be made among the
boulders on Summit Rock. But of what avail to purchase their freedom
until daylight? And then----

If ever man wrestled with desperate problem, Jenks wrought that night.
He smoked and pondered until the storm passed, and, with the
changefulness of a poet's muse, a full moon flooded the island in
glorious radiance. He rose, opened the door, and stood without,
listening for a little while to the roaring of the surf and the crash
of the broken coral swept from reef and shore by the backwash.

The petty strife of the elements was soothing to him. "They are
snarling like whipped dogs," he said aloud. "One might almost fancy her
ladyship the Moon appearing on the scene as a Uranian Venus, cowing sea
and storm by the majesty of her presence."

Pleased with the conceit, he looked steadily at the brilliant luminary
for some time. Then his eyes were attracted by the strong lights thrown
upon the rugged face of the precipice into which the cavern burrowed.
Unconsciously relieving his tired senses, he was idly wondering what
trick of color Turner would have adopted to convey those sharp yet
weirdly beautiful contrasts, when suddenly he uttered a startled
exclamation.

"By Jove!" he murmured. "I never noticed that before."

The feature which so earnestly claimed his attention was a deep ledge,
directly over the mouth of the cave, but some forty feet from the
ground. Behind it the wall of rock sloped darkly inwards, suggesting a
recess extending by haphazard computation at least a couple of yards.
It occurred to him that perhaps the fault in the interior of the tunnel
had its outcrop here, and the deodorizing influences of rain and sun
had extended the weak point thus exposed in the bold panoply of stone.

He surveyed the ledge from different points of view. It was quite
inaccessible, and most difficult to estimate accurately from the ground
level. The sailor was a man of action. He chose the nearest tall tree
and began to climb. He was not eight feet from the ground before
several birds flew out from its leafy recesses, filling the air with
shrill clucking.

"The devil take them!" he growled, for he feared that the commotion
would awaken Iris. He was still laboriously worming his way through the
inner maze of branches when a well-known voice reached him from the
ground.

"Mr. Jenks, what on earth are you doing up there?"

"Oh! so those wretched fowls aroused you?" he replied.

"Yes; but why did you ar