"'They're a difficult lot as it is,' I said. 'If we break into one of
their religious ceremonies they'll probably never forgive us. Let's
keep out of any family party where we haven't been invited.'

"'That's so,' agreed Stanton.

"The strange tinkling rose and fell, rose and fell--

"'There's something--something very unsettling about it,' said Edith
at last soberly. 'I wonder what they make those sounds with. They
frighten me half to death, and, at the same time, they make me feel as
though some enormous rapture were just around the corner.'

"'It's devilish uncanny!' broke in Stanton.

"And as he spoke the flap of Thora's tent was raised and out into the
moonlight strode the old Swede. She was the great Norse type--tall,
deep-breasted, moulded on the old Viking lines. Her sixty years had
slipped from her. She looked like some ancient priestess of Odin.

"She stood there, her eyes wide, brilliant, staring. She thrust her
head forward toward Nan-Tauach, regarding the moving lights; she
listened. Suddenly she raised her arms and made a curious gesture to
the moon. It was--an archaic--movement; she seemed to drag it from
remote antiquity--yet in it was a strange suggestion of power, Twice
she repeated this gesture and--the tinklings died away! She turned to
us.

"'Go!' she said, and her voice seemed to come from far distances. 'Go
from here--and quickly! Go while you may. It has called--' She pointed
to the islet. 'It knows you are here. It waits!' she wailed. 'It
beckons--the--the--"

"She fell at Edith's feet, and over the lagoon came again the
tinklings, now with a quicker note of jubilance--almost of triumph.

"We watched beside her throughout the night. The sounds from
Nan-Tauach continued until about an hour before moon-set. In the
morning Thora awoke, none the worse, apparently. She had had bad
dreams, she said. She could not remember what they were--except that
they had warned her of danger. She was oddly sullen, and throughout
the morning her gaze returned again and again half-fascinatedly,
half-wonderingly to the neighbouring isle.

"That afternoon the natives returned. And that night on Nan-Tauach
the silence was unbroken nor were there lights nor sign of life.

"You will understand, Goodwin, how the occurrences I have related
would excite the scientific curiosity. We rejected immediately, of
course, any explanation admitting the supernatural.

"Our--symptoms let me call them--could all v