ter cone, settled down upon the deck, where, forward in the
shadow, the watch lay curled like dead men.

Alone, I paced back and forth--countless soft-footed miles, it seemed,
through interminable hours, until at length some obscure impulse
prompted me to pause before the open sky-light over the cabin and
thrust my head down. A lamp above the dining-table, left to burn
through the night, feebly illuminated the room. A faint snore issued
at regular intervals from the half-open door of the mate's stateroom.
The door of Joyce's stateroom opposite was also upon the hook for
the sake of air.

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 I had withdrawn my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 hung over the rail, where he hung as if spent by
his exertions.

Just then the sooty vapours above the edged maw of the volcano were
rent by a flare of crimson, and in the fleeting instant of unnatural
daylight I beheld Farquharson, bare-footed, 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 l