ired. Let me sleep."

"My poor dear, I know all about it," a motherly voice made answer.
"But it's time for you to wake."

She did not grasp the words--only, very vaguely, their meaning; and
this she made a determined, but quite fruitless, effort to defy. In
the end, being roused in spite of herself, she opened her eyes and
gazed upwards.

And all his life long Nick Ratcliffe remembered the reproach that
those eyes held for him. It was as if he had laid violent hands upon a
spirit that yearned towards freedom, and had dragged it back into the
sordid captivity from which it had so nearly escaped.

But it was only for a moment that she looked at him so. The reproach
faded swiftly from the dark eyes and he saw a startled horror dawn
behind it.

Suddenly she raised herself with a faint cry. "Where am I?" she
gasped. "What--what have you done with me?"

She stared around her wildly, with unreasoning, nightmare terror. She
was lying on a bed of fern in a narrow, dark ravine. The place was
full of shadow, though far overhead she saw the light of day. At one
end, only a few yards from her, a stream rushed and gurgled among
great boulders, and its insistent murmur filled the air. Behind her
rose a great wall of grey rock, clothed here and there with some dark
growth. Its rugged face was dented with hollows that looked like the
homes of wild animals. There was a constant trickle of water on all
sides, an eerie whispering, remote but incessant. As she sat there in
growing panic, a great bat-like creature, immense and shadowy, swooped
soundlessly by her.

She shrank back with another cry, and found Nick Ratcliffe's arm
thrust protectingly about her.

"It's all right," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You're not
frightened at flying-foxes, are you?"

Recalled to the fact of his presence, she turned sharply, and flung
his arm away as though it had been a snake. "Don't touch me!" she
gasped, passionate loathing in voice and gesture.

"Sorry," said Nick imperturbably. "I meant well."

He began to busy himself with a small bundle that lay upon the ground,
whistling softly between his teeth, and for a few seconds Muriel sat
and watched him. He was dressed in a flowing native garment, that
covered him from head to foot. Out of the heavy enveloping folds his
smooth, yellow face looked forth, sinister and terrible to her fevered
vision. He looked like some evil bird, she thought to herself.

Glancing down, she saw that sh