. It was the pursuing female of earlier that afternoon.

Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar, in deep, abdominal disgust, groaned.

"Come here, you!" Colonel Glinka commanded. "Come on over here. Don't be
afraid, my little one--I won't hurt you."

She advanced ever so little, a shapeless white wraith attracted by the
syrup in his voice. He took one step forward. Carefully she retreated a
step.

"Come now," Colonel Glinka said. "Surely it is time that we met. For you
may as well know that I am now the master of this island. Now and
forevermore, so far as you are concerned, my child. Perhaps I may let
you help me clear up a little of its mystery."

She kept a maddening five or six feet between them, somehow. He could
not lessen the distance without alarming her. And so he balanced himself
upon the balls of his feet and lunged.

She gave a little cry, stumbled and fell, rolling over and over into a
dark little depression beside the path as he c