.

Suddenly a soft thump against the side of the schooner, followed by a
scrambling noise, made me turn round. The dripping, bedraggled figure of
a man in a sleeping-suit mounted the rope ladder that hung over the
side, and paused, grasping the rail. I had withdrawn my gaze so suddenly
from the glow of the light in the cabin that for several moments the
intruder from out of the sea was only a blurred form with one leg swung
over the rail, where he hung as if spent by his exertions.

Just then the sooty vapors above the ragged maw of the volcano were rent
by a flare of crimson, and in the fleeting instant of unnatural daylight
I beheld Farquharson barefooted, and dripping with sea-water,
confronting me with a sardonic, triumphant smile. The light faded in a
twinkling, but in the darkness he swung his other leg over the rail and
sat perched there, as if challenging the testimony of my senses.

"Farquharson!" I breathed aloud, utterly dumfounded.

"Did you think I was a ghost?" I could hear him softly laughing to
himself in the interval that followed. "You should have witnessed
Wadakimba's fright at my coming back from the dead. Well, I'll admit I
almost was done for."

Again the volcano breathed in torment. It was like the sudden opening of
a gigantic blast-furnace, and in that instant I saw him vividly--his
thin, saturnine face, his damp black hair pushed sleekly back, his lips
twisted to a cruel smile, his eyes craftily alert, as if to some
ambushed danger continually at hand. He was watching me with a sort of
malicious relish in the shock he had given me.

"It was not your intention to stop at Muloa," he observed, dryly, for
the plight of the schooner was obvious.

"We'll float clear with the tide," I muttered.

"But in the meantime"--there was something almost menacing in his
deliberate pause--"I have the pleasure of this little call upon you."

A head lifted from among the inert figures and sleepily regarded us
before it dropped back into the shadows. The stranded ship, the
recumbent men, the mountain flaming overhead--it was like a phantom
world into which had been suddenly thrust this ghastly and incredible
reality.

"Whatever possessed you to swim out here in the middle of the night?" I
demanded, in a harsh whisper.

He chose to ignore the question, while I waited in a chill of suspense.
It was inconceivable that he could be aware of the truth of the
situation and deliberately bent on forcing it to it