ng and
absolutely bury you. If the wind shifts, then your compass is the only
salvation."

Manson was silent, for he was only a passenger, and as his friend's
guest, he felt it unwise to offer any suggestion.

"We are all right," continued Frank, scanning the horizon, "so long as
the wind holds this way, for we can beat up to the island by noon, and
have a fair run back."

Manson was in no mood for talking, for the strange strain of reflections
that had come to him the night before still oppressed him and he
silently watched the little island ahead growing nearer. When they were
within a mile of it, the wind began to drop away and by the time they
could see the many rocks that surrounded it, rising like black fangs out
of the white froth of the wave wash, it died out entirely.

Frank looked anxious. "You had better," he said, addressing Manson, "eat
a bite while Obed and I furl the jib and lower the tops'l. He can then
row you ashore in the dory. I do not like the way the wind acts."

When Manson started for the island in the small boat he was almost
ready to give his visit up, for the little look of anxiety on his
friend's face, coupled with the ugly-looking reefs between which Obed
was rowing him, and the forbidding shores of the island itself, made a
strange feeling of fear creep over him. Beneath it, however, was that
queer influence that, like a beckoning spirit, seemed to lure him
forward in spite of himself.

"I'll land you on the lee side," said Obed, as he pulled into a narrow
opening between two cliffs, "and wait here for you while you go across
to the harbor on the other side. It will save time, and I can keep an
eye on the sloop."

That Obed felt it necessary to watch the sloop was not reassuring to
Manson, but, bidding him good-bye cheerfully, he leaped ashore. When he
had made his way up over the confusion of rocks that confronted him, and
out of sight of the dory, he stopped and listened. It was a silent and
desolate spot, but, true to his expectations, as he passed there he
caught the sound of a low, moaning bellow that rose and fell, almost
dying away, and seemed to come from the farther side of the island. He
looked and listened, and then, with a parting glance at the sloop half a
mile away, started over the island. He soon found he had been rightly
informed, for its surface was the worst tangle of rocks and scrub spruce
thick between them he ever saw or heard of. He crawled in a little way
an