ment a feeble gaslight shone, disclosing Aphrodite--somewhat
disarranged by the panic--standing smiling in front of the erstwhile
Voodoo. She looked down at his feet. There, sure enough, one huge
member was unshod and stockingless; the elastic-slit congress gaiter,
lost in the shuffle, lay out of the radius of Ambrose's long leg.
Miss Aphrodite picked it up and, stooping, slipped it over his
mighty toes, noticing as she did so the thick coating of
phosphorescent paint that still covered them.

"Ambrose," she whispered, "Ah wasn't scaired. No ghos' eber was bohn
dat had han's de size ob yo' feet!"

An embarrassed silence followed; the gas jet flickered weakly; then
Ambrose said: "Untie mah han's, Aphrodite--Ah'd jes' lak to hug you!"

"Oh, Ambrose," she cried coyly. But she untied the rope just the same.

Again came silence, broken only by a certain strange sound. Then
Ambrose's voice came softly through the gloom: "Aphrodite," it said,
"yo' lips am jes' lak plush!"

THE JUDGMENT OF VULCAN

BY LEE FOSTER HARTMAN

From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_

To dine on the veranda of the Marine Hotel is the one delightful
surprise which Port Charlotte affords the adventurer who has broken
from the customary paths of travel in the South Seas. On an eminence
above the town, solitary and aloof like a monastery, and deep in its
garden of lemon-trees, it commands a wide prospect of sea and sky.
By day, the Pacific is a vast stretch of blue, flat like a floor,
with a blur of distant islands on the horizon--chief among them
Muloa, with its single volcanic cone tapering off into the sky. At
night, this smithy of Vulcan becomes a glow of red, throbbing
faintly against the darkness, a capricious and sullen beacon
immeasurably removed from the path of men. Viewed from the veranda
of the Marine Hotel, its vast flare on the horizon seems hardly more
than an insignificant spark, like the glowing cigar-end of some guest
strolling in the garden after dinner.

It may very likely have been my lighted cigar that guided Eleanor
Stanleigh to where I was sitting in the shadows. Her uncle, Major
Stanleigh, had left me a few minutes before, and I was glad of the
respite from the queer business he had involved me in. The two of
us had returned that afternoon from Muloa, where I had taken him
in my schooner, the _Sylph_, to seek out Leavitt and make some
inquiries--very important inquiries, it seemed, in Miss Stanleigh's
behalf.

Three