'I am hearing you,' said the captain.

'Then, to put it shortly, I have been at Cagayan Sulu before, on an
exploring cruise. That was in 1897. I never wanted to go back to it.
Logan, did I not regret the choice of that port when the news reached us
in New Zealand?'

Logan nodded. 'You funked it,' he said.

'When I was at Cagayan Sulu in 1897 I heard from the natives of a
singular tribe in the centre of the island. This tribe is the
Berbalangs.'

'That's what Professor Jenkins called them,' said the captain.

'The Berbalangs are subject to neither of the chiefs in the island. No
native will approach their village. They are cannibals. The story is
that they can throw themselves into a kind of trance. They then project
a something or other--spirit, astral body, influence of some kind--which
flies forth, making a loud noise when distant.'

'That's what we heard,' said the captain.

'But is silent when they are close at hand.'

'Silent they were,' said the captain.

'They then appear as points of red flame.'

'That's so,' interrupted the captain.

'And cause death to man and beast, apparently by terror. I have seen,'
said Bude, shuddering, 'the face of a dead native of high respectability,
into whose house, before my own eyes, these points of flame had entered.
I had to force the door, it was strongly barred within. I never
mentioned the fact before, knowing that I could not expect belief.'

'Well, sir, I believe you. You are a white man.'

Bude bowed, and went on. 'The circumstances, though not generally known,
have been published, captain, by a gentleman of reputation, Mr. Edward
Forbes Skertchley, of Hong Kong. His paper indeed, in the _Journal_ of a
learned association, the Asiatic Society of Bengal, {232}induced me, most
unfortunately, to visit Cagayan Sulu, when it was still nominally in the
possession of the Spaniards. My experience was similar to that of Mr.
Skertchley, but, for personal reasons, was much more awful and
distressing. One of the most beautiful of the island girls, a person of
most amiable and winning character, not, alas! of my own faith'--Bude's
voice broke--'was one of the victims of the Berbalangs. . . . I loved
her.'

He paused, and covered his face with his hands. The others respected and
shared his emotion. The captain, like all sailors, sympathetic, dashed
away a tear.

'One thing I ought to add,' said Bude, recovering himself, 'I am no more
superstitious th