ght be on this island were law-breakers,
and he really had no right to bring Ruth here. Tom Cameron would not have
done it.

Copley was serious, however, in his intention of finding out if possible
who was on the island; and when they had passed up the rough path to the
round table-stone, Ruth had got over her little shivery feeling and was
as eager as Chess himself.

They passed carefully through the fringe of brush and reached the open
space where the blasted beech tree stood. The faint starlight illumined
the space, so that Chess did not need to use the torch in his left hand.
There was no tent set up here nor any other mark of human habitation.

Ruth knew that there was scarcely any other place on the island where a
camp could be established. Had the people they had seen landing from the
speedy launch gone away for good and taken their camp equipment with
them?

Suddenly Copley seized her wrist. His touch was cold and betrayed the
fact that he was nervous himself.

"Listen!" he whispered, his lips close to Ruth's ear.

Helen would have immediately been "in a fidget," and said so. But Ruth
could restrain herself pretty well. She nodded so that Copley saw she
heard him and was listening. They waited several moments.

"There!" breathed the young fellow again.

"What is it?" Ruth ventured.

"Somebody talking. Listen!"

There was a human voice near by. It sounded close to them, and yet its
direction Ruth could not decide upon. There was a hollow, reverberating
quality to the sounds that baffled determination as to their origin. But
it was a human voice without doubt.

Ruth could not, however, understand a word that was spoken. The tones
were first high, then low, never guttural, and possessed a certain
sibilant quality. Whether the words spoken were English or not, was
likewise a mystery.

Ruth and Chessleigh stood first in one place, then in another, in that
circle about the big beech tree. The young man had gone all around the
tattered trunk and found no opening. If it was hollow, there was no way
of getting into it near the ground, nor was there any ladder by which one
might scale the huge trunk to the top.

"That's no hide-away," mouthed Chess, his lips close at Ruth's ear again.
"And it seems to me the sound doesn't come from overhead."

"More as though it came up from the ground," returned Ruth, in the same
low voice. "Do you suppose we are standing on the roof of a cavern, Chess
Copley?"

"It m