expectantly.

"Well?" I asked.

"Well," said O'Keefe, "suppose you tell me what you think--and then
I'll proceed to point out your scientific errors." His eyes twinkled
mischievously.

"Larry," I replied, somewhat severely, "you may not know that I have a
scientific reputation which, putting aside all modesty, I may say is
an enviable one. You used a word last night to which I must interpose
serious objection. You more than hinted that I hid--superstitions. Let
me inform you, Larry O'Keefe, that I am solely a seeker, observer,
analyst, and synthesist of facts. I am not"--and I tried to make my
tone as pointed as my words--"I am not a believer in phantoms or
spooks, leprechauns, banshees, or ghostly harpers."

O'Keefe leaned back and shouted with laughter.

"Forgive me, Goodwin," he gasped. "But if you could have seen
yourself solemnly disclaiming the banshee"--another twinkle showed in
his eyes--"and then with all this sunshine and this wide-open
world"--he shrugged his shoulders--"it's hard to visualize anything
such as you and Huldricksson have described."

"I know how hard it is, Larry," I answered. "And don't think I have
any idea that the phenomenon is supernatural in the sense
spiritualists and table turners have given that word. I do think it is
supernormal; energized by a force unknown to modern science--but that
doesn't mean I think it outside the radius of science."

"Tell me your theory, Goodwin," he said. I hesitated--for not yet
had I been able to put into form to satisfy myself any explanation of
the Dweller.

"I think," I hazarded finally, "it is possible that some members of
that race peopling the ancient continent which we know existed here in
the Pacific, have survived. We know that many of these islands are
honeycombed with caverns and vast subterranean spaces, literally
underground lands running in some cases far out beneath the ocean
floor. It is possible that for some reason survivors of this race
sought refuge in the abysmal spaces, one of whose entrances is on the
islet where Throckmartin's party met its end.

"As for their persistence in these caverns--we know they possessed a
high science. They may have gone far in the mastery of certain
universal forms of energy--especially that we call light. They may
have developed a civilization and a science far more advanced than
ours. What I call the Dweller may be one of the results of this
science. Larry--it may well be that this lost