, and with the roar of the
sea in the cavern below, I could not hear a word he said, though he did
not waste much time in talking.

Our fate must have been decided long before this if we had not found
means of ascending the shaft to our present position. The storm had
increased in fury, and we could tell each time a big wave swept into
the cavern, by the rush of air which came whistling up the shaft and
swept in a briny blast along the passage. Suddenly George stopped
working, and I saw the dark outline of his figure motionless in the
feeble ray of the little lamp.

"What's the matter?" I cried.

He made no reply, but raised his hand as a person would in the act of
listening. For half a minute he remained in that position, then
resumed his digging. In a very short time, however, he stopped again,
and after an instant's pause startled me by leaning forward and
shouting at the top of his voice through the hole,--

"Hollo, there!"

Receiving apparently no reply to his hail, he turned and beckoned me to
climb up by his side.

"Can you hear anything, Master Eden?" he asked.

I listened intently, but no sound caught my ear but the muffled surge
and splash of the water in the cavern.

"There!" exclaimed my companion--"there again! Don't you hear it?"

Still to my dulled hearing no fresh sound was audible.

"What was it?" I asked.

Without answering my question, he once more roared, "Hollo, there!"
through the widened hole, and remained with warning hand uplifted, as
though expecting an answering shout. "Fancy, I suppose," he muttered
at length. "Yet that blind fellow heard something of the sort too.
Tut! I think I'm going queer in my head."

He went on digging, but once or twice I noticed that he paused in the
same curious manner. I was too weary to pay much attention, but
continued laboriously scooping and dragging the earth he loosened till
my fingers seemed raw. At length Woodley stopped digging, and sat down
for a rest. As he moved the lamp the dim oil flame gave me a momentary
glimpse of his face, and on it I thought I detected a queer expression
which I had never noticed there before.

For ten minutes, perhaps, he sat regaining his breath, and saying
nothing; then turning to me he asked abruptly,--

"Master Eden, do you believe there's such things as ghosts?"

"No," I answered blankly, astonished at the question. A terrible
thought flashed through my mind that, as a last crowning horror,
W