k, and together we heaped fresh
brushwood upon the smouldering ashes until the flames leaped up again,
and then our visitors left us. But our narrow escape brought home to us
realisation of the extreme danger of sleeping in exposed situations; and
after breakfast on the following morning we set out to return to our
cave in the valley.

"How long we remained there on this occasion I cannot tell you, for we
soon lost count of time; but it must have been several months,
certainly. For some time we lived exclusively upon fruit; but later on
we contrived to secure a morsel of meat now and then. Upon one
occasion--I am afraid you will not believe me, but I assure you it is
true--we found a young deer tangled up in the biggest and toughest
spider's web you ever saw; and of course we killed and ate the little
creature. That spider's web suggested to us the idea of setting traps,
which we made of monkey-rope, and in which we sometimes caught small
game of one sort or another.

"We should probably have been living in that cave to this day but for
another bad scare--and in that case we should never have known that you
and Billy had survived the wreck, and should have made no attempt to
join you; so perhaps it is just as well for all of us that we had that
scare."

I was by no means certain that I fully agreed with Svorenssen's view of
this matter; but I said nothing, and the man continued his story.

"There was something very curious and uncanny about that scare, though
just exactly what was the nature of it I cannot tell you, for we never
found the explanation of the mystery. It was a long time before we
observed anything in the least degree strange connected with our
surroundings. At first, not only when Pete was with us, but later, when
Dirk and I returned alone, we slept soundly all night and every night,
but eventually there arrived a time when--when-- Now, how am I to say it
so that you will understand me?"

"Ve had disturbin' dreams," prompted Van Ryn.

"Yes," agreed Svorenssen, "that was it; we had disturbing dreams--at
least sometimes we thought they were dreams, while at other times we
were convinced that they were real. A curious circumstance in
connection with it was that the experiences began for both of us on the
same night. It was our practice to build a big fire in front of the
cave every night, to prevent the entrance of wild beasts while we slept,
and on the night about which I am now going to spea