appearance of the interior. Barney and Martin now cast
about in their minds how they were to spend the night.

"Ye see," said the Irishman, "it's of no use goin' to look for houses,
because there's maybe none at all on this coast; an' there's no sayin'
but we may fall in with savages--for them parts swarms with them; so
we'd better go into the woods an'--"

Barney was interrupted here by a low howl, which proceeded from the
woods referred to, and was most unlike any cry they had ever heard
before.

"Och but I'll think better of it. P'raps it'll be as well _not_ to go
into the woods, but to camp where we are."

"I think so too," said Martin, searching about for small twigs and
drift-wood with which to make a fire. "There is no saying what sort of
wild beasts may be in the forest, so we had better wait till daylight."

A fire was quickly lighted by means of the pistol-flint and a little dry
grass, which, when well bruised and put into the pan, caught a spark
after one or two attempts, and was soon blown into a flame. But no wood
large enough to keep the fire burning for any length of time could be
found; so Barney said he would go up to the forest and fetch some.
"I'll lave my shoes and socks, Martin, to dry at the fire. See ye don't
let them burn."

Traversing the meadow with hasty strides, the bold sailor quickly
reached the edge of the forest where he began to lop off several dead
branches from the trees with his cutlass. While thus engaged, the howl
which had formerly startled him was repeated. "Av I only knowed what ye
was," muttered Barney in a serious tone, "it would be some sort o'
comfort."

A loud cry of a different kind here interrupted his soliloquy, and soon
after the first cry was repeated louder than before.

Clenching his teeth and knitting his brows the perplexed Irishman
resumed his work with a desperate resolve not to be again interrupted.
But he had miscalculated the strength of his nerves. Albeit as brave a
man as ever stepped, when his enemy was before him, Barney was,
nevertheless, strongly imbued with superstitious feelings; and the
conflict between his physical courage and his mental cowardice produced
a species of wild exasperation, which, he often asserted, was very hard
to bear. Scarcely had he resumed his work when a bat of enormous size
brushed past his nose so noiselessly that it seemed more like a phantom
than a reality. Barney had never seen anything of the sort before,