he revolver from its holster
and slipping forward, crouched in the protection of a rock, my eyes
turned toward the jungle. Vaguely lurking in the gathering fog of
shadow, where the palms began, were some eight or ten figures. It was
impossible in the waning light to make out what sort of creatures they
were, but they moved with a soft prowling tread that was disquieting.
After a little while they melted out of sight, but until past midnight I
sat my eyes alertly fixed on the tangled dark, while the low-hung stars
paraded across the sky.

CHAPTER IX

A PORTRAIT AND A TEMPLE

The night, however, passed without event and morning came bathing the
empty edge of the forest with crystal freshness. The scene I still had
to myself. My morning journey down to the water's edge for food and
bathing was made with the most painful caution and I ate without relish.

My world had altered overnight. I was no longer merely shipwrecked but
shipwrecked among savages who might adhere to that perverted
epicureanism which esteems human fare for its flesh pots. Stories of
cannibalism had been plentiful at the captain's table on the
_Wastrel_--the value of white heads for decorating native huts had been
touched upon. My defense was limited to the six cartridges in the
chambers of my revolver and the newly discovered slung-shot.

Meantime I was hideously lonely. I turned the chest on end near the
opening of my cavern and spread the newspaper portrait upon it for full
inspection. The two upper corners I fastened with the curved and
jewelled daggers from Jerusalem.

The days which immediately followed marched slowly and were much alike.
It was only in my own state of mind that there was any element of change
or development.

The lurking figures did not reappear at the edge of the jungle and I
began to hope that they were members of some itinerant band from the
opposite side of the island who had chanced upon this locality in their
wanderings and might not again return. I was not even positive that they
had seen me.

Slowly, weirdly, while I dwelt in uncertainty and suspense the influence
of the lady in the picture grew upon me and compelled me. It may have
been at first, and doubtless was, a form of auto-hypnosis. Already the
seed for such an influence had been planted in the dependence which
young Mansfield and myself came to feel for the unknown girl's diary.
Now, in utter isolation, I was doubly in need of something to avert m