e lantern, lifted high in the boatswain's hand, cleft at a stroke
the darkness within. On the writing-table, cluttered with papers and
bits of volcanic rock, stood a bottle and half-empty glass. Things
lay about in lugubrious disorder, as if the place had been hurriedly
ransacked by a thief. Some of the geological specimens had tumbled
from the table to the floor, and stray sheets of Leavitt's
manuscripts lay under his chair. Leavitt's books, ranged on shelving
against the wall, alone seemed undisturbed. Upon the top of the
shelving stood two enormous stuffed birds, moldering and decrepit,
regarding the sudden illumination with unblinking, bead-like eyes.
Between them a small dancing faun in greenish bronze tripped a
Bacchic measure with head thrown back in a transport of derisive
laughter.

For a long moment the three of us faced the silent, disordered room,
in which the little bronze faun alone seemed alive, convulsed with
diabolical mirth at our entrance. Somehow it recalled to me
Leavitt's own cynical laugh. Suddenly Miss Stanleigh made toward the
photographs above the bookshelves.

"This is he," she said, taking up one of the faded prints.

"Yes--Leavitt," I answered.

"_Leavitt_?" Her fingers tightened upon the photograph. Then,
abruptly, it fell to the floor. "Yes, yes--of course." Her eyes
closed very slowly, as if an extreme weakness had seized her.

In the shock of that moment I reached out to support her, but she
checked my hand. Her gray eyes opened again. A shudder visibly went
over her, as if the night air had suddenly become chill. From the
shelf the two stuffed birds regarded us dolefully, while the dancing
faun, with head thrown back in an attitude of immortal art, laughed
derisively.

"Where is he? I must speak to him," said Miss Stanleigh.

"One might think he were deliberately hiding," I muttered, for I was
at a loss to account for Leavitt's absence.

"Then find him," the girl commanded. I cut short my speculations to
direct Williams to search the hut in the rear of the bungalow, where,
behind bamboo palings, Leavitt's Malay servant maintained an aloof
and mysterious existence. I sat down beside Miss Stanleigh on the
veranda steps to find my hands sooty from the touch of the boards. A
fine volcanic ash was evidently drifting in the air, and now to my
ear, attuned to the profound stillness, the wind bore a faint
humming sound.

"Do you hear that?" I whispered. It was like the far-off murmu