AARON GLASS.

The second scream followed the first almost before we could lift our
faces to the cliff. Dr. Beauregard had risen to his feet quickly,
without fuss, and was unstrapping his gun. But Miss Belcher was
quicker. A couple of muskets lay on the sand close beside the
luncheon-cloth, and in a trice she had snatched up one of them, and
held our host covered.

"You have deceived us, sir," she said quietly.

Dr. Beauregard looked along the barrel and into her eyes with an
admiring, half-quizzical smile.

"Good," said he. "Good, but unnecessary. That the island is
inhabited I supposed you to know, since Captain Branscome tells me he
reported catching sight of smoke yesterday when off the western
coast; but the fellows--there are, or were, three of them, by the
way--are no friends of mine."

"We have only your word for it," said Miss Belcher, without lowering
her musket.

"True, ma'am," the Doctor assented, with a bow. "I am about to give
you proof. But first of all oblige me by listening for another
moment."

He held up his hand, and while we all listened I looked around from
face to face. Captain Branscome had unslipped his gun, and stood
eyeing the Doctor with a puzzled frown. Plinny stared up at the
cliffs. She was white to the lips, but the lips were firmly set;
whereas Mr. Goodfellow's jaw hung as though loosed from its
tacklings.

So we waited for twenty seconds, maybe; but no third scream came down
from the heights.

"That makes one accounted for," said Dr. Beauregard. "I have known,
first and last, eleven parties who hunted treasure on this island.
They all quarrelled. They quarrelled, moreover, every one of them,
before getting their stuff--such as it was--to the boats. Now, if
you will permit me to say so, your own success--when you obtain it--
will be a fluke and an absurd fluke. It will stultify every rule of
precaution and violate every law of chance. I have studied this game
for close upon twenty years, and reduced it almost to mathematics;
and I foresee that you will play--nay, you have already played--
ninepins with my most certain conclusions. But you have as
gentlefolks, with all the disabilities of gentlefolks, the one thing
that all these experts have fatally lacked. You have self-command."

"It appears to me that we need it, at any rate," said Miss Belcher,
tartly, "if we are to be favoured just now with a lecture."

Dr. Beauregard smiled. "The purport of my lectu